Mike Osterholm

You know, it doesn't necessarily stop transmission, but it does a lot to prevent severe illness, hospitalizations, and deaths.

And that's what the COVID vaccine has done with mRNA technology.

But with mRNA technology for influenza, it's very likely we can make enough vaccine to cover the world within that first year.

That is the difference between millions and millions of deaths.

And so when we recently saw this administration withdraw any support for mRNA and basically almost cast it aside as evil, that's been really unfortunate because that was our best get out of jail card right now.

And so in that sense, that's an example.

But otherwise, you know, all the other things we have going for us at best can limit a bit of what happens with the pandemic.

But we really need to have these vaccines.

If we had that, Eric, we wouldn't have the big one.

It's that simple.

That's the difference, okay?

And so that's what we need to get across to people.

You know, when you think about defense spending, people say, well, they spent too much money on it.

We don't spend enough on it.

I don't know.

I don't understand that.

But I do understand.

If you're going to build a new aircraft carrier, they budget that for 15 years of construction.

So it starts today, and you don't have to go in every year to get refunded or hoping that you're going to continue to get funding.

It's planned that way.