Member-only story
On the COVID crisis
As we crawl toward 2021, the headlines remain all about COVID. Today, the U.S. set records for both new cases and deaths with three times as many people dying now than three months ago. Emmanuel Macron tested positive, so did Cedric Richmond, one of Biden’s closest advisors. Meanwhile, an F.D.A. panel endorsed Moderna’s vaccine meaning that millions more Americans will, hopefully, be inoculated in 2021.
My guest today on the daily Keen On show was the physician Nicholas Christakis, the director of Yale’s Human Nature Lab and the author of the Apollo’s Arrow: The Profound and Enduring Impact of Coronavirus On the Way We Live.
Given that the subtitle of Nicholas Christakis’ book is about the COVID’s “profound” consequences, I wonder if he glosses over its political implications. Yes, he’s probably right that the pandemic might, at least in the short-term, re-establish the credibility of scientists like Anthony Fauci. But I suspect that Christakis’ natural optimism — displayed in recent books like Blueprint and Connected — blinds him to the potentially catastrophic long-term consequences of COVID-19.
.A few months ago, the Stanford historian, Walter Scheidel appeared on the show to talk about his new book, The Great Leveler. Scheidel argued that the deep levels of economic inequality that exist in America…
