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All Podcasts A Year of COVID and Predictions for the Year Ahead (Part 1)

A Year of COVID and Predictions for the Year Ahead (Part 1)

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Description

New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy joins Dr. Bob in the first of our three-part series marking one year of the pandemic. They remember where we were a year ago, assess where we are now, and look ahead to where we’ll be a year from now. Be sure to check out the next two episodes in this series with Ashish Jha, Dean of the Brown University School of Public Health, and Apoorva Mandavilli, science and global health reporter for The New York Times.

 

Follow Dr. Bob on Twitter @Bob_Wachter and check out In the Bubble’s new Twitter account @inthebubblepod.

 

Governor Phil Murphy is on Twitter and Instagram @GovMurphy.

 

Keep up with Andy in D.C. on Twitter @ASlavitt and Instagram @andyslavitt.

 

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To follow along with a transcript and/or take notes for friends and family, go to www.lemonadamedia.com/show/in-the-bubble shortly after the air date.

 

Stay up to date with us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at @LemonadaMedia. For additional resources, information, and a transcript of the episode, visit lemonadamedia.com.

Transcript

SPEAKERS

Gov. Phil Murphy, Dr. Bob Wachter

Gov. Phil Murphy  00:00

Listen, this is a reality, we have not been able to find reliable private sector sources for ventilators. It’s just a fact. But yeah, we’re out there bidding up the prices competing with each other. And I’m grateful for A, what we’ve gotten out of the Federal stockpile, but also the states that feel like they’re over the hump, or may not have to face the crisis that we in New York have faced, where you’ve got governors contributing back into the stockpile, grateful for all of that. But we’re in a world of scarce resources. And again, there’s nothing like, particularly in a crisis, and in this case a healthcare crisis. There’s nothing like the 800-pound gorilla role that the federal government can play and must play.

Dr. Bob Wachter 

Welcome to IN THE BUBBLE. I’m Dr. Bob Wachter. That was New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy on April 4th, 2020. On the third episode of IN THE BUBBLE, if you put yourself back in that headspace from a year ago, it’s almost hard to do. But I remember feeling scared, confused, somewhat frantic about the possible tsunami that was gonna wash over all of us, we were beginning to see some of the politics start playing out at a national level being told over and over again, that this was no big deal that the virus would magically disappear. And yet, our eyes and ears were telling us something very different, which was leading to even more confusion and consternation.

Dr. Bob Wachter

And I remember listening to this show, and I remember listening to that show and how much I appreciate it IN THE BUBBLE, because none of us knew anything about this virus on January 1st, 2020. So we were all learning about it together. And we were learning about viruses. We were learning about immunology, and we were learning about politics and policy, and how all those things would interrelate. So I remember it being a wonderful interview, but it was clear that there was just a ton of stuff going on. It was very scary. And everybody was scrambling, you were scrambling, and I was scrambling in our own lives to figure out how to live our lives and what we should and shouldn’t do.

Dr. Bob Wachter  02:15

But political leaders like governor Murphy were also having to scramble trying to figure out how to protect the people in their states. And same thing for mayors and political leaders across the spectrum. Personally, I started tweeting in mid-March about the pandemic, for really the same reason, I was scared that I was going to die that family members were going to die. And I also felt like I needed to do something useful. And a lot of us have felt that and we’ve that has played out in many different ways for all of us. But for me, I felt like if I could put something out there that would help people understand what was going on a little bit that would be helpful and feel good.

Dr. Bob Wachter

Well, we find ourselves in a very different place. We’re now a year into it, I think we’ll all mark the anniversary in somewhat different ways. But certainly it was early to mid-March that most of us came to understand how big a deal this was going to be, and how our lives were going to be changed and that many, many people were going to die. And their lives and the lives of their family and other loved ones were going to be changed irrevocably that that really happened right about now, a year ago. Now we find ourselves in a very different place, the vaccines are rolling out, we’re getting good information from our government. Today, on the day, I’m taping this, the CDC came out with guidance on what we can and can’t do, once we’ve been vaccinated.

Dr. Bob Wachter 

We heard from President Biden last week that everybody in the United States will have an opportunity to be vaccinated by the end of May, we’re rolling out 2 million shots a day, I think we’re in a pretty good place, with the caveat, of course, being the variance. And also, some states are beginning to relax some of their restrictions, I believe, too soon. But I think all of us can see the light at the end of the tunnel, we’re moving to a place where we’ll either be normal, or as you’ll hear from some of our, the people we interviewed normal-ish. And we’ll have to figure out what exactly that means. But we’re certainly not going to be in the dire situation we found ourselves in the past year.

Dr. Bob Wachter  04:20

And because of that, we thought it was a good time to take a look back at where we all were a year ago. take a good hard look at our current situation and how things are going and what’s hopeful and what’s potentially still a little bit scary. And then take a look forward a year from now where will we, be because COVID will have changed us in ways that some of which are predictable, some of which are a little bit less so. In doing that, we thought we’d put together a single episode with three big picture thinkers who could help us understand the pandemic from three different perspectives. But once we spoke to these three people, we realized that there was so much richness in their discussion We decided to make it into a little bit of a series. So we’re going to do this with three different episodes.

Dr. Bob Wachter

The first is today, and it will be my chat with Governor Phil Murphy, the governor of New Jersey, a state that would go on, after he was on the show a year ago to be really hammered by COVID. You know, with many, many deaths, and you’ll hear from Governor Murphy about how he managed the state. And you can see that he’s obviously a political animal, but he’s also really an authentic human being who was impacted deeply by the toll that the COVID has taken on the state. You’ll hear about that today. Our next episode, which will be next Monday will be with my old friend Ashish Jha, who is Dean of the School of Public Health at Brown began the year as a professor at Harvard change jobs in the middle.

Dr. Bob Wachter

And Ashish has really become one of the most trusted opinion leaders, and interpreters of all of the information for all of us. He’s been on TV news, just constantly interpreting what’s going on and doing it, I think extraordinarily well. And our final episode, which will be a week from today, will be with Apoorva Mandavilli, who’s a healthcare and science correspondent, journalist for the New York Times, and has become one of the most trusted sources on the pandemic, I can think of a handful of journalists, Ed Yong, Helen Branswell, maybe a few others, who have really been go to people to interpret the science and help us understand what the key new findings are, that are going to influence the course of the pandemic Apoorva has been absolutely an essential read throughout the pandemic.

Dr. Bob Wachter  06:40

And interestingly, like she’s changed jobs early on in the pandemic, and you’ll hear about that as well. So, look forward to having these three episodes where we have a chance to reflect on where we’ve come from where we are, and then think about where we’re going to be in the next year. I do think we’re in a pretty good spot, and I think things are likely to get better. And I think you’ll hear versions of that from three very different perspectives from our three guests. So with that, let’s ring up the Governor of New Jersey, Phil Murphy.

Gov. Phil Murphy 

Hello, everybody.

Dr. Bob Wachter 

Good afternoon. How are you?

Gov. Phil Murphy 

Well, thank you, Dr. Bob. Everything all right?

Dr. Bob Wachter 

I’m doing okay.

Gov. Phil Murphy 

And what’s important, not for this moment, because I know we got to get going. But at some point I want to share we want to trade some Andy Slavitt stories. We’ll do that some other times.

Dr. Bob Wachter 

Ah, That would be great. We can do that on tape. That sounds great.

Gov. Phil Murphy 

We do not have enough time.

Dr. Bob Wachter 

All right. And Springsteen stories, no time for that either?

Gov. Phil Murphy 

Or Bon Jovi, let’s go.

Dr. Bob Wachter

Let’s get cracking. Thank you so much for doing this. Really appreciate it.

Gov. Phil Murphy 

Pleasure, Bob.

Dr. Bob Wachter 

So we’re talking about kind of what life was like a year ago, what’s happening now? And then we’re asking people to take out the crystal ball for a year from now. What was going through your head when you first heard about the first case in New Jersey a year ago?

Gov. Phil Murphy  08:08

Yeah, so this is a personal one for me. First of all, we started I think we had a press conference in late January, because Newark Liberty Airport was deemed as one of the funneling airports. So we did a press conference with the Port Authority. We established a pan government commission on February 2nd, which I remember was Super Bowl Sunday, by the way, our first case, which is why I say it was personal was on March 4th. And I remember well, because I had about two weeks, where they had uncovered a malignant tumor on my kidney, and that was surgery day.

Gov. Phil Murphy 

So I go to the recovery room, I get wheeled back in my hospital room. The first text I get is New Jersey has case number one. So I wasn’t surprised. It was sort of it was inevitable. And we are now by the way over 800,000 cases later and given how limited our testing abilities were in the spring as a nation, I’m sure the actual amount of folks who are infected are probably double or triple that but that’s those. That’s the sort of early start memories for me.

Dr. Bob Wachter 

Wow, hope you’re doing okay.

Gov. Phil Murphy 

Yeah, I am. Knock on wood.

Dr. Bob Wachter 

Good. Glad to hear it. Take us through the early days. I just read listened to your interview with Andy from April 4th. And I heard what you were thinking at the time, but now with the retrospect the scope. What do you think were the biggest challenges that you were navigating in those first months, that first month or so?

Gov. Phil Murphy 

Yeah, I mean, I sure as heck wish we had known what we learned, ultimately earlier. And that’s something I’d love to talk about. Because the one you know, we did find a lot of common ground with the Trump administration in our hour of need. And I’ll get to that in a second. But when this Woodward book came out, it sounds like they knew a lot more earlier than they were letting on. I share a sec. I’m gonna use that knowledge. But listen, we were in the throes of that interview with Andy, I think was just at the cost just before holy weeks of the it was Easter Passover was upon us.

Gov. Phil Murphy  10:11

And that’s about when it peaked. It was, you know, our worst days in terms of hospitalizations. We’re right around April 12th to 15th. So we were scrambling for knowledge, PPE, ventilators, bed capacity, testing capacity. So it was all hands with FEMA, with the White House, scouring the globe, ourselves with corporate partners with philanthropists, just getting clobbered. So, you know, March, April, and May we’re just, you know, heavyweight fights every single day.

Dr. Bob Wachter 

Yeah. I mean, one of the things that impressed me as I listened back to your interview with Andy, on April 4th, was you were struggling with not only dealing with the crisis in real time, but with how to mourn people, and the kind of balancing the human dimensions of what was going on with the very practical logistical dimensions of, you know, how do we respond and save lives? As you think back on that moment now, to reflect on that tension at the time?

Gov. Phil Murphy 

Yeah, it remains, Bob. And one thing I would say, we’re talking about this, I don’t ever want this to be the case, as long as we’re still in the pandemic. But I find myself talking about March, April, and May, as though it was some tiny package with a bow around it, we’re still in the fight, it got a lot better. And then it got worse again, and it’s now getting better again. But early on, it struck me personally. And it struck my colleagues that we were saying constantly make decisions based on science data and the facts, and we still are completely adherence to that approach. But and here’s the but, we were losing people by the 10s, if not hundreds, every single day.

Gov. Phil Murphy  12:13

And these were precious lives, lived, loved, lost, families left behind. So we started, I forget the date. But we started memorializing and every one of our press conferences, typically three people who had passed. And our objective was, yes, science and data, but let us never let this become abstract. And by the way to this day, we do this, I spoke to three more families yesterday, and we will memorialize them, or their loved ones I should say in our press conference on Monday.

Dr. Bob Wachter 

Yeah, it’s so impressive. And it’s so easy to get lost in the numbers, and it becomes an abstraction. And I think you’ve been a real leader in that. So thank you for that. Did you have any sense in March 2020? How bad things were going to get?

Gov. Phil Murphy 

I’d say I know it was going to be bad. But if you said to me, then and I’ll measure it in this number, that you’re going to have lost 23 over 23,000 confirmed or probable on a walk losses of life in New Jersey with the numbers still climbing. No, I did not. I would not have predicted that. I know there was a part of us, and I’ll include myself with something is so unknown, I suppose in the back of my mind. I may have had some had some moments, you know, end of world not that this has to be catastrophic, because it’s be catastrophic. But even multiples of that. But I have to say on balance. I don’t think that I would have thought at that point that it was this, the toll would have been as high as it has been.

Dr. Bob Wachter

And of the three folks we’re talking to for this episode. You’re the political observer. So did you have a sense of the way the politics would play out? It was three years into the Trump administration obviously, it was a very partisan time. Did you think it might get as partisan as it got?

Gov. Phil Murphy  14:12

I have to say I didn’t. But especially early on. So I’d say April, March, April, May, June. We were regularly in touch, When I say regularly, multiple times a day with the White House and their teams, including the President himself. And there was a spirit of finding common ground. As I mentioned many times, I will forever be grateful for that finding the ventilators when we were literally running out, FEMA with testing or the beds, the PPE discussions, etc. Having said that, the lack of a national strategy, the lack of a consistent these are the 10 commandments.

Gov. Phil Murphy

These are the three or five things that we all must do. We’re still paying a price for that as we sit here today. But would I have guessed? You know that I’d be reading Paul Krugman. Today, March 5th, 2021, which I just did a short while ago, talking about the irresponsibility of removing mask mandates, with no basis in science or fact. Frankly, no economic rationale, I have to say, purely political, it still takes my breath away that that’s the world that we have evolved into, should I have predicted it? Could I have, probably given how divisive the administration of the Trump administration was, but it still takes my breath away.

Dr. Bob Wachter 

So let’s talk about now and maybe we’ll start with that, you know, governors are in an extraordinarily tough position, I’m sure, massive pressure to open things up and to declare victory and spike the ball and you know, in the end zone, but it strikes me that some of these folks are spiking the ball, but they’re still on the 10-yard line. How are you balancing the tension between folks saying, you know, let’s get back to normal as fast as we can. And your concerns about where we are with the virus?

Gov. Phil Murphy  16:24

Yeah, I mean, it’s, it is attention, there’s no question about it. I think the first thing you have to do, and this is what we’ve done from day one, and I know folks will hear this and say, Come on, but it’s true. Check the politics of the door, the chips fall where they may, this has been for me, Winston Churchill in 1940, and ’41, the splendid and the vile captures this so well, that book that came out last year, giving people the cold-blooded facts, even if they don’t want to hear them, but at the same time giving incredible path forward of hope. And that’s, frankly, still where we are today. What I don’t want to do is either get off of making decisions based on science and data. But I also don’t want to do this. And I’m proud of, you know, I’m not going to pat myself on the back very often.

Gov. Phil Murphy

But this is one area that I think we’ve gotten right. And that is I don’t want to lurch. So not only do I not want to make decisions based on, you know, political factors or some overwhelming other factor. But I also don’t want to take two steps forward and one step back next month. So yes, would be going to open up again. So we’re, we opened up indoor dining, from zero to 25% on September 4. And we kept that way until recently, we went up to 35%. I don’t believe there’s a state in America that kept it at that level for that long.

Gov. Phil Murphy 

Again, we were the last to open, but we wanted to make sure when we got there would stay there. So yeah, it’s attention. And by the way, the case that is made by a restaurant, or a gym, or some indoor entertainment of some sort, is an incredibly compelling case, these people’s livelihoods have been ruined. So it is not as though they don’t have a good case. The challenge you find yourself in is balancing that case against saving as many lives as you can. And it may be it was worse, March, April, May, June, but that tension remains in the here and now.

Dr. Bob Wachter  18:39

Yeah, it’s interesting, cuz you say check your politics of the door, I guess I would have thought that it would be good politically to be good on COVID. And that actually COVID provided an opportunity to show leadership and to make some hard choices. Have you felt like you’ve paid a political cost in really trying to follow the science and get the balance right?

Gov. Phil Murphy

I don’t know. Actually. It’s a good question. I think people for the most part in our state, I just came from two testing locations, one of which was the first among the first shots of the arm of the Johnson and Johnson vaccine, which is a potential game changer, particularly in hard-to-reach underserved communities. And then another one in a different county that was in Hudson, […] was in Passaic County. It just anecdotally, I think people feel like we are doing right by that, that we are largely calling balls and strikes. As we see it. And as I mentioned, the Churchill piece, tell them the truth, even if they don’t want to hear it, even if it’s uncomfortable.

Gov. Phil Murphy 

I do believe that I will forever believe this. President Trump, I believe could have seized this awful tragedy and done right by it as a leadership matter. And I think he missed that opportunity, but other words. We do these press conferences all the time. We’ve got health experts. We’ve got law enforcement, we’ve got epidemiologists, we lay the facts out, we try to give people a sense of how we’re thinking about things. We mourn the losses of life, as I mentioned earlier. I don’t know whether or not you know, I can’t translate what goes on a state versus the federal level. But I feel like that moment was there for him. And he let it pass. And I think that’s one that I think folks should rightfully be scratching their heads on. For a long time.

Dr. Bob Wachter  20:37

You know, I’ve always had the sense that he’d still be president, had he done well by this and the opportunity was there. But what do I do? I was a poli-sci major in college. So you know, I could probably compete with you for policy knowledge.

Gov. Phil Murphy

I have a feeling you may be right about that. All kidding aside, I mean, I just feel like the nation. You know, Paul Simon, the nation turns its lonely eyes to you. There was that moment. And folks wanted to hear, by the way, there was also the moment not just forget about his political fortunes, there was a moment to say, you know what, masks are not political. I wear them, you should wear them, you’ll save your family members lives, socially, distancing yourself, observing capacity restraints, washing your hands with soap and water, getting tested. There’s nothing political about that. That would have been hugely valuable, and it would have saved countless lives.

Dr. Bob Wachter

Yeah, absolutely. How’s it feel now that you’re dealing with the Biden administration? Well, I

Gov. Phil Murphy

Well, I will tell you, and I’m not just saying this for politics, this is a matter of fact. And again, I acknowledge that the common ground we’ve we found with the Trump team in our hour of need, it’s a completely different ballgame. There is that consistent message. Communications have been good in both administrations, I have to admit, the team, the president of Biden is put on the field. This is something I’m not sure folks have as good a sense of as they should. Putting aside their talents, which are enormous. It is a much deeper team. The Trump team had some serious talent, including Tony Fauci and Debbie Birx and others, but it was very thin. The Biden team is deep.

Gov. Phil Murphy  22:22

They have also operationalized the private sector in a way that should have been operationalized. A year ago. And so, you know, I don’t know whether or not they were the matchmakers. But with Johnson and Johnson CEO this morning, mentioning that Merck has come into a partnership with them to help them produce even more vaccines, that sort of stuff, is a clear difference. And I think the empathy, and there’s no one in America, who can stand in that space in those shoes, like Joe Biden, who has lived through so many tragedies and challenges, America wants to hear not only that, you’ve got a plan, that you’re making decisions based on the facts. But I think again, they want their leadership to feel like they’ve got a heart that they care about this, not just in the aggregate, but at the very human level.

Gov. Phil Murphy

And I think for all those reasons. I mean, all kidding aside, Andy, who was Andy Slavitt, who has been a hugely important advisor to us over the past year is in that group right now, in that administration. As one example, I feel like they’re doing a great job, they inherited a difficult hand, production supply is the big x factor right now. They’re moving the needle in the right direction. It feels like it’s gonna go up in a quantum fashion in April, which we need, and we’ll be ready for it.

Dr. Bob Wachter 

Great. Let’s stop with the Andy stuff because it goes to his head. If we say too many nice things about him. He listens. […] I noticed you were ambassador to Germany before this job. How’s Germany done? And are there any lessons from that, that you’ve seen that are useful for us?

Gov. Phil Murphy  24:10

Yeah, I still have a lot of friends there, including the Chancellor. I haven’t spoken to her about it. We speak and we’re in with the German, our friends and officials a lot. I think I get them from afar here because we clearly haven’t been able to travel. But from afar, it feels like they did an incredible job in the first six to nine months. And they’ve hit some choppy waters of late I’d say the EU feels like it’s hit choppy waters of late as it relates to vaccine, both production and distribution. So I think it’s a little choppier there and I read a German press summary every morning, and they’re chomping at the bit to open up the question you asked me Bob about potential of opening a whatnot, that’s going on around the world.

Gov. Phil Murphy 

It’s not just New Jersey, it’s not just America, I read it in the German case, you know, and they’ve got 16 states, so they don’t have 50. But they’ve got 16 states. And you’ll see one minister president wants to do x and other ones to do y. So I think it’s got a little harder for them. But she’s still one of the great leaders in the Western world in this moment in history, and she’s done over the past what is now 16 years, an extraordinary job leading the Federal Republic of Germany.

Dr. Bob Wachter 

Let’s switch gears to the future. So, you know, everybody’s asking when will it be normal? And what will normal look like? What do you think about that?

Gov. Phil Murphy 

Well, I think if the feds predictions on vaccine supply come to pass, and so far, the Biden team has been right on the money in that respect, will be a little soft, or a little incremental, maybe for the balance of March or at least the next two or three weeks, then I think it goes up in a quantum way. We have a distribution system that we have built out ahead of the supply. I think by Memorial Day, which is what I’ve been saying, we’re going to be in a wholly different place. One footnote here how these variants play out we have UK, New York, Brazil and New Jersey, we know they’re more transmissible, not clear if they’re more fatal. Sounds like the vaccines, all three work well against them, at least in protecting against hospitalization, and fatality of saying this to a medical doctor, so you should correct me, but the jury is out.

Dr. Bob Wachter  26:47

So far, so good, you’re doing great.

Gov. Phil Murphy 

The science having said all that is fairly new and incomplete on these subjects, that I think we’re in a dramatically different place capacities opened up. Do I see us? I’m in Newark, looking at the Prudential Center, which is one of the great indoor venues in America. Do I see 20,000 of us on top of each other in June? At a Bruce or Bon Jovi concert? I do not. I still think we’ll be having a fair amount of the same stuff in our lives masking social distancing. But you know, will restaurants be much more wide-open gyms, indoor entertainment? Will the Jersey Shore be poppin? I think the answer is yes to all the above.

Dr. Bob Wachter 

spoke to one of the leading epidemiologists in Israel the other day, and Israel, of course, is giving us a picture of what fuller vaccination looks like they’re a month or so ahead of us. In some ways, the most interesting thing they’ve done is they’ve begun to use immunity passports. And this is a government decree that you will need to demonstrate immunity getting into the sports stadium, getting into the shopping center. What do you think about that? And is that politically doable in the United States?

Gov. Phil Murphy 

You know, I read the same I haven’t I actually we’ve made a lot of connections in Israel as well. And I haven’t spoken about that per se. But I’ve read the press on it. Listen, I’d be I haven’t been asked this. I want to say I’m answer this for the first time I’d be open minded about it. The only thing that I’ll give you an example of something where I just would my here’s my caution. Some other states began to open up indoor sporting venues, and I’ll pick it sporting as an example. And they said you had to present a negative test within the past 72 hours.

Gov. Phil Murphy  28:39

And we rejected that, our health team rejected that under the theory that A, that gives you a false sense of security. And B, why don’t you do that with restaurants, or gyms, and use that as a means. So that’s where we ended up in New Jersey, I have less opposition to the immunity passport, because by definition, you would have been vaccinated to full course whether that’s the two dose versions or the now J&J version, I have to say, with the variants still out there. I’m not sure I’m there yet. It’s something I’d be open minded to Bob. I guess more importantly, how do you feel about it?

Dr. Bob Wachter 

Yeah, well, I think it’s gonna be the most interesting and contentious question that we hit in May. I think it’s a non-issue until vaccine is available to everyone. Maybe until the FDA fully approves the vaccines, not just emergency use, but when we get to a point that everybody could have gotten a vaccination. And people for whatever reason have chosen not to think it’s a legit question to ask, you know, if people would be much more comfortable in a certain venue if they knew everybody was vaccinated, and if it created some incentive for people who were on the fence to get vaccinated. I think there’s a lot to commend it. But, you know, if we think masks were contentious, just wait for that one.

Gov. Phil Murphy 

You make a compelling case. Again, I’m open minded to what I have to say. But I, again, I’d love to have more science and your point is a very good one, let’s have two or three more months of vaccinations. And then you’re at the point where you’re at a tipping point, and then you can credibly have that argument.

Dr. Bob Wachter  30:17

Couple more questions I know you’ve got to go Well, how about the schools? First of all, how do you think you’ve done obviously, what’s about the most contentious issue of all? And what do you think the schools are gonna be like, in September?

Gov. Phil Murphy 

I can say unequivocally schools are going to be open in September, absent some catastrophe that I’m not anticipating. And when I say open, I don’t mean, you know, you go Monday and Wednesday, I go Tuesday and Thursday, but I mean, open in the full sets. And that’s our objective. Listen, I think we’ve gotten through this as best we can. We have, we are the ultimate home rules state for the folks out there who don’t know jersey, among other things I want to make sure I impart upon you today is that we’re the Home Rule state poster child. So we have literally over 800 districts, charter schools, Renaissance schools, schools for the developmentally disabled that the state oversees.

Gov. Phil Murphy 

Right now, Bob, about two thirds to 70% of our students are in some form of in person education. Hybrid, middle is where most of them are. In other words you’re into and hybrid for remote for two, etc. Or full on, that number has been going up, it will continue to go up. We’re beginning to vaccinate educators, literally I’m going to be at a kickoff tomorrow. I’ve never thought the vaccination was the bright line. It’s another big positive contributing factor. But it’s in addition to protocols, ventilation, social distancing, face coverings, etc. There’s no question we’ve had a learning loss. So we put a ton of money into the budget I just presented as well as a ton of our federal money directly against learning loss and mental health issues of which we know we’ve got, in many, many cases.

Gov. Phil Murphy  32:09

Our educators, our moms and dads, our kids, I think, have done an extraordinary job in a stressful, one of the most stressful school year of all time. And equity continues to be a concern, frankly, because some of the biggest districts of our state are still remote. And there’s no question you are we already had an equity issue in terms of education. And by the way, New Jersey is the number one, two years running public education state in America, but the dispersion of the experience was too wide to begin with. It’s gotten wider.

Dr. Bob Wachter 

That’s great. I hope we get there. And I assume we will. Last question. One of the things that struck me as I was listening to interviews, including the one you did with Andy, you seem like a student of leadership. Obviously, Churchill, Wilson, others. What are the leadership lessons you’ve taken from this year? And as you sit down a year or two from now and write your leadership book? What are the things that you’ve taken from this that you think are important lessons for other leaders?

Gov. Phil Murphy 

Yeah, I’m not sure I’m gonna be in the book business for quite some time. But in the theoretical sense. You know, I’ve found in other crises that I’ve dealt with, and I’ve never dealt with a crisis where you lost over 23,000 people. So I don’t want to, I don’t want people to think that I’m acquainting this, but I was the US ambassador in Germany with Wikileaks first hit in the ground zero for that was in Berlin. And it was then it was before then and other crises I’ve had, and it’s certainly been this one, get out ahead of it. Because if you don’t, you’re going to be dragged by it. So this is already a virus that dictates the science to us. Don’t let other elements be dictated to you, get out ahead of it.

Gov. Phil Murphy 

Secondly, be straight with people even when it sucks, even when they don’t want to hear what you’re saying. So we got clobbered in our nursing homes, we hired an independent firm to look us in the eye and assess our deficiencies. We put the probable deaths out as early as any American state. In other words, people who died in the spring in particular, who left us without a proper autopsy or without ever having had a COVID test, giving that hope, Bob, that I mentioned earlier that Churchill notion of being brutally honest, but also saying listen, if you do X, Y and Z, at least stay together.

Gov. Phil Murphy  34:41

There is a road out of this. And again, that Churchill period, when the Germans had conquered the continent, the Americans were not yet in, the Brits were getting bombed morning, noon and night. That’s that period. Those are some of the ones that occurred to me. And you know, we’re not perfect. This is you know; we say this a lot, we’re building the plane as we fly it. And we’re doing the level best we can when we got up every single day to save as many lives as we can.

Dr. Bob Wachter 

Well, Governor, thank you, thank you for taking the time to talk to us. Thank you for your leadership and your authenticity, which is I find extraordinarily impressive, and we’ll get through this, but it has been a brutal year. And thanks for thinking back and looking forward with us. Really appreciate it.

Gov. Phil Murphy 

Thanks for having me, Bob, really appreciate it.

Dr. Bob Wachter

Special thanks to Governor Phil Murphy, for that really fascinating discussion about COVID as seen through the lens of a governor and as a governor of a state that has really been affected by this. I was really struck by the challenging decisions. He’s had to make the how he had to navigate the Trump administration’s approach last year, but also by his humanity and his passion. I think it’s very impressive and seems very real. So I thought it was a terrific discussion. We’ve got two more on this theme. The theme being a year out what have we learned, what do we all think a year ago? What’s going on now? And where are we going to be coming at it from two different perspectives. One will be Ashish Jha, who I think most of you know by now, Ashish is the Dean of the Brown School of Public Health, and really one of the most thoughtful observers and commentators on COVID.

Dr. Bob Wachter  36:32

And the third is Apoorva Mandavillii, who has become an essential read. She’s the science correspondent, journalist for the New York Times, really interesting set of set of interviews, I hope you’ll tune in for all of them. After that, we’ll do another Tool Kit on the vaccines. And now that there are three of them out, there’s a whole lot of vaccine questions that are coming up, including, you know, should you take the J&J if the, that 72% number seems to wake a lot of people out, although I think people have heard the reassuring data that they’ll all prevent you from getting super sick, will talk that through about the choice of which vaccines about the vaccine rollout, about what we’re learning about the vaccines as we get more experienced with them.

Dr. Bob Wachter

And you know, we’re now two months away from a time where the President has said, I think quite realistically that we’ll all have an opportunity to be vaccinated by the end of May. So vaccines will enter all of our lives. And on this Tool Kit, we’ll really spend some time taking a deep dive into the vaccines and what we know and what you should be thinking as you take the vaccines including whether we all have another shot ahead of us in the future. Should be interesting episode. So lots of great stuff coming up on IN THE BUBBLE, look forward to talking to our great interviewees and look forward to talking to you as well. Until then, please do stay safe.

CREDITS

We’re a production of Lemonada Media. Kryssy Pease and Alex McOwen produced our show. Our mix is by Ivan Kuraev. Jessica Cordova Kramer and Stephanie Wittels Wachs executive produced the show. Our theme was composed by Dan Molad and Oliver Hill and additional music by Ivan Kuraev. You can find out more about our show on social media at @InTheBubblePod. Until next time, stay safe and stay sane. Thanks so much for listening.

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