Reality Bites the Kiwis: Covid Zero Not Possible

CLAY: We begin with what I think is becoming a significant win potentially, Buck Sexton, for Team Reality. Now, I understand how the spin will be pushed out there that New Zealand abandoning their lockdown policies is actually a victory, and they followed the science and they did everything right.

Yes, I understand. They’re a small island nation in the grand scheme of things, and they have a totally different ability to restrict people entering and exiting their country. But the fact that the prime minister down there — I believe Jacinda Ardern is her name — has had to now acknowledge that due to the Delta variant, the lockdowns basically don’t work. And that New Zealand is going to have to open up, and that they can’t stay locked down forever. I think this is a big win for Team Reality. And I hope that it’s going to lead to more moving in our direction. Let’s listen to that announcement that was made yesterday by New Zealand.

ARDERN: With this outbreak and with Delta, the return to zero is incredibly difficult. And our restrictions alone are not enough to achieve it quickly. In fact, with this outbreak it’s clear that long periods of heavy restrictions has not got us to zero cases. But that is okay. Elimination was important because we didn’t have vaccines. Now we do. So we can begin to change the way we do things. We have more options. And it’s good cause for us to feel optimistic about the future. But we cannot rush.

CLAY: Okay. So, Buck, I understand they’re trying to claim victory. “Hey, we did zero covid until we had vaccines, and now we have these magic-pill vaccines that” even though they have tons of breakthrough cases and people still get covid and you’re not going to be able to stop it, and it basically that means covid is gonna be endemic.

I do think this is a big win for Team Reality in this respect. There are so many people out there, Buck, who’ve been holding up New Zealand, the Blue Check Brigade. “Oh, my God. See? If we had just locked down harder, we could have been like New Zealand.” Suddenly having New Zealand and Australia in the last few days acknowledge that covid zero is no longer a reality and that lockdowns are not possible, I think makes it harder and harder to bring back the idea of lockdowns the United States. Fair or foul? Is that a crazy position for me to adopt?

BUCK: Well, first off they’re going to continually point to their low fatality rate from covid as justifying this, instead of saying, “Wow, this was madness. What were we doing? It was never going to work. It was always destined to fail.” This was the thinking. Everyone forgets this now because we’re told to forget it.

The thinking about how to deal with pandemic disease that was a lockdown only made sense. Why was it two weeks to slow the spread? It wasn’t to evade the virus. It was so that we could get hospitals up to a place where they could handle the surge. That was it.

CLAY: That was it.

BUCK: The reason was everyone knew if you truly locked down a society for a month, two months, okay. You’ll have very low cases. It is true that if human beings do not congregate or see each other, there won’t be much spread of the virus if at all. But it’s also true that the moment you go back to normal life, your plan essentially is a no-plan plan — and they’ve known this all along. New Zealand and Australia forget that they are islands with very sparse populations —

CLAY: And the healthy population on top of that.

BUCK: Yeah, and one part of this that does not get talked about very much. It’s not about blaming anybody for their life decision or anything else. It’s about health and medical reality. We have 10 times the obesity rate in America than, say, Japan does. Ten X.

CLAY: Yes.

BUCK: And that’s across all age demographics. So when you’re looking covid outcomes, obesity is — after age — really the chief driver because risk obesity comes hypertension and all these comorbidities, that also needed to be taken into account. But what should we take from the covid zero abandonment by New Zealand? I think it’s that they have to recognize at this point that you’re going to need shots and shots and shots, that there will be varieties. Remember, we’ve had a Delta variant that, “Oh, my gosh. Look what’s happened. That was in one year!”

CLAY: Yeah.

BUCK: Right? What’s to make us think there won’t be other variants that evade the vaccine? So they’ve looked at this and realize the-one-and-done shot reality that they were holding out for is a fantasy. It’s not gonna happen. And so now they have to face the world of covid which does have covid breakthroughs but the vaccination rate in Australia and New Zealand is actually not that high. Interestingly enough, they’ve spent so much time tackling mothers in the park for not wearing a mask that I think in Australia, for example, it might be in the forties.

CLAY: I think you’re right.

BUCK: So, they didn’t actually focus on something that would have been a more effective short-term mitigation.

CLAY: I’m glad you mentioned the variants, because one of the arguments that you will hear from Team Lockdown is everybody has to be vaccinated because otherwise, we’re gonna have variants. And the variant, obviously, Delta, does not have as much protection from covid vaccine. But do you know what percentage of people in Africa have been vaccinated Buck? You were just talking about what the rate is in Australia. Do you have any idea?

BUCK: I’m assuming it’s quite low. I don’t know. Twenty percent?

CLAY: Four.

BUCK: Four! Wow.

CLAY: Four percent of Africans have been vaccinated. The reason why I bring that up is. Where did the Delta variant come from? India, where very few people had been vaccinated. The odds… If you just look at the global population, the odds of a variant emerging in theory in a highly vaccinated and highly naturally infected country like the United States are very, very low.

The odds of a variant emerging in South Africa are very, very high in theory because only 4% of people have had the vaccine. Now it’s possible because Africans in general are much healthier and also much younger than Americans would be, for instance. It’s possible there’s tons of covid that has spread all through Africa and there’s massive amounts of natural immunity.

My point on this, though, is if you look at vaccination rates around the world, people who are focusing on the United States and arguing if we get vaccinated here, we’ll guarantee that there are no guarantees are actually missing the bigger picture. And that is why, Buck, so many medical professionals out there have opposed the idea of a booster the United States.

And they said the actual healthier thing from a global perspective is for all those shots to be shipped to countries where there’s almost no vaccination that’s taken place so that the percentage of people with vaccines in those countries can get much higher because — I think — if you look at the data, the odds are that the variants are going to emerge in countries with low vaccine rates which almost no one talks about.

BUCK: The variants are going to emerge effectively no matter what because these variants change so quickly. Think about it. We have a paradigm for this. We actually have something that we’ve been saying all along that’s very similar in a a lot of respects to its societal impact and the way the virus mutates and changes, and that would be the seasonal flu.

Now, we’re also told that this Delta variant specifically is much more contagious than even covid was, and covid is more contagious than the flu. But year in and year out, there are hundreds of thousands of people, perhaps, worldwide — certainly tens of thousands of people — who die from the seasonal flu every year.

There’s a vaccine that’s about 50% effective on average, I think, for the season, maybe 60%, some people would say. And so, if you’re at high risk you get it. But for the rest of society, it’s very clear the better move is maybe you want it. Have you ever gotten the flu shot just ’cause? I think I got it one year ’cause someone convinced me, and I was like, “Eh.” I didn’t get it the next year. I didn’t get it for every year.

CLAY: They used to. Ironically enough, Buck, when I did local radio they would come in to encourage people to get the flu shot and give us flu shots live on the radio.

BUCK: Right. So that’s the way that this needs to go. My concern, though, right now is that people have embraced what you really have to call covid culture now.

CLAY: Yeah.

BUCK: The mask wearing, the constant reminders. When I flew back from Alabama a few, a couple, whatever it was right now. It feels like a million years ago. Couple days ago. When I flew back and left America’s biggest party at Alabama versus Ole Miss — “Roll Tide!” — now I have to say “Hotty Toddy!” or people get mad to me, by the way.

I’m allowed to play both sides which makes me happy. No one gets mad at me for that. But when I came back, they do this thing every time I get on a plane; they hand you hand santiszer. Now, this is just now, this has become a covid culture issue. This has nothing to do… You are not getting covid because you didn’t use hand sanitizer. That’s not reality.

CLAY: — rejected the idea it was ascendant last year or whatever that you could get it from surfaces.

BUCK: All the time. People were… Clay, Dr. Fauci said he was wiping down his groceries with Lysol like a moron, and told all of us to do this, and he’s the scientist. He’s the doctor. But my point is this now is a vestige. This is a thing we continue to do. It’s almost like saying, “Gesundheit,” or something when someone sneezes.

We give out hand sanitizer. We have all these social distancing signs and plaques and on signs everywhere, even when no one’s social distancing. It’s really become a mass anxiety disorder and I think people now need these things around them in order to feel safe. The same way that people think that the TSA, as they’re screening the bags half asleep as they’re going through —

CLAY: Yes.

BUCK: — that’s really stopping the worst terrorists in the world from days ago how the how to attack you on a plane. People now think as long as there are enough social distancing signs and handing out little packets of hand sanitizer so we can all, by the way, on a plane breathe in the little lemony alcohol fumes. It smells almost as bad as those stupid trees that people hang from the rearview mirror.

CLAY: I think the trees are actually not awful. I’m pro-tree sometimes.

BUCK: Clay Travis, this is your worst take ever.

CLAY: (laughing)

BUCK: Those trees… The black ice smell makes me want to vomit. But, anyway… Is that what it’s called, black ice?

CLAY: They have all these different flavors. It’s a security blanket is what you’re hitting at.

BUCK: Yes.

CLAY: As somebody who has kids who is parenting, we went to WWE Raw last night, and my youngest kid still likes to carry around… He’s in first grade. He likes to carry around his security blanket. So he’s got it in the car. We’re gonna get back in the car late. It makes him more comfortable. And that’s basically what we’ve done for people who are adults and should know better with high anxiety, we’ve given them all security blankets.

BUCK: I think your analogy is very apt. I think Fauci is the ultimate security blank for a lot of people. As long as that little lab coat tyrant is on TV, people feel like, “Oh, the science is being watched over.”

CLAY: I think you’re right about that too.

BUCK: It’s madness.