BUCK: We are still in the early stages of what could be another surge here in covid cases this winter. It’s not really clear what the trajectory is going to be yet. And let me just say, Clay and I are both very hopeful that this is an incredibly mild winter when it comes to covid cases and hospitalizations and deaths, obviously.

It would be great if we were mostly out of the woods, so to speak. Are we? Well, depends on where you are, and it’s still very early. Right now Vermont, for example, has the highest caseload the last 24 hours that it has ever had, which is interesting. It’s obviously a state with a pretty small population and has a very high vaccination rate among all states, and yet it currently… Think about this.

It has had more cases in the last 24 hours than before there were any vaccines, when the virus was just spreading freely during the surges. More cases in Vermont last 24 hours, that seems very strange. We’ve talked about some of the reasons, some of the possibilities of it. Meanwhile, here in New York City, de Blasio is declaring that New York City is one of the best places you can possibly be from the perspective of covid.

DE BLASIO: New York City is now the safest place to be in the United States of America, because you went out and got vaccinated, because more people are getting vaccinated every day, because the mandates are working, and because now we can finally reach our 5-to 11-year-olds. This is really great news for the kids in New York City, for the families in New York City.

BUCK: Clay, let’s just put aside for a second the kids vaccination push, which I think is reckless and crazy for them to be telling people that they should really… You know, if you want to get it for your kid, that’s your choice as a parent. But they’re gonna start making this mandatory for schools. It’s just a matter of time. But how is it, then…?

If the high level of vaccination is the reason for the current low case rate in New York, why isn’t that the reason that we would expect a very low case rate in Vermont, which we don’t have? I feel like we’re gonna playing this de Blasio clip in 60 days when New York is going through a surge and they’re gonna act like they weren’t telling us this is because we masked up and got the shot.

CLAY: Well, also it’s not true. Now, the state of New York is almost quadruple the rate of the state of Florida right now. I’m looking at the most recent New York Times state-by-state analysis of covid infection rates. New York… They do a per capita, per a hundred thousand people. New York is at 24 out of 100,000. Florida’s at seven.

So maybe New York City is wildly low compared to the rest of New York State. But the state of New York is moving up on quadruple the day per capita of the state of Florida, and California is over twice per capita what the state of Florida is as well. And to your point on Vermont, I think we really have to focus on this because it’s what’s going on in a significant way all over Europe right now.

Europe is seeing a massive surge basically everywhere, in particular, for instance, Germany, which I believe just set an all-time high for covid infections. Germany was held up for a long time as one of the states that was doing the most incredible job of anyone in terms of how they were responding to covid. But this goes to the ultimate fallacy that is being sold to us still by everyone out there in the larger universe of the media.

Which is, “If everybody were vaccinated, covid would go away.” It’s still what the Biden administration is selling, and you can look at Vermont, which is over 90% vaccinated and see that that’s 100% a lie and in no way actually true. Look, 92% of adults — 91.2% of everyone 12 and over — is at least partially vaccinated. Yet Vermont has a 16,700% rise in cases in the past four months.

BUCK: Something’s going on, something that they won’t really seem to address and try to be honest with us about why this rise is occurring. They’ll say, “Oh, it’s Delta,” or they’ll try to blame the unvaccinated. But as you point out, okay. So 8% of Vermont is unvaccinated and somehow there’s more spread among that 8% right now than there was among the entire population pre-vaccination?

Sorry. Not possible. Right? The numbers don’t add up for that. But there’s other areas, too, where people are starting to say, “Hold on a second. What exactly are we trying to accomplish here in schools that still have mask requirements for kids?” People are saying, “Wait. So now we’re gonna get vaccinated children? We already have vaccinated adults if they want to be in the schools.”

A lot of schools require it too. But you’re gonna make kids keep masking after getting vaccinated for virus that they are at almost no risk from and are very unlikely to spread on top of that, and you’re get them vaccinated and you’re gonna still mask them? Here’s the little fascist at the CDC, the chief, Walensky saying, “Maybe at some point we’ll let you take the masks off. We’ll tell you when.”

WALENSKY: We have over 95% of our schools open for full in-person learning. We still have about 85% of our counties that are in high or substantial community transmission. And so while I’m encouraged the numbers are coming down, I would say as our children are starting to get vaccinated just a week into this program, to continue to scale up our vaccinations for these children and to not yet get complacent with our mitigation and prevention strategies that are keeping our children in school.

REPORTER: So that means kids should continue to wear masks even if they’re vaccinated?

WALENSKY: And I would say masks are for now, but they are not forever.

BUCK: Not forever. When they decide, Clay. When they deign to tell you your child no longer has to choke on their own cloth covering all day.

CLAY: And this is where I just keep asking, Buck, how do we land the plane? That’s become the biggest question to me. How do we land the plane?

BUCK: They want the plane to touch down for a second to refuel so they can get the plane back up in the next year and the year after that and the year after that.

CLAY: The fact is that they aren’t giving us any tangible metric to say, “Hey, if the rate of infection in the United States goes down to this number, then we will eliminate masks forever.” None of it is being pointed to as any kind of way to actually resolve this issue going forward at all. I don’t understand it. And you’re right that it’s a power grab that never ends. But the fact that media aren’t asking, “Hey, give me some tangible metrics that would allow this to end” is a fundamental failure of our media as well to hold people in positions of power accountable.

BUCK: Yeah. There is no vaccine against irrational fear, friends. We’re gonna keep running into that over and over again. There is no vaccine against irrational fear. There’s no therapeutic, either, other than stop being a coward. Stop masking up kids. That would be step one.