Sunday School 10/11/20 Extra Credit

For Extra Credit this week, I offer Margaret Brennan's conversation with Ronna McDaniel, the chair of the Republican National Committee, on Face the Nation. McDaniel's one of the whopping mess of Republicans with COVID-19, is recovering at home, and feeling better, she said.

Highlights from their discussion:

She's not seeing in the RNC numbers that there's been a drop in the president's numbers because of his not being on the campaign trail - in fact, she said, they've seen an increase in his numbers, and suggested that stems from voters being frustrated "by the corrupt debate commission" for canceling the 2nd debate. And when Brennan reminded her that there are Republicans on the Commission for Presidential Debates, she said they are not 'non-partisan Republicans. Those Republicans have been very critical of this president." And, comically, she accused them of not following the science! 

In response to Brennan's question about the economy being Trump's "most resonant message" but he's tied with Biden in Michigan on who'd handle the economy, and why the message seemed not to be working,  she continued talking about the debate, about the Supreme Court, blah blah blah, and finally said the president "is doing better on" the economy; that the PPP loans are "what saved this economy." 

There was a point where Brennan tried - really tried to get McDaniel to answer a simple question: is the president going to resume holding in-person fundraisers. Here's how that went:

RMcD: Margaret. You have a candidate for president right now-- doing an absolute personal power grab. No, Joe Biden is running on the biggest power grab in history, and you guys want to talk about fund-raising protocols? He is saying he's going to stack--

 MB: I want to ask what the President's doing in the next few days, because you are twenty-three days from an election.

RMcD: He's going to say he's going to stack the Supreme Court, get rid of the filibuster and he's being given a free pass. This should be all the media is focused on. I understand you don't like Donald Trump. I understand we don't like Republicans.

MB: Actually, he-- you said the President--

RMcD: We have a Democrat running on the biggest power grab, the absolute biggest power grab in the history of our country and reshaping the United States of America--

 MB: Okay, so--

RMcD: --and not answering the question. That's all we should be talking about.

MB: Okay, so I think you--

RMcD:  That's all we should be talking about.

MB: I think you answered the question of yes assuming-- resuming in-person fund-raisers for the President.

RMcD: No, we--

MB: But let me ask you about--

RMcD: Who cares?

MB:  --voting.

RMcD: Who cares if we have fund-raisers when you have a candidate running to upend--

MB: Because it's the President. I want to know what he's doing. Let's--

RMcD: But he's going to upend checks and balances in the third branch of government. Why are we not--

MB:  Well, he's going to hold rallies in the next few days.

RMcD:  --talking about this non-stop? No, this is Joe Biden who's going to upend checks and balances, get rid of the checks and balances that are fundamental to our Constitution and won't answer if he's going to stack the Supreme Court.

MB: Well, let's-- let's talk about--

RMcD: This is all the media should be focusing on.

That was fun, right?  It's pretty clear that McDaniel should not be booked on any of the shows, because she has no intention of answering questions. Brennan should have cut the interview off - they all should do that -respectfully, of course.

Another guest? Leonard Schleifer, the head of Regeneron, the company that made the experimental antibody cocktail the president took as part of his COVID-19 treatment. Brennan asked Schleifer whether his drug cures COVID and makes you immune (the president has said both of those things).

So the President's case is a case of one, and that's what we call a case report. And it is evidence of what's happening, but it's kind of the weakest evidence that you can get. Although, there are some very interesting aspects of his case, such as he was elderly, he had some risk factors, and that he did not have his own immune system in gear when he was sick and he got treated with our immune system in a vial, if you will. But the real evidence has to come about how good a drug is and what it will do on average has to come from these larger clinical trials, these randomized clinical trials, which are the gold standard. And those are ongoing. We've got some preliminary evidence that we've talked with the FDA, and we're going for an emergency use authorization because we think it's appropriate at this time. But, yes, the President's case is a case report, perhaps the most analyzed case report ever-- but it's just low down on the evidence scale that we really need.

He said the drug does create immunity, and that immunity is "probably going to last you for months." And, as to the president saying he wants the drug to be free for everyone, Schleifer said they had talked about that, earlier this year,

...before we actually had any data from randomized trials. They went ahead and said, listen, you start manufacturing the product, we will commit to buy it from you. Stop manufacturing the other products that you're working on or move them elsewhere. And let us make sure that if it does work, it'll be available. And what the government said--

That's a $450M contract for Regeneron, and Brennan wondered how much supply that will buy.

Well, they bought from us several hundred thousand, maybe around three hundred thousand doses, which they are going to make it for free. What I think that the administration has been working recently-- I saw an announcement with-- with AstraZeneca. Look, we need-- Regeneron can't do this alone. We need the entire industry. And I'm so proud the industry has risen. We have companies like Lilly, great companies. We're partners with Roche, one of the best companies in this whole field. Amgen is involved. AstraZeneca is involved. Black-Scholes is involved. We all have to step up-- if we're going to provide enough of this.

Brennan pointed out that, last Friday alone, we saw nearly 60,000 new cases, and in Regeneron's FDA application for emergency use authorization, the company said they had 50,000 doses - less than a current one-day supply - and she wondered how the drug is going to be distributed.

Schleifer said it's going to be the government, the FDA, ethical experts, and so on, trying to determine how to get it go the people "who most need it, who would most benefit from it." He mentioned the elderly, those at high risk - and said "we have to figure out how to ration this."

He also said that it's possible his company's drug could be used as a prophylactic, perhaps to household members of people infected with the virus, or maybe to folks with the critical underlying conditions - those with diabetes, asthma, maybe pregnant women - but that some of that is still awaiting evidence. 

He left it with a great analogy, that they're building the plane and flying it at the same time. If that's not a great way of looking at life during this pandemic, I'm not sure what is.

See you around the virtual campus. Don't be late for class, and remember, you're still supposed to be wearing your mask.