S1 E2 Leadership & Governance 
Transcript

Laurel   06:48

From the beginning, Houstonians have received mixed messages regarding the severity of the coronavirus pandemic. Government messaging seemed to be in constant conflict with the federal and state level insisting there's no need for alarm, while the local government highlighted an urgent need to take precautions. With this inconsistency came confusion even suspicions that the reported number of coronavirus deaths was being inflated for political or economic reasons. In order to clear this up for myself, I spoke with my friend Teresa who works as an epidemiologist in Houston.

Teresa  07:21

So I guess if you need a definition for an epidemiologist first, a lot of people kind of colloquially just call like a disease detective.

Laurel   07:29

A disease detective. Essentially, it's Teresa's job to track and prevent the spread of COVID-19 in the Houston area by communicating with patients, determining who they could have possibly infected, and giving advice on what they can do to prevent spreading it to anyone else. Teresa typically is better at seeing both sides of an issue than I am. So I asked her about how confident she felt in the accuracy of the numbers reported by Harris County Public Health, which as of this recording, have reached over 98,000 cases, and over 1000 deaths just in Harris County alone. So I asked her, can we trust these numbers?

Teresa  08:11

There's a lot of documentation that has to get put together in order to file for death cases. I have just started learning that. So I think at least in terms of our department, it seems like if anything, deaths are probably being underreported because we're now having to find other ways to like provide evidence to the State Department, not the State Department, but the department at the Texas State level. To indeed confirm, yes, this is a death related to COVID. The scientists part of me is just very frustrated that we're still here in August and we now have enough cities and countries that have figured it out. Because it is absolutely something we have a solution for or so many solutions, right? Like not one size fits all solution. And we have many solutions for it and we're just not executing any one particular thing. So that I think is the most frustrating part.

Laurel   09:14

She went on to say how it is hard to be certain either way, but that her gut instinct tells her that due to under testing, our actual numbers of COVID-19 cases are probably underreported, too. So the question that's been rolling around in my brain is, if the problem really exists, is likely worse than we know, and we have multiple possible solutions, then why is it that the numbers keep rising in Houston at a pace of 1000 new cases per day? Vincent Nuñez, a recent graduate of YES PREP Northbrook high school, where I used to work, and a prominent member of his school's leadership program offered some great insight into this.

Vincent  09:51

And that's the thing also that the government is and being like united. And that's the thing that people feed us off to like Texas the government of Texas this is not it's not being you know, they're not all uniting, the Houston is not united.

Laurel   10:16

So not only has our government provided mixed messaging regarding the severity of COVID-19, but they have also been battling themselves in regard to the appropriate policies to enact Houston's mayor and the Harris County judge advocated for swift action to be taken implementing stay at home orders and mask mandates, only to be told by the state governor's office that they do not have the authority to do so. Texas was actually one of the first states to reopen in early May, and the governor's executive order functioned as an override of local government policy. By the time the governor finally decided to issue a statewide masked mandate In July, the damage had already been done. Education at the state level also has been in conflict with the perspectives of many local school districts with the Texas Education Agency, also referred to as TEA, decided to continue with the administration of state tests for this current school year. And coupled with that, they placed strict limitations on how long schools can offer purely virtual instruction, regardless of the fact that cases continue to increase. So what gets me is that our leaders had time to come together to make these choices. You know? We watched as countries like Italy and Spain and even in our own country, the state of New York suffered from this virus, we had time to come up with a unified plan to implement one of the many solutions Teresa alluded to. So why didn't we? Why did we remain divided in this way?

Gauravi   11:47

There's so much to unpack here. And I feel like we'll talk more about Mumbai in a minute. And the problems are there, but they're different. And I think that that's something that that's been confusing for the rest of the world in the way we've been viewing what's happening in the United States as well, like this lack of unity and clarity. It's also a little confusing in the context. So we also have, like decentralized systems. So to certain extent, I do understand when you say, when you talked about the governor's executive order, overriding local government policy, things like that. But normatively, is that is that normalized. Is that okay, for certain for bodies and government to have such completely polarized opinions on things like mask wearing?

Laurel   12:42

Right. I mean, that, I guess, is the crux of this question, right? It seems like it should be something that we should be able to align on, right? It doesn't seem like something that should be politicized as much as it has been. And I think that in least in the context of Houston, There's a lot actually in regards to racial and gender power dynamics at play here. Our mayor of Houston, Mayor Turner, he is a Black man and the county judge, Lina Hidalgo, she is a Latina woman, you know. And so, our state governor, Greg Abbott, he's a white man. And I've I also, my parents live in Montgomery County, and their county judge is a white man. And just the difference in how the I saw the governor respond to the local orders that are that the Houston mayor and that Judge Hidalgo put in was vastly different compared to his response when Mark Keough, who is the county judge in Montgomery County refused, said literally, he wrote on his social media and everything, that he's not going to enforce the mask mandate that the governor ultimately put out. So essentially, the governor was able to, or felt comfortable enough overriding the decisions that were made by the the Houston officials. That were the mayor and Harris County judge, but he didn't give as much pushback against the Montgomery County judge.

Gauravi   14:25

Okay, I think that's going to be even for me that's hard to keep track. So basically, one side of it is a racialized body and one side of it, someone is not a is not a racialized body as a white man. And so what of what you're kind of getting at is that the opinions of the Montgomery County judge the white man, Mr. Mark, were more easily sort of absorbed or or not, override it like those decisions and decisions will not override it. Wow. That's really In a problematic, interesting, I don't know what to say because it's very it's it's a lot of process, that sort of racial politicization of a pandemic. And a solution like mask wedding also comes down to ratio paradigm dynamics. That's very disconcerting, I suppose is the right word.

Laurel   15:22

Yeah, which I also just want to add, obviously, that the state governor and also the Montgomery County judge, they're Republicans, right. Um, whereas in Houston proper, there in Harris County, there, it's much more of towards the Democratic Party and, and so because of that, there's also that kind of rivalry, I suppose, and the ideological rivalry that's there, but I do think that we, we can't just chalk it up to a left versus right, just kind of fighting each other in that way because the way that people resisted, particularly Judge Hidalgo's orders, they used a lot of racialized attacks against her. Not necessarily the governor directly, but just people that were that were speaking out against that. And also, in particular, I know there was a group of police officers who actually wrote an entire response to her when she put out the mask mandate, saying that they weren't going to take orders from her. And that's just unprecedented like that, that just doesn't happen when it's a white man that is in in the role of county judge.

Gauravi   15:42

So I have two questions. One is do you think that this is, this is different because of the current political climate in the United States? Do you think that the pandemic would have been handled differently if there wasn't such a polarizing figure sitting somewhere? And the second question is though, I have a hard time understanding why the mask mandate is not just accepted. I, it's very hard to understand. From an ideological perspective, from a logistical perspective, I do understand that some people have issues some people can't access masks or, you know, it's it's a pain. I mean, I hate wearing my mask. Right. But ideologically, why is it so problematic? I don't I don't understand that.

Laurel   17:32

I mean, I, I think to answer your question, I do think that the current political climate has a lot to do with why an issue that really, from an outsider perspective shouldn't seem political has turned political. You know, it was something that originally, you know, our, the president, President Trump. You know, he was saying from the beginning that it was under control. But it's not a big deal. And so it kind of, to to start saying, "Yes, we need to wear masks" to start saying, "Yes, we need to stay home," that would be going against basically what he had said, right? That would be counter-arguing the idea that it's not a big deal. So instead, a lot of, particularly Republican leaders, a lot of conservative leaders, just decided to continue with this idea that it's not actually that big of a deal. They really liked to frequently talk about how it's only 2% of people that die. It's only older people that die. And I think it's also really important to note that there were protests literally against the stay at home orders that were happening all over the country, and also here, and, and those protests I noticed kind of popped up not too long after it was made public that it's largely people of color that are being disrupted. impacted by this virus. I think that definitely has a role to play in how people decided to look at this virus and its importance. So, yeah, and then at the end of the day the argument that they use when they're trying to justify it because, they don't they don't outright say, I mean, they'll bring their Confederate flags to their stay at home protest, But, I know, I'm laughing once again, like with Jaws, because it's ridiculous. But also once you get deeper it is incredibly harmful.

Gauravi   19:32

Yeah, it is. It is incredibly harmful. But I still, I still have a hard time grasping though. I mean, I get that okay, Dan was downplaying it. Even if you're downplaying it, though, like beyond the point you can see that it's happening. Why can't you wait a minute, why can't you take basic precautions for yourself and for other people?

Laurel   19:52

Yeah. So I, the argument that a lot of people are using is that it's a personal freedom issue. A lot of have people that are opposed to the masks are saying that it's depriving them of their personal liberty. And, you know, that feeds into or from this idea of American individualism, that in some circumstances can be really great. But in circumstances like this, where we're asking you, you're not wearing this mask for yourself, you're wearing it to help other people. When you're operating under a culture that's hyper-individualistic, that kind of argument doesn't hold as much weight. And so we start seeing people making these decisions saying, "No, it's just, it's about me and I don't need to wear a mask. I don't want to."

Gauravi   20:42

Something that I'm considering as as we're talking about this is definitely I see what you're saying about American individualism. And that kind of perspective of, you know, it's my liberty. There is something to The idea that there's been protests against state mandated things and like stay at home orders. That is something do that. That's like, in my mind. Also, this is good democracy in action in a certain way as well, because you're not just sort of okay, Big Boss said so, let's just do it, which I think is different in another a very specific bodies are allowed to protest in specific bodies or not. And having a more community oriented mindset definitely has its positives, but also like, I feel like it's important to acknowledge that it also does mean though, that we had a much harder time pushing back against any kind of state mandated things. And it's very easy for certain bodies to execute state mandated things everywhere in India, for sure and in the US as well. So I do think there is some amount of positive to kind of being able to question what the state is telling you to do. I feel like that is good Democracy in action. But that being said, from a community and like a individual level, it blows my mind that it's such a simple thing to do- wear a mask. It's not complicated and and you know, we've been doing it medically for generations like your doctor wears a mask because you know that a mask is effective. It's it's not, there's no debate about whether or not masks, or there has never been a debate up until 2020, about whether or not medical like basic masks are effective. Doctors wear them, you know, watch Grey's Anatomy, you know that doctors wear masks. It's pretty simple.

Laurel   22:35

Yeah. I really connect with what you're saying about how the fact that protests are still happening definitely is a proof of that, you know, Democracy is in action. However, I do wonder about whether a definition of a functioning democracy should also take into consideration credible information and the spread of misinformation, so I think that's a component to take into consideration.