The Shifting Nature of the Coronavirus

I don't know how it was in China. In Wuhan, were all the businesses doing the same thing? Were they building little heaters and like, and pappatted plants so you could have outdoor dining? Or was this a capitalistic thing? I think the government shut them the fuck down. I mean, they were bolting people inside their houses. With like the evidence tape across the door and shit. Yeah, it's not good. I mean, the way they handled it is scary. I don't think we should handle it the way they handled it, but even that didn't necessarily work. I mean, didn't they have another surge? Like one of the things they were pointing to like Japan, they were pointing to Japan as being a virus success story. They just social distancing, they wore their masks, went back to work and everybody's fine. Not true. They have a huge surge there right now. The problem is this virus is weird. Yeah. And I don't think there's a real way that you can contain it. Los Angeles contained it in terms of like the strictness of their lockdowns, but more than anybody, right? They were stricter than anybody. They have the most cases now. They're fucked. I know you were saying that and it seems like it affects everybody differently. Yeah. You ask a doctor a question, you know, they don't know the answer. Yeah. Isn't our human brain trying to find patterns so we can go, okay, that's what this sickness is, but this thing seems to be all over the place. Yeah, it doesn't have good patterns and it affects people very differently in terms of like what it does to them. Some people, it's like a sinus infection. Some people, it really knocks them for a loop. Yeah. Some people don't recover and they die. I mean, it doesn't make, it doesn't, there's no pattern that makes sense. Yeah. Like the flu, we understand the flu is dangerous, kills people, really does, but we also understand what to do. Get a flu shot, you know, boost your immune system. Here's, here's some medication you can take with this. Well, like this is so new and so scary that no one knows what to do. I tried to find comfort in reading about this, the pandemic of 1918 because that, the Spanish flu, because that was supposedly two years and I was like, okay, well, how did we get through that? Did the economy recover? You know, I was trying to like use history as a way to predict the future, but when you read about it, at least the Wikipedia page of the pandemic of 1918, we never really fixed it or it, it like possibly is still around that virus. And it was, I thought, well, maybe a vaccine fixed it. No, it didn't. I don't know what the fuck happened to the Spanish flu. Was it herd immunity? I don't know. I don't probably, but you know, it's estimated that that's killed like 50 million people. Yeah. So I hope a hundred years later, we're better at this stuff. Never really ended after affecting millions worldwide. The 1918 flu strain shifted and then stuck around. Oh, great. Well, there's a new version. That's December 11th. The software update. There's a new version of COVID that's in, that's hit London now. Yeah. 70% more transmittable. Yeah. Fuck. Fun times. What we know, what we don't about the UK coronavirus variant and they think there might have been a similar variant or the same variant in Brazil a few months ago. Crazy. Not good. So do we live in fear? Do we? Yes. Yes. Yeah. We just hit our pants and hide. Yeah. Or you fucking take care of your immune system and you allow people to open up businesses. Here's the thing. These people that are making these decisions for us like the mayor of LA and the governor of California, right? Which is the worst examples. They are not experts in the right thing to do or the wrong thing to do because what they've done has worked terribly. It's been the worst response. And I don't think you can do something and not have a consideration for the consequences, the negative consequences of what you're doing. Like telling people they can't work and shut down their businesses. When the economy collapses because all these things are shut down and yet you still don't have a significant decrease in the cases. Like what you're showing is you have this one idea, you're sticking with it and you're not, there's no indication that you have any respect for the negative consequences. Not only that you don't have a plan, like how are you going to bring everybody back up? How are you going to bring back these restaurants? What are you going to do about these comedy clubs that are dead? What are you going to do about these bars that are going under? What are you going to do about these mom and pop shops that are never going to be around anymore? I don't know how it is in your life, but in my life, numerous friends of mine in what appeared to be healthy, strong relationships are fucking toast. Yeah. Like pandemic has divorced a lot of people. Yeah. Domestic violence is up. Suicide's up. Suicide's are up. So there is a different consequence to all this. Now, I also find it entertaining that we elect these officials and then now they have to be in charge of a health crisis. I would much rather we elect them off of popularity or whatever it is. And then when a health crisis strikes, we have a health minister who kind of comes in and just like drops the heat on us and what's supposed to happen. The problem with these health ministers is in a situation like this, they don't even take into account the economic consequences. Right. And that the economic consequences are also going to bring with them suicide, drug addiction, domestic violence, child abuse. All those things are going to happen and they don't take into account that. They take into account the health consequences. And here's the other thing. These governors and these mayors that shut everything down still get paid. That's a real problem. They are not incentivized to keep businesses open. If their pay was in direct, like if they were like the CEO of a company where the more money the company makes, the more money they make, they would be incentivized to make sure these businesses stay open and these people can keep paying taxes. These fucks keep getting paid no matter what happens. But they have a term limit. They do. But yeah. But so what? Yeah. By the time Newsom gets out, he will have destroyed that state. Right. And also destroyed people's faith in government because people are so frustrated with him and then you see him at that French laundry place sitting around a mask list right next to people indoors. Oh, it was outdoor dining. Bitch, there's a chandelier above your fucking head. Correct. Not stars. There's not stars above your head. There's walls. Yeah. Yeah. That's indoors. I don't want to hear you bullshit. Yeah. You are a hypocrite and this is nonsense. You should not be getting paid. Yeah. If you let your economy collapse due to these decisions that are not based on science, like particularly outdoor dining, that's not based on science. There's no data. They can't show we have overwhelming data that 50% of the transmissions are due to people leaving outside. That's not the case. So we are fortunate in LA that you have very good weather. So keep the fucking restaurants open that can open outside. Help them. Accommodate them. Give them some sort of a bridge to let them get through this so that on the other side after the vaccines and after herd immunity or whatever happens, these people will still have businesses. Catch new episodes of the Joe Rogan Experience for free only on Spotify. Watch back catalog JRE videos on Spotify, including clips easily, seamlessly switch between video and audio experience. 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