50 deadlock, including forming the majority body in the Senate, that would be the first vote, she will break that ties of the Democrats now have barely have a majority in the Senate. And, of course, now they have the head of the executive branch and the president, United States Joe Biden. So here we are, as the loyal opposition and part of our role here in our job here is communicating all of the things that the executive branch along with the legislative branch may do that will make your life miserable. That will report reverse the very good path we were on over the last four years of the Trump presidency. So let's get to that. Shall we dug? Badri joins us not from Heritage Foundation doesn't Thank you for joining us. Good to talk with you. Thank you for having me. Well, have you written quite a bit here about where the current state of our covert policy? I've seen the President Biden of his signed into executive order a mask mandate for anyone in federal properties federal parks for federal buildings. He's trying to influence governors to institute mask. Policies. Can you tell us how that policy has been working so far? Well, so far, it hasn't worked out terribly well. Now I want to be clear on this. Public health authorities in the U. S. And throughout the world agree that mask wearing slows the pathogens rate of growth, so not telling people don't wear masks Where are saying masks or bad thing? But then the question is what happens when you have mass mandates? Has that really shown to be a powerful tool against the pandemic? We looked in the US and we went county by county We identified 25 U. S counties reporting the highest number of new cases during the surge in cases here that would be an last fall. 21 is, um, had mass mandates in place prior to August, Looking at the 100 counties. With the most confirmed cases over the fall, 97 had either a county level mass mandate a state level mass band aid or both. He also looked at Italy, which has a national mass mandate back by €1000 fine and enforced by the military police. Once again, we saw a big run up in cases so wearing masks is a good thing. But if that is our main tool, what we find is it's really inadequate and we need to look at other policies that the government should be pursuing that we do a better job at getting control of infection. I want to get to the solutions here in a moment of what you think might be doing a better job. In a moment we're seeing the Doug Badger is with the Heritage Foundation is a former White House and Senate policy adviser. He's now senior fellow that Galen Institute and a visiting fellow over at Heritage Foundation. And you specifically right here in your article over daily signal that relying on lockdown, social distance things and mass isn't working, and that's pretty much over hearing now from the incoming by administration is that we need more lockdowns. We need more mask protocols and more social distancing protocols. You're basically saying what they're prescribing is exactly what hasn't worked. Yeah, again. I think we can all agree when we have now surpassed the 400,000 covert related death Mark Mark roughly one year after the first case, the U. S was reported. I think we turned back a year and say a year from now we'll have formed 1000 covert related deaths. We would say that the policies we've been using, maybe haven't exactly worked out very well. So again, not saying Mass don't help management. But we've got to acknowledge when you when you've pursued a certain course and gotten these kinds of results. You want to also be looking at what else you can be doing during the many months it will take to get a sufficient number of people immunized. Also, we know for a fact that they're not even they have not even begun to measure the casualties and, yes, even deaths. That will result from this lockdown from the shutdown. There there, there's great harm caused by all of the lockdowns as well. In fact, Doug Badger hasn't the World Health Organization of all groups come out several months ago and said, Please stop relying on lockdowns as the way to stop this virus because ultimately it's not going to be in that benefit. Yeah, I think I think with respect to lock down, everybody gets that, Uh, they're fine in a on an episodic basis, right? If you have a situation in the city where your hospitals air getting overrun and so forth. You may have to push the panic button and put in place a lockdown for a period of time. But the idea of just instituting widespread lockdowns giving him place for indefinite periods of time, you know, just really hasn't worked out terribly well, certainly hasn't gotten the results that we had hoped. So let's turn to some solutions released some suggestions that maybe we could give it I certainly is gonna make matters worse. I don't think Doug Badger. First of all, Can we agree on this? That the solution Um, to get this country through this pandemic isn't necessarily a federal mandate of any sort coming out of Washington, D. C. Do you agree with the federalism model here that each state needs to do what's best for the conditions on the ground in their state? Yeah. I definitely think that what happens here and you see it was with emergency response is generally when you have AH, hurricane, for example, people on the ground, the local and state leaders Have to be the ones that are in control of that local strategy. Now the federal government supports that they bring in supplies They bring in personnel and so on and so forth. But, you know, generally speaking, you're looking to the governor's. You're looking to the local leaders. To help coordinate the response on the ground, and I think we're dealing with a similar similar situation here with the pandemic. There certainly is a role for the federal government, and it should be. It should be playing that role. But the leadership on the ground really has to come from proud of the state and local officials. So what would you say if a governor picked up the phone and said Doug Badger, You've been around the block? I've heard I've read what you wrote a daily signal. Smart guy. What should we prioritize right now in our state so that we can get past this thing? Well, first of all, I think it's way have to make sure we're doing a better job of nursing home, so some of the states are doing a better job and others. In getting residents and staff vaccinated, But the standards that we've had in place so far have been well, you test the staff once a week, you screen visitors with a temporal thermometer. Well, look, you nursing home residents are on lockdown. By definition. The only way that disease gets in there is from outsiders and You need to do a better job of testing staff on the damn Li basis, not on a weekly basis in order to protect them better now is the immunizations roll out, hopefully will be in a better place in a month or so with with with immunizations. But really, the second thing is something a governor can't do anything about. Um, and that is that the Food and Drug Administration is not approved short term home tests. That would enable people to find out their covert status without having to go to have a laboratory tests and find out whether they had a two or four days before they could find out now and take appropriate action. That's the biggest thing that stands in the way and that's where the federal government I think could play. The greatest role is in removing regulatory battle of barriers to self testing. That would be a great thing as well. And then we can start getting our economy opened up, which is that should be a top priority for all of us. Certainly should have been and and certainly should be going forward, especially with regard to getting our schools in our small businesses open Doug Badger, We gotta leave it there. Thank you for joining us with your expertise today. Thank you. It's for 45. Now.