Jeremy Howard interviewed about masks by Bob Sellers and Corrina Sullivan on American Agenda
00:00:00.000 | together. Well, a new study is showing the U.S. could drastically lower its number of
00:00:04.980 | coronavirus cases by simply wearing a mask. According to the data from UC Berkeley, if
00:00:11.180 | 80 percent of us wore a facial covering in public, our COVID-19 infection rate would
00:00:15.820 | drop to about one-twelfth the number of cases. So why is it that only 14 states require it?
00:00:23.060 | Joining us now is someone who's really striving to change that, co-founder of the Global Masks
00:00:27.620 | for All Movement, Jeremy Howard. Jeremy, thank you so much for being with us. Bring us up
00:00:32.560 | to speed on your efforts. Thanks so much for having me. So I'm one of
00:00:36.200 | the over 100 signatories to a letter that was released yesterday. It does talk about
00:00:40.280 | that research and other research. And the letter asks that all governors require masks
00:00:45.920 | in public. This is a really big step you mentioned earlier in the segment about the kind of relationship
00:00:50.640 | between Russia and the US. It's an important debate. But let me tell you what the scientists
00:00:56.760 | on this letter include. A Nobel Prize winning virologist, a Nobel Prize winning economist,
00:01:02.080 | the editor in chief of Nature, the world's top science journal, the editor in chief of
00:01:06.400 | the Lancet, the world's top medical journal. This is something which scientists consider
00:01:10.880 | so important that they are coming out publicly and saying the science says we have to do
00:01:14.600 | this if we're going to see these lockdowns and avoid a second wave, avoid the death count
00:01:20.680 | getting bigger and get the economy back up and running again.
00:01:23.880 | But Jeremy, can I ask where do you live? So I'm in San Francisco. Well, I'm currently
00:01:30.540 | with my family in Houston, Texas. OK. Do you see a difference between those two places
00:01:35.680 | as far as how people react to wearing the mask? Oh, yes, absolutely. So both of those
00:01:41.880 | states do not require masks. Only 14 states require masks. But my hometown of San Francisco
00:01:47.880 | does, as does Houston. So there's a kind of a difference in between cities, between states.
00:01:55.800 | What I've seen is there's a lot of kind of confusion, which is quite quite reasonable.
00:02:01.720 | Let me ask you, is it a confusion or is it culture? Because I've lived in California
00:02:06.920 | and I've lived in Texas. And I think in Texas you're going to have a hard time requiring
00:02:12.000 | the whole state to wear masks. It could be. I mean, we'll have to see. I think what we've
00:02:17.520 | seen happening, though, is when the death count goes up really high, like happened in
00:02:21.120 | New York, it wasn't until that people started saying, OK, we'll take this pill. So if winter
00:02:27.440 | comes and the death count shoots up in Texas, I think people might say, well, given a choice
00:02:32.400 | between my family dying and wearing a mask, maybe I should just wear the mask.
00:02:36.880 | Is that what it's going to take? Because we're you know, we in the United States are kind
00:02:41.040 | of hardheaded. You know, I just can't be. Yes, we can be. So I can understand how all the
00:02:50.600 | data you have is probably absolutely true. And yet Americans, they don't like being told
00:02:57.040 | what to do. I get it. I really do. But look, you know, surely it's better than being locked
00:03:02.000 | up inside. You know, don't we want to get back to work? Here's the thing. Sometimes
00:03:05.720 | we accept some little infringements. For example, I don't want to go out and sit on a restaurant
00:03:10.120 | seat where the previous customer was not wearing pants. So we do have laws in this country
00:03:14.960 | that say put on some pants before you go out. You have a great sense of humor, Jeremy. Wearing
00:03:19.960 | pants is much less, you know, not wearing pants is much less dangerous than not wearing
00:03:24.040 | a mask. If you don't wear a mask, you could kill the people around you. So please wear
00:03:27.840 | one. Sometimes, though, Jeremy, it takes almost a tragedy. It almost takes you being personally
00:03:32.960 | affected by it. Say, for example, my mother in law, unfortunately, I lost her to covid-19.
00:03:38.860 | So for me, you know, there are times when I take a mask, I try to be responsible. But
00:03:43.600 | I think that I would have a little bit more of a feeling like, oh, this is something that
00:03:47.480 | I should do for myself and for others. But you know what? That mask isn't really protecting
00:03:52.780 | you that much, just a little bit. The main thing it's doing is protecting the people
00:03:56.200 | around you. So, you know, I have people in my family who have serious health risks. In
00:04:01.360 | fact, 80 percent of Americans, I think, are considered to have comorbidities, reasons
00:04:05.200 | that they'll be more at risk. And the thing is, they're not safe unless all the people
00:04:09.200 | around them are wearing masks. So if we want the economy to really open up, getting rid
00:04:13.440 | of the lockdown won't be enough. We actually need people to feel safe. And that means people
00:04:17.480 | need to wear masks.
00:04:18.480 | Jeremy, thank you very much for joining us and having such an interesting conversation.