Original subtitles

Hi there. Welcome to the show. We're back.

Still, unfortunately, in this blank void. I had hoped that we'd be out by

now, but instead, I'm still stuck in the blankest expanse on television, aside

from the eyes of Romaine from selling Sunset.

There's just nothing there.

We've been off since November, and clearly, a lot has happened since then.

The vaccine rollout began, Wall Street was thrown into a frenzy over GameStop,

and for a week, everyone got really into sea shanties. It's been a weird time.

But we have to start tonight with the impeachment trial that took place this

week. Democrats put on a compelling forensic case about Trump's clear role

as instigator of the January 6th riots. And in response, his attorneys mounted

an offense that could be charitably characterized as incoherent, with

lowlights ranging from one attorney reminiscing about his childhood record

collection to another subjecting the Senate to an 11-minute video of

Democrats simply using the word fight.

It might have seemed that they weren't trying very hard, but that might be

because they didn't really have to.

Ted Cruz even met with Trump's lawyers while the case was still going on and

told them this.

I said, look, you got to remember, you've already won.

There are not 67 votes to convict. There are 55 votes to convict,

plus minus two.

And the thing is, he was right.

And what a truly inspiring glimpse that is into the world's most deliberative

body. I said to them, you gotta remember, the outcome's predetermined,

nothing means anything, and this entire process is a complete charade. Now,

hands in everyone, dead eyes, empty hearts, Ted Cruz.

And the fact the Republicans were going to acquit the former president no matter

what is a pretty depressing sign of just how deep Trumpism runs in their party.

But not just at the national level. In many ways, at the state level, it's even

worse. More than a dozen state legislators actually participated in the

Stop the Steal rally preceding the riots, and one of them even made it

inside. Derek Evans, a newly elected West Virginia state legislator and

chipmunk frat pledge, was eventually arrested, and...

And while he maintained that he was only in the Capitol as an independent member

of the media to film history, the history he filmed told a very different

story. Trump!

Trump! Whoo!

We're in!

We're in! Derek Evans is in the Capitol!

Now, everything about that is awful.

from the fact that a state lawmaker participated in a deadly insurrection,

to the fact that he was stupid enough to broadcast himself doing it, to him

excitedly talking about himself in the third person like some kind of alt-right

Elmo.

And while Evans has since resigned, he's just the tip of the iceberg when it

comes to extreme behavior in state Republican parties.

Oregon's state GOP put out a statement claiming the riots were a false flag

operation designed to discredit President Trump. And Michigan's top

elected Republican was caught on tape spewing dangerous conspiracies like

this. Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirky, in his own words, talking about

the deadly January 6th Capitol riots, saying it was prearranged and that it

wasn't Trump's people. That's been a hoax from day one. That was all

prearranged. That was all, you know, arranged by somebody that was funding

it. What the fuck are you talking about, Shirky?

To the extent January 6th was prearranged by anyone, it was clearly by

Trump, as he repeatedly tweeted things like, which,

to be fair, was one of those occasions where he turned out to be completely

right. And I know that man. Looks like he answered the question, what if Steve

Martin was awful?

But the fact is, he's the majority leader of the Michigan Senate.

He has real power.

Then, there's Arizona.

where their Republican Party censured three people, including their governor

and Cindy McCain, for not sufficiently supporting Trump, and in early December,

did this.

Using the Stop the Steal slogan, a Trump supporter writes, I am willing to give

my life for this fight.

The state Republican Party responds, he is, are you? Then the official party

doubles down, tweeting overnight a clip from Rambo, and the quote, this is what

we do, who we are, live for nothing or die for something. Okay.

Aside from being completely terrifying, that quote is from the 2008 Rambo movie.

At that point, the worst Rambo movie until they made another one. I'm just

saying, if you absolutely have to quote Stallone, there are so many better

options. They could have gone with, to survive a war, you gotta become war.

From Rambo First Blood Part II, or this childish game will soon be over and then

the real game will begin. From Spy Kids 3D Game Over. Or even this actual

Stallone tweet, everyone should try painting.

Get stroking.

I mean, sure, it doesn't make much sense, but at least it's not likely to

lead to people getting killed.

And it's not just party officials there. Republican senators in Arizona have

tried, among other things, to hold the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors in

contempt for refusing to turn over voting machines and ballots for

inspection, and one lawmaker introduced this particularly extreme bill.

Under House Bill 2720, the legislature could revoke the Secretary of State's

certification of the election and appoint members to the electoral college

that it wants. Had this been the law in November, the GOP-led legislature could

have given the state's 11 electoral college votes to former President Donald

Trump. This morning, Secretary of State Katie Hobbs appeared on Good Morning

Arizona to say this.

Why not just do away with elections altogether and just have the legislature

pick all of our elected officials?

That was sarcasm. Yeah, this legislation is ludicrous.

Okay, I do take your point there, but having to explain something you just

said was sarcastic is never ideal.

It kind of robs the sarcasm of its bite. Next time, why not just use a sarcasm

alert horn? That way, the horn does all the work for you. Although, I don't know

why I'm telling you this. You're clearly so good at sarcasm.

See? It works.

But that bill actually points to a much larger issue here. Republican

legislatures across the country have responded to what's been called the most

secure election in U.S. history by pushing new laws to make voting

significantly more difficult. In Arizona, they've put forward 19 bills to

restrict voting rights. And nationwide, 33 states are considering over 165

restrictive bills just this year.

Now, luckily, there is currently legislation in Congress, HR1, and the

John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, that could help curb state-level

attempts at voter suppression.

Unfortunately, the best shot those bills have at getting enacted is if Democrats

end the filibuster. And to do that, every Senate Democrat would need to be

on board. The problem there is, one of those Democrats is Joe Manchin.

We're not going to bust a filibuster.

We're not going to bust a Byrd rule that basically protects the filibuster. I'm

not going to break the Byrd rule.

I'm not killing the filibuster.

I'm protecting the Senate in honor of Robert C. Byrd, who's the seat I sat in.

So you're talking about a person that's going to defend the legacy of Robert C.

Byrd. Okay.

It's bad enough that you're defending the filibuster, let alone doing it to

defend the legacy of Robert C. Byrd, a man who literally used it to try and

block the original Voting Rights Act in 1964.

He used the thing you're advocating for in the worst possible way. It'd be like

promoting Zoom by reminding everyone that Jeffrey Toobin used it. You're

really not helping your case there.

And it's not just Manchin. Democrats like Kyrsten Sinema and Dianne Feinstein

have also defended the filibuster, and both Biden and Harris have been lukewarm

on the issue in the past, which is very frustrating.

Because Democrats simply cannot afford to rest on their laurels right now.

Republicans definitely aren't. They've made it abundantly clear they're willing

to take things to drastic levels, and Democrats just don't seem remotely

prepared to meet that threat right now. But you know what? You know what? Don't

worry. I'm sure the GOP will simply put the past behind them, recognize what

they've done wrong, and shepherd all of us into a bipartisan era of mutual

cooperation for the common good.

That was sarcasm. And now, this.

And now, newscasters offer tips for how to say, I love you, in the worst

imaginable way.

I see all different types of opportunities to celebrate this

Valentine's Day. Like, let's go over here and take a look at this bouquet of

beef sticks.

Fried chicken bouquets. They include six chicken tenders, mini carnations, herbs,

baby's breath, and buttermilk lime dressing.

A bouquet made of Chick-fil-A nuggets and waffles. This is a chicken wing and

chicken finger.

bouquet how about a corn dog bouquet a bouquet of salami why not a sausage

bouquet these are bacon bouquets bouquet of ribs jerky beef bouquets this is my

beef bouquet jerky bouquet guys i'm gonna tell you right now that looks so

delicious right there the first ever maine lobster tail bouquet this is a

terrible idea this is a terrible idea josh said please do not ship this do not

put this in the mail not gonna be good at all you know we're gonna spend your

valentine's day in on the toilet

Moving on. Our main story tonight concerns pandemics. You know, the thing

every little virus could one day grow into.

Wait, even me?

Yeah, maybe even you, mystery virus.

Wow, that's great.

Thanks for helping me believe in myself, John.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to the Mall of America.

Okay,

have fun.

I'm probably going to regret that.

And I know you might be thinking right now, John, shut the fuck up. No one

wants to hear any more about the coronavirus.

And I do get that, which is why we're not actually going to talk about the

current pandemic tonight.

We're going to talk about the next one instead, which I know sounds even less

appealing, but look, we are the show we are. If you want to see a British person

do something hot or interesting... Go watch Bridgerton.

Lot of jizzing and blankets on that show.

However much you expect, there's significantly more.

But now might also be the most important time to talk about this, because

scientists attempted to warn us about the next pandemic long before the

current one hit, and we didn't really listen. In fact, 17 years ago, just

after the SARS epidemic was contained, a leading scientist was on 60 Minutes

sounding a chilling warning.

What worries me the most is that we're gonna miss the next emerging disease,

that we're gonna suddenly... You can only find a SARS virus that moves from

one part of the planet to another, wiping out people as it moves along.

Something more lethal than SARS is what worries you. That's something to be

keeping you awake at night.

Uh, yeah, it is, because that is a hauntingly spot-on prediction there. I

kind of wanted him to continue.

Uh, just spitballing here, what if that guy from The Apprentice becomes

president? Or some lonely goon at Harvard invents a website that destroys

the fabric of society as we know it? That's something to keep you awake at

night, too.

Look, I know this current coronavirus might feel like a once-in-a-lifetime

nightmare, but it's actually part of a global trend.

Because the total number of infectious disease outbreaks has increased

significantly since 1980.

We've seen outbreaks like SARS in 2003, H1N1 in 2009, a series of Ebola

outbreaks, most notably in 2014, MERS in 2015, Zika that same year, and of

course, the current virus that we're all enduring, which is the main reason why

I'm currently speaking to you completely alone from what looks like the Pillsbury

Doughboy's ass crack.

And the truth is, if we're not very careful, the next pandemic could well be

even worse.

There are viruses currently circulating in wildlife.

They essentially kill 60 to 70% of the people they infect.

The virus that causes COVID-19 might just be a dress rehearsal for the big

one later.

This is not, by any stretch of the imagination, the worst Mother Nature has

to offer us.

Well, that doesn't sound great. And look, I know this isn't the most

important thing there, but what is it with disease experts and predicting

upcoming pandemics while on boats?

That's a terrible use of a boat. They're supposed to be chill.

Read the boat rules. One, the captain's always right. Two, only fish on days

that end in Y. And three, no grim tidings of the viral apocalypse. Did you

hear that? That's a boat foul, Dr. Bummer.

Boat foul!

Indeed.

And while you would hope that the last year would have been a wake-up call to

everyone, those who study pandemics are skeptical that we've learned nearly

enough. I think the... what I've seen in history of looking at these pathogens

over time is that we usually go right back to business as usual. As soon as

the thing ends, as soon as we have a drug, as soon as we have a vaccine, as

soon as we can kind of ghettoize these diseases into marginalized populations,

um, we don't really do the fundamental social change that we could do.

Exactly. Unfortunately, there is every chance that after all this is over,

we'll end up treating the coronavirus like a really bad fart at Thanksgiving.

That is, waiting patiently for it to dissipate so we can never speak of it

again, and collectively pretend that it didn't just kill Grandma.

So, given all of that, tonight, let's talk about the next pandemic.

Specifically, where new infectious diseases come from, why they're on the

rise, and what we can do to limit them. And let's start with how we got into our

current situation.

The COVID-19 pandemic is caused by a novel coronavirus called SARS-CoV-2,

which originated in animals before jumping to humans. And that is by no

means unusual.

It's estimated that up to 75% of new or emerging infectious diseases come from

animals. They're called zoonotic diseases.

or zoonoses, not to be confused with zoonose, which, for the record, is a

very hurtful thing to call a teenager who's already got enough to deal with.

And COVID is by no means the only zoonotic disease out there. There are an

estimated 1.7 million currently undiscovered viruses in mammals and

birds, of which between six and 800,000 could have the ability to infect humans.

And lots of animal species are hosts for zoonotic disease.

Birds and pigs can harbor influenza, chimpanzees with a bridge of HIV to

humans, and turtles can carry salmonella, which is something that we

all remember from one of the darkest episodes of the Ninja Turtles cartoon.

That's right.

One of their turtle powers seemed to be inadvertently killing April O'Neil.

Now, one of the biggest vectors for transmitting viruses is famously bats.

They've been linked to Ebola, the deadly Nipah virus, and COVID-19. In fact, here

is that eerily prescient expert that you saw earlier warning of the dangers of a

popular bat-based tourist attraction back in 2016.

The bats here in this cave are the same bats that carry SARS virus.

When they're up there, they urinate and defecate right on top of the tourists

that are walking through. And all you've got to do is be that one person to...

breathe in at the wrong time, and suddenly you've been infected with a

virus that is not only potentially lethal to people, it could cause a

future pandemic.

That's horrible.

And not just the disease parts, just the very concept of this walk-in bat toilet

being a tourist destination.

That might be the worst tourist attraction since Disneyland put Johnny

Depp animatronics in the Pirates of the Caribbean ride. Come on, Disney. There's

kids here.

They're here to watch some jolly nautical rapists and thieves, not a

weird sad millionaire doing a B-plus Keith Richards.

Now, there are reasons that bats are such good hosts for disease.

They can fly, so they can cover large distances.

They've developed...

There are specialized immune systems that don't overreact to infections,

which keeps them from falling ill, and they are insanely plentiful.

Nearly a quarter of the world's mammal species are bats.

And if you're thinking, well, that's great, then there's an easy fix here.

Let's simply kill all bats.

That's actually not a great idea for multiple reasons.

Not only are they crucial elements of our ecosystem, they're also way cuter

than they're often given credit for. Just look at this fuzzy little goober

eating a banana.

Scarfing down a watermelon.

And just look at this little guy trying to absolutely house a single grape.

Look at him go.

Who's struggling with a grape? You are.

You're struggling with a grape, you little goth mouse.

Also, it is important to remember that the fact that we may have caught COVID

from bats isn't so much their fault as it is ours.

Because outbreaks of bat viruses don't tend to come from them seeking us out.

They usually happen when a human takes a bat somewhere it'd never go on its own

or intrudes on its home. And that actually brings us to the first big

thing we're doing that may well bring about the next pandemic. And that is

erasing the buffer between civilization and wildlife.

Scientists have repeated... warned us about the dangers of deforestation,

urbanisation, mining and generally supplanting natural habitats, which has

been far more extensive than you might think.

Many people imagine there's this untouched wilderness because they see it

on their TV screens. But the reality is there's really not a lot of wild left

out there. We've already lost nearly 90% of the wetlands around the world.

We've transformed the forests.

Our grasslands, we've converted 75% of the land that is not covered by ice.

Three quarters of the terrestrial surface has been changed. A lot of it

just to feed one species.

It's true.

we've changed three quarters of the Earth's land areas. And while some of

that was necessary, we have also changed a lot to build dumb, pointless shit that

no one really wants or needs, like paintball courses, or novelty T-shirt

shops, or Salt Lake City.

And that vanishing boundary has brought increased risk. Over 30% of new and

emerging diseases are linked to deforestation and land use change.

Take the Amazon.

Studies have documented that clearing patches of forest appears to create the

ideal habitat

for the type of mosquito that's the most common transmitter of malaria there. Or

take West Africa.

The first victim of 2014's Ebola outbreak was a young boy who'd been seen

playing near a tree infested with bats before he got sick. He lived in a small

village where much of the surrounding forest had been destroyed by foreign

mining and timber operations, and evidence suggests that that is what

brought the bats into his village.

And before you think that this is just an overseas problem, it is worth

remembering that one of the clearest examples of habitat destruction fueling

an emerging disease happened right here in the United States, where Lyme disease

was first identified in Connecticut in the 1980s and was driven by

suburbanization. What we found is that the probability that a tick is going to

acquire an infection when it feeds on a white-footed mouse...

is about 90 percent as we fragment the landscape we chop up continuous forest

into little bits we lose species they disappear one of the last creatures is

the white-footed mouse so as we reduce diversity we're losing the species that

protect us and favoring the ones that make us sick right We fragmented the

landscape, and that drove out predators, leaving creatures like white-footed

mice, who are the main culprits when it comes to Lyme disease transmission.

And you know what that means?

Fuck white-footed mice.

They can go fuck themselves.

Unlike, of course, rats, who can and should go fuck each other.

But it's not just us moving closer to animals, it's that more and more, we are

bringing wild animals into contact with us through the wildlife trade.

Now, sometimes that takes the form of exotic pets, whether it's when Paris

Hilton got a kinkajou named Baby Love, or this random British man's extremely

ill-advised roommate.

An ordinary street in Kent and a suburban semi with a normal

conservatory, but it's licensed for something far from normal.

Is a crocodile a suitable pet to have in a suburban house like this?

He's certainly mellow. He's not the same animal he would be because he's

adjusted, shall we say, to human life.

Having something that nobody else has got is an interesting thing.

I mean, sure.

I guess that's true, but even if you insist on owning a wild animal, which

you really shouldn't, why a crocodile?

They're not remotely cuddly. You're basically flooding your broom closet to

make room for a carnivorous surfboard.

The only acceptable human use for any crocodile or alligator is as the star of

the internet's single greatest music video.

Excellent. That is excellent. That song is catchier than SARS in a good way.

The point here is exotic pet ownership has caused real problems. In 2003, 47

people across six states caught monkeypox, which had never infected

humans outside of Africa after having contact with infected prairie dogs

purchased as pets.

And in 2006, Paris Hilton had to go to the hospital after her kinkajou bit her.

And it's hard to say which was worse there, a U.S. monkeypox outbreak or Baby

Love's shocking betrayal.

Et tu, kinkajou?

But perhaps the most famous way wild animals can spread disease to humans is

when they're sold for consumption.

And the phrase you're probably already thinking of right now is wet markets.

Like the one in Wuhan, which may well have been the breakout site of COVID-19.

And you should know here, the term wet market is used incredibly broadly and

often incorrectly.

Many wet markets are essentially just places where fresh meat, seafood, and

produce are sold, not unlike a farmer's market. And they can be key sources of

fresh, affordable food around the world. especially in developing areas where

there isn't, you know, a Trader Joe's three blocks away.

However, some of those markets do sell wildlife, like bats and snakes. And

conditions in some of those wildlife markets can be ideal for disease

transmission. So, here in cages right next to each other, we've got, uh, adult

raccoons next to capybara, which is from South America. It's from North America.

Cages right next to each other. This is the biggest rodent in the world.

And on top of here, I think, marmosets on

top of the capybara. What we just saw here is like a biological warfare lab.

Any one animal can transmit a pathogen to another.

Somebody buys it, handles it, takes it home as a pet or eats it.

Boom. We have another pandemic.

Right. When wild animals from different parts of the world are held in close

proximity with weakened immune systems due to stress, pathogens can easily jump

from one species to another... and potentially to humans, which should, at

the very least, make you seriously rethink your island in Animal Crossing.

You honestly still think it's a good idea to live in close proximity with a

raccoon, an owl, a gorilla, a tiger, a sheep, a koala, an octopus, a hamster, a

penguin, a rhino, and a chicken named Goose, all of whom traveled there from

different parts of the world?

That's not an island paradise.

It's a diseased Chernobyl waiting to happen.

Shut that shit down!

And listen, I know it doesn't sound great whenever someone, particularly

with this accent, starts tut-tutting about how people in other countries feed

themselves and make a living.

And for what it's worth, before we go tell everyone else what to do, we might

want to acknowledge that our track record on mixing animals isn't great

either. One expert that we spoke to said a major concern of theirs is state

fairs, which does kind of make sense.

State and agricultural fairs have been linked to multiple disease outbreaks,

with one in 2012 that infected over 300 people, mostly children, across ten

states. That probably explains why fairgoers have been repeatedly warned,

no kissing pigs.

And look, it's easy to think, come on, I'd never kiss a pig. But are you really

sure about that? What about this one?

Now you're not so sure, are you? What about this one right here? Now you're

even more confused. How about this pig?

Exactly. I thought so. Well, I've got great news.

This hot little pork chop's been watching you across the bar all night.

It's down for some stuff.

And America is actually ground zero for another dangerous practice here, factory

farming. It's something that started here, but has since skyrocketed around

the world to the point that factory farms now supply more than 90% of meat

globally and 99% of meats domestically. In factory farms, livestock are bred and

confined in ways that can enable viruses to spread among them much more easily.

If you have several thousand hogs packed in together, and they're all genetically

largely the same, then it selects for the most virulent pathogens that are

possible. And so in the course of industrializing livestock production, we

are also industrializing the pathogens that circulate among them.

Exactly. I know it's hard to believe, but the cold mechanized factories that

cram animals together before stamping their flesh into plastic meat molds and

injecting the outcome into supermarket freezer sections across the nation might

be doing something bad.

And when you put all of this together, it does begin to seem like we're

actively trying to start pandemics. Which brings us to the obvious question,

how do we stop doing that?

Well, the most effective way would be to close down all wildlife markets, ban

factory farming, stop eating meat altogether, halt deforestation, shut

down all state fairs, and definitely take away Paris Hilton's kinkajou. But

obviously, none of those are going to happen. For one thing, we know that

kinkajou bites.

But also, draconian measures are just not going to work here.

For instance, if you abolish wildlife markets, that could cause food scarcity

and would likely just lead to an explosion in black market trade of wild

animals. The reason we know that is, that's reportedly exactly what happened

when China attempted just such a ban in 2003 in response to SARS.

Which is not to say that we shouldn't try to reduce...

harmful practices because we clearly should.

Many experts argue for what's called a one health perspective, where we

recognize that the health of humans, animals, and our environment are all

interconnected and take that into account when making decisions on

everything from environmental regulations to urban planning. And there

are gonna need to be lots of smaller solutions here too, which will look

different everywhere because, crucially, everywhere is different.

Take Thailand.

They've had some real success in preventing outbreaks there by providing

farmers with a... a phone app to flag any problems that they see.

That's very clever.

Because with that app, farmers there now have a way to spot a possibly sick bird

that could inform broader public policy, which isn't just effective disease

prevention. It was also, interestingly, the working title of this show.

Now, that scheme has been a success, partly because it preserves people's

livelihoods and aligns farmers' interests with those of their larger

community. And there will be thousands of small ideas like that that could end

up making a real difference. And look, there is no denying... All of this is

going to cost money, and unfortunately, some scientists doubt our appetite for

long-term spending on this.

Just listen to this researcher in Brazil make that exact point while taking

samples from bats.

It's extremely difficult to get funding for our kind of research.

Now, during the pandemic, it has been a little easier.

But as soon as the virus crisis is over, our financial worries will return.

I'm not very optimistic.

That's not great, is it? Because I'm not very optimistic isn't really what you

want to hear from someone scraping germs out of a bat.

That's a woman who literally knows her shit, so we need to spend however much

is necessary to change her answer there.

And I'm not saying that this will be cheap. One estimate for the cost of

global prevention runs between 22 and 31 billion dollars a year, but...

Bear in mind, even if it was double that, the cost of COVID-19 in the U.S.

alone is estimated to be over 16 trillion.

So to put it mildly, it's fucking worth it.

And I know right now, that might seem obvious. The problem is...

As we come out the other side of this pandemic, there is a real danger that

we're gonna start to get complacent. So for the good of future generations, and

in all likelihood, us in a few years' time, we really need to remember the way

we feel right now and invest accordingly.

Because the truth is, you never know where the next pandemic is going to come

from. Hey, y'all, remember me? I'm back!

And I'm gonna do what the coronavirus couldn't. I'm gonna kill Tom Hanks!

Please don't do that, virus.

Rita Wilson, too.

They're gonna call me Oliver's Plague. I really don't want you to be called that.

Oh, I think it's got a ring to it. I absolutely don't. The point is, we have

got to remember this feeling. It's our only hope. That's our show. Thank you so

much for watching. We'll see you next week. Good night.

John, when I first break out, do you think a bunch of celebrities will make a

video of themselves singing Imagine?

I mean... Probably, to be honest.

Hey, I've got a surprise for you.

What is your surprise? I can spread through Zoom!

How can you spread through Zoom?

Nature is full of miracles. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to Disney

World and I'm going to give everyone bloody diarrhea!

I hate you.