Matthew, for coming on and sharing your sorts and crystal ball gazing about the impact, the wider impact.

But something like Covad, 19 in half Danny, You wrote about this this week and talked about how the the massive the catastrophic flu of 18 1919 18 19 actually perhaps didn't have no whining influences.

One was very sick, have been quite a lot of books about about it, and some of them sort of say, This is how it changed the world And what struck me was how little it changed our political narrative.

In other words, we talked about all the great events of that century.

The whole of course, obviously, and Mao and his great leap backwards on Dhe Starling and his purges in the Famines.

And we don't include in that what was unquestionably one of the boat was the biggest killer.

Unquestionably one of the great events of the century almost gotten.

So it was because it was definitely in the shadow of the war, but in a sense, yes.

So it's true.

So 100,000 American troops died in the First World War.

40,000 of them were killed by the Spanish flu.

But so unquestionably it's sort of melted together.

And when some of the earliest people died, it didn't quite create the the fast it would have done because so many other people were dying in the same hospitals.

I think that is undoubtedly part of it.

Repulsive it?

My guess would be is because it wasn't man made.

There is a sort of feeling is just one of those things.

It sort of natural disaster.

It doesn't deserve its place in a in a political discussion or in a white in a sort of historical discussion of the great shapes that force that sorry that great forces that shape the century.

So I So I was just interested in this as it relates to Cove in 19 hours.

Obviously, it's very important to stress at this point.

We don't know whether Cove in 19 is what Bill Gates you talked to talked about.

He's all about the once in a century Pathogen is covert 19 that we simply don't know on at this point, you know, it hasn't reached anywhere close to the levels of the Spanish flu, so we don't think people should should stopped up panic or to make themselves to feel that Definitely.

Just, you know, 100 million people die has died in Spanish flu.

But I certainly think for the first time it will bring into the political narrative.

I thought, Well, actually, we talk about terrorism as a threat.

We talk about nuclear proliferation is the threat.

We always talk about famine.

But do we really think enough Talk enough about disease?

And I suspect this event, even if it turns out to be a very mild end off the of the possibilities, will change the personal narrative.

Do you think that might be the case is?

Well, nothing.

Yeah, I think we need to think about it is interesting to think about Cove it 19 in terms of its political impacts, it's economic impacts and its social impacts on.

We have to recognize that in doing that, there are two big variables that we don't know about.

The first is the extent I think people are now lock coming to assume that it is gonna become pretty endemic, that it will affect all parts of the country and reasonably high proportion of people.

But the second issue is how long it lasts because I think how people respond to something that goes on for six weeks is very different to how they respond to something.

If it feels like it's going on for six months, there's evidence about this Is that you've written about this about how habits in bed, how long it takes for habits to S O.

Just to take one small example.

Psychologists.

They take six weeks to embed a habit.

So think about business travel You already got.

A second thing is that the shift normally occur cause a number of factors combined.

Now, within my business travel, you really got costs.

It's expensive.

You've got climate and businesses wanting to say they're doing something liberation to climate, and you've got improvements in the technology video conferencing.

You got these three things there.

Cove in 19 could be the tipping point.

It could be over the next couple of months.

Is people give up business travel because of the virus?

They developed a habit and, having developed that, have it having got used to business meetings online.

Haven't got used to meetings online, I think.

Well, why?

That's what I go through all that jet like being away from my family and all of that on that.

Maybe that maybe a shift that is never reversed and getting how much?

How dependent airlines are all the front of the plane, the only viable That's a massive cut back and travel for everybody potentially a za thought.

Yeah, absolutely.

And as I say it occurs because they were already a set of factors leading to this point.

I think you know, when Covert 19 makes things happen, which had just to do with this, and there's nothing else driving it.

Then things will revert to normal afterwards.

But there are certain areas of society where there was a kind of imminent tendency.

For example, I'm sure when we talk about politics, it's the same.

Covering 19 is not going to create a political set of attitudes that never existed, but it will reinforce.

In America, for example, there has Long Bean considerable worry and concern.

My producer, I work about it, that that that the kind of capacity of the state has withered away, that institutions are just not there to be able to deal with crisis.

Um, covert 19 could take appointments.

People in arguing for some time, which there's been some evidence for, and it could absolutely drive it home.

It could lead to a fundamental shift in attitudes in America about the kinds of risks they're willing to take which result from the rolling back of state capacity.

Well, I was very interested in the way that this might change the political debate on actually, As it turned out, I think I missed something in the comments.

Underneath my column, people began to talk about Brexit.

Now talk about Brexit.

Under comes back anything but you might.

But this was particularly marked, and I thought that what they would talk about would be doing to have an internationalist approach to this.

And that's what that was, what was in the court or open versus closed.

It wasn't actually that that spot the row about Brexit.

It was the fear versus no fear s oh, lots of people who either recognize from previous columns or who stated this who were levers or no dealers were complaining that the elite newspapers and the government was creating a panic about something that was nationally dangerous.

The whole thing would pass over Andi wouldn't be a problem, whereas the alternative the opposite people.

And I suppose they include me in that were saying, Well, actually, this could be quite serious and have quite serious consequences.

So that was the first echo of of, of a debate that is, Matthew say, already taking place about how much value to put on expert projection experts.

There's that word from yes, in the referendum campaign.

The important thing about expertise is that do not over coronate for expert knowledge.

You then become somebody who you have this knowledge.

You don't want to be the idiot that picked it up only for it to be worthless.

So you put Maur storm it, then you ought on that, something that experts do do.

And it's what Dominic Cummings meant when he starts talking about super forecasters.

Philip Technique has been particularly strong against the author of Super Forecasters, and that is, I think, what Dominic Cummings means when he attacks journalists.

I think he thinks we over correlate far expert knowledge about politics.

But the one thing I think this is fascinating, we might refer to as means that is to say, the process by which something happens and there are various political narratives that kind of fight it out on DSO you know, damn it.

Recognized one, which is which is what?

There's a mean here which already existed pre existing mean This is the point.

This cove, it takes things which existed already, and on some of them grows a consequence.

So you already had a medium and that mean was the experts are out to frighten you.

You don't don't trust them, you know.

But the robber means I mean, doesn't mean which is, if you're saying way should not be frightened, which is, well, you know what about We don't care for old people.

You know that that any kind of complacency here reveals that were non caring society that is in some ways kind of willing to tolerate a certain group of people being damaged as long as the rest of our lives left in the in the same the same position you will absolutely have a mean, which is around a zay said generation to America about the state.

If the economy starts to close down, you'll have means that air around Well, you know, Isn't it interesting?

The economists were all coming together.

Now they're all showing more compassion to each other.

You know, isn't this prefiguring a kind of a world?

Have adapted to climate change or no growth or low growth world where she will seem to be happier now, as a consequence of the action too hard to take, so you'll see these kind of different means.

Playing themselves out over the next few weeks will be interesting to see which ones which ones with but one of the points of damage making their about the echoes of the referendum?

This if the virus doesn't prove to be in these worst case scenarios that obviously catch a ride all the time.

It doesn't prove to be quite a villain on destructive, as some of the worst case scenarios suggest, there'll be an awful lot of people echoes the referendum.

You say you really think always the second about Aly expert advice is it all suggested probabilities involved on dhe?

We simply don't know, and nobody says that we do know because you can't know that there are lots of unknowns.

For example, nobody really knows what the fatality rate is because of Kovar 19 because nobody knows exactly how widespread it is in the places where they're calculating fatality on, then.

Obviously, some of the actions we take may alter the the spread because we're reacting to it.

So it may be that the very actions we take will reduce its impact.

You can't know that.

The point.

Matthews making their about how certain narratives will thrive and some won't a cz.

We go through this episode.

We are living in an age where the American president can go to the U.

N and say, I'm against globalism on can use hoax on dhe covered 19 in the same sentence.

It's on the probabilities that this could play into the sort of nationalist narrative.

Andi.

It's all about drawing up borders.

The reaction it feeds.

Yeah, I think the phone's out there already.

I think that I mean, if you look at national responses, they vary according to the intensity off and also their very core into the capacity of the state.

So China doesn't look like it's the only country where the number cases is in decline, and it was able to use it's pretty strong apparatus on also a set of social norms and values.

I think in China, which allowed it to to do that.

I'm.

But nevertheless, I'd say that broadly speaking, the responses of states have been on the same off.

They've been on the same spectrum, that is to say, But for some countries, very intensive other countries this intensive, but a largely pragmatic view.

It would be interesting if any country, any leader, was to step outside of that.

So if any country leader was to say, Well, no, actually, we're gonna just let it rip, you know, that's that's fine.

You know, I'm a libertarian.

Look after yourself.

We'll be okay.

That would have an interesting effect that will affect these narratives.

Because then, if one country does that, other people in other countries will go What?

We should do that as well, whether it yeah.

And of course, it's possible in the times that we live in that somebody may choose to use it in some kind of racist narrative.

Some kind of nationalist narrative, I think.

I suspect he's already nudged.

You'll see, you'll see.

You'll see, if ever.

I would be surprised if that spent.

There's not much sign.

It seems to me that the public themselves has an appetite to kind of weapon.

I think this interesting dilemma.

It'll be very instinct in the United States because he runs is the anti establishment candidate, as you say, putting the word hopes and Kobe 19 all in the same paragraph.

And yet he's the president on.

People are gonna look to him to provide leadership.

And so he's, You know, in the end, they'll be facts on the ground that the world that will affect the political narrative a cz well as the means as well as the way people think on dhe.

You know, he'll have to hope that this could be his Katrina moment could on dhe one of the evidence political science evidence about the impact of these natural resources is actually preparation on dhe prevention doesn't really help you politically.

I mean, obviously it's vital policy has really happened politically, but how you deal with it once it happens, that really is very important politically and sometimes it doesn't match of it's your fault.

If the economy gets weaker on DDE, people die.

People will either find a narrative that blames it on the government, or they'll think something else was the cause of the way they feel on blame that on the government.

And, you know, one of examples I uses In 1916 when when Woodrow Wilson ran for reelection, there'd been some shark attacks in New Jersey by coincidence, his state ones, though in the Jaws film actually on.

They didn't close the beaches, but I had nothing to do with him, obviously, on Dhe.

Yet when you look at the results, you can see that he suffered in those areas specifically, which suggests that the people blame the government for natural dissolves.

I doubt that that guy didn't close the beaches.

Is someone Boris Johnson?

What cited is a bit of a hero of his and inside government.

Boris Johnson, I believe, was acting as a bit of a break on the announcement that eventually came this week of the government's action plan.

But he, inside government until the end of last week, was acting as a brake, saying, What we don't want to engender chaos.

I'm not really sure.

It's just a song that I don't miss that that Danny said, which is that prevention?

It doesn't really kind of register.

I wanted them.

That may change because of the fact that this is global in the data.