The Ripple Effects of a Pandemic

Summary

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The Political Scene | The New Yorker

Episode: The Ripple Effects of a Pandemic
Date: March 16, 2020
Host: David Remnick
Guest: Lawrence Wright, New Yorker staff writer and author

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Episode Overview

In this episode, David Remnick interviews Lawrence Wright, acclaimed journalist and novelist, about the ripple effects of pandemics—both real and imagined. Wright’s forthcoming novel, The End of October, eerily mirrors the rising anxieties and systemic shocks of the real-world COVID-19 pandemic. The conversation explores societal, political, and cultural aftershocks of pandemics, the unique vulnerabilities of democracies versus authoritarian states, and the endurance of structural change after viral outbreaks.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Impact on Communities: Austin & South by Southwest

• [02:20] Wright discusses the massive economic and social toll from the cancellation of Austin’s South by Southwest (SXSW) festival due to coronavirus fears, even before any local cases had been detected.
  • “It's a $350 million loss to the economy…so many gig workers…are just going to be flattened by this because so much of their, their yearly income depends on this couple of weeks of south by.” (Lawrence Wright, 02:20)
  • He notes the eerie emptiness: “We haven't had a single case yet in Travis county…but there's hardly any cars on the streets…I only see a handful of students walking around.”

2. The Second-Order Effects of Viruses

• [03:50] Discussion shifts to the broader and long-term impacts of pandemics:
  • Wright argues such effects are “more enduring” than the disease itself, citing how cholera outbreaks historically forced cities to invest in sanitation infrastructure.
  • “All of that is because of cholera.…the enduring effects of those cholera plagues is still with us.” (Lawrence Wright, 03:50)

3. From Fiction to Reality: The Premise of The End of October

• [04:16] Wright describes his fictional virus (the “Congoli flu”), envisioned as starting in an Indonesian detention camp, spreading globally through pilgrimage events—mirroring how interconnected societies accelerate contagion.
  • “I chose influenza as my medium because it is still the most dangerous virus that we're faced with…in that environment…a flu that has never been seen before, suddenly arises and takes root.” (Lawrence Wright, 04:23)
• [05:30] Remnick is struck by the uncanny similarities to current global tensions and COVID-19’s impact.
  • “The global political conditions are so much like what we have now…Not terribly responsive president…climate change…US and Russia in conflict.” (David Remnick, 05:30)

4. Fictional Quarantine Versus Real-World Quarantine

• [06:28] Wright describes how his fictional scenario underestimated real responses:
  • “I imagined 3 million people in Mecca on Hajj and quarantining that…it doesn't begin to compare with what China did…maybe 250 million people, 750 million people…I read, quarantined…My own imagination would have balked at such a stupendous effort.” (Lawrence Wright, 06:28)

5. Pandemics as Historical Scar Tissue

• [07:54] Pandemics change the course of history, affecting everything from war outcomes to public health policy.
  • “There are enduring consequences of any great pandemic, and they've changed the future course of human life…We thought we had put the great plagues of the past to rest…then along came SARS…MERS…They are incredibly dangerous.” (Lawrence Wright, 07:54)

6. Government Responsiveness and Vulnerabilities

• [09:00] Wright critiques the US government’s preparedness and response.
  • “President Trump…fired the global pandemic team…cutting the budget for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention…We were handicapped going out of the gate.” (Lawrence Wright, 09:00)
  • He warns of the US’s challenge: “America is not a country like China that will easily lock up cities…The trust is going to be that people will take care of themselves…but that's not really going to happen.”

7. Authoritarian Advantage—And Its Downside

• [10:16] The episode probes whether authoritarian states are better equipped for crisis containment.
  • “It does not like to have any criticism. It hides any kinds of interior problems it might have…that's the downside…The other side…is a government that is as authoritarian and brutal…can enforce a quarantine that I don't think any other country in the world would be able to attempt.” (Lawrence Wright, 10:16)

8. Personal Reaction and Missed Foresight

• [11:31] Despite his research and fiction, Wright admits to not taking early precautions:
  • “I didn't unload my stocks…Like so many people, I kept thinking, this isn't going to affect me. It won't reach my home. But I've been unnerved by it.” (Lawrence Wright, 11:31)

9. Threats to Democracy & the Political Process

• [12:10] Wright points to fundamental challenges for democracy:
  • “Let's start with just the difficulty of having politics in a place where people can't assemble…How about voting? How are we going to manage those kinds of things? This is not a good time to be going out to mass rallies.” (Lawrence Wright, 12:10)

10. Fiction’s Role: Making Science Accessible and Inspiring Hope

• [12:53] Wright hopes his novel can make complex realities relatable and highlight the courage of public health workers:
  • “There should be at least some hope from this novel…there are these really ingenious, courageous people that are involved in fighting it…I'm so struck by the ingenuity and the courage of people who work in public health.” (Lawrence Wright, 12:53)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the economic toll:
  “There's so many…gig workers who are just going to be flattened by this because so much of their yearly income depends on these couple of weeks.” (Lawrence Wright, 02:20)

• On history’s lessons:
  “Viruses come and sweep through a population…but…the enduring effects…are more enduring…cities have been built…because of cholera.” (Lawrence Wright, 03:50)

• On authoritarian response:
  “The other side of it is a government that is as authoritarian and brutal as the Chinese government can enforce a quarantine that I don't think any other country in the world would be able to attempt.” (Lawrence Wright, 10:16)

• On democracy at risk:
  “Difficulty of having politics in a place where people can't assemble…How are we going to manage those kinds of things?” (Lawrence Wright, 12:10)

• On hope amidst crisis:
  “There should be at least some hope from this novel…people actually go into those situations and confront these very cunning ways that nature has of sickening and killing us.” (Lawrence Wright, 12:53)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• 02:20 — Economic devastation in Austin after SXSW’s cancellation
• 03:50 — Second-order effects of pandemics; enduring societal changes
• 04:23 — Origin and trajectory of the fictional “Congoli flu”
• 05:30 — Reflection on present-day political and global resonances
• 06:28 — Real-world versus fictional quarantine efforts
• 07:54 — Pandemics as agents of historical change
• 09:00 — U.S. governmental vulnerabilities and early policymaking failures
• 10:16 — Advantages and disadvantages of authoritarian regimes in crises
• 11:31 — Wright’s personal reaction and psychological distance
• 12:10 — Threats to democratic political processes
• 12:53 — The importance of science, hope, and public health heroism

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Tone and Style

The conversation is reflective, slightly somber, but ultimately admiring of humanity’s capacity to learn and adapt. Lawrence Wright, drawing from years of expertise, maintains a tone both analytical and deeply human, stressing both risks and sources of hope. Remnick guides the conversation with insight but also palpable concern about the confluence of fiction, history, and the unfolding crisis.

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For listeners seeking an in-depth, thoughtful look at COVID-19’s implications—beyond mere infection rates—this episode artfully connects the imagined with the real, illuminating the profound and often overlooked “ripple effects” of a pandemic on modern society.

Transcript

[A]

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[B]

This is the Politics and More podcast. I'm David Remnick. Now, for most of us, the speed and intensity of the pandemic came as an incredible shock. But maybe not for Lawrence Wright. Larry is a terrific journalist, the author of major books about Al Qaeda and the Church of Scientology, among others, and he's been a staff writer since 1992. Larry has been imagining a virus like COVID 19, teasing out its consequences for a book that he's called the End of October. Now, this book is not journalism. The End of October is fiction, very much a thriller, but the circumstances certainly ring familiar. Larry, you're talking to me from a studio in Austin, Texas, where you've lived for a long time. And Austin is the home of south by Southwest, this huge music and film and technology festival, and was one of the first big events to be canceled. Tell me about the mood in Austin where coronavirus is concerned. And what does the cancellation mean for Austin?

[C]

Well, it's a $350 million loss to the economy, but that's just, you know, what would have been the spending everybody is very worried about the effect on the service industries, the restaurants, the hotels. There's so many, you know, gig workers who are just going to be flattened by this because so much of their, their yearly income depends on this couple of weeks of south by. My daughter used to rent out her house by and maybe Formula one and it would pay her rent for the entire year. Well, that's not going to happen. And what's shocking to me, we haven't had a single case yet in Travis county that has been discovered at least. But there's hardly any cars on the streets. I'm at the university. I only see a handful of students walking around. It's really quite striking, even in Austin.

[B]

So we imagine the impact of an outbreak like COVID 19. We think a lot about the immediate health effects, the people infected, the people who will recover, the number who don't. But your novel, and I should emphasize it's a novel, not a book of science journalism. But we'll get to the research in a second. Your novel deals a lot with the unexpected ways that an outbreak can influence not just the public health, but culture and politics and economies. And are those second order effects of a virus more dangerous than the virus itself? How would you equate that?

[C]

Well, they're certainly more enduring. You know, viruses come and sweep through a population. They may return, they may not. But you know, like cholera, cities have been built designed because of cholera, have sanitation, clean water, clean air. All of that is because of cholera. Cholera is easily dealt with in the modern era, but the enduring effects of those cholera plagues is still with us.

[B]

The novel's about a virus of your own imagining. It's not about COVID 19. Tell me about the virus in your book.

[C]

Well, I call it the Congoli flu. I chose influenza as my medium because it is still the most dangerous virus that we're faced with. And I pictured it starting in Indonesia in a refugee camp. Indonesia has been persecuting homosexuals. And so I imagined that there was a camp, a detention camp center where a number of people have hiv, AIDS and their immune systems are compromised. And in that environment, a novel infection, a flu that has never been seen before, suddenly arises and takes root in the human population and becomes transmissible. And there is an attempt to quarantine the camp. But in the novel, the hero of the book goes to visit, his driver is contaminate and infected and goes to go on pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia for the Hajj. And that's how the virus really gets ignited.

[B]

What's really uncanny and Again emphasizing that it's a novel, is that the global political conditions are so much like what we have now. You've got United States and Russia are in conflict. Saudi Arabia and Iran are to each other's throats. The threat of climate change is everywhere, and. And there's a not terribly responsive president in the White House, though he doesn't go named.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

What happens to that world when this virus is unleashed in it? And does it bear any resemblance to what you're seeing every day now in the news?

[C]

Oh, David, it's so demoralizing. Honestly, I read the paper and I feel like I'm reading another chapter of my own book. And unfortunately, real life seems to have taken the form of art and outraced even some of my imagination.

[B]

Well, how do you mean? What do you observing now in the reaction to this coronavirus that resembles what you might have anticipated? And how is it outstripping it?

[C]

Well, specifically, quarantine. You know, quarantine is not a. It's not a cure by any means. Its only goal, really, is to forestall the advance of a disease so that time can be used to develop some kind of vaccine or cure. And I imagined 3 million people in Mecca on Hajj and quarantining that. It seemed to me a real leap of imagination. It doesn't begin to compare with what China did. You know, 70 million people in Hubei province, maybe 250 million people, 750 million people. I read quarantined in one way or another. And now Italy. My own imagination would have balked at such a stupendous effort. I don't know what the world's going to be like when it's finally published in mid April because this disease gallops along so much.

[B]

This isn't the first novel about an apocalyptic pandemic. Some in the past have had a pretty familiar form. There's a stable world. The virus throws that world into chaos, and then some brave souls defeat the virus and things go back to normal. That's not what happens in your book.

[C]

No.

[B]

Do those other novels get pandemics wrong somehow?

[C]

Well, you know, there are enduring consequences of any great pandemic, and they've changed the future course of human life. You know, smallpox, plague. You know, those great pandemics of the past are tremendous scars on history. They affected the outcome of wars, infected the mortality of humanity for years to come. We tend to think after the 20th century, where there were so many triumphs of medicine, and we thought we had put the great plagues of the past to rest, accepting perhaps influenza. But then along came sars, along came mers, these other viruses that posed tremendous threats. Fortunately, we have been able to contain them somewhat, but they are incredibly dangerous.

[B]

Now, as you watch what's happening now, and obviously we're in early stages, how do you evaluate the American reaction to the pandemic on a government level?

[C]

Oh, God. Let's go back to, you know, when President Trump first came into office and fired the global pandemic team, including Admiral Timothy Weiner, who had handled the malaria outbreak in Africa and is credited with saving 6 million lives and then cutting the budget for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention so that they were no longer able to monitor the health in most countries in the world. We were handicapped going out of the gate. You know, America is not a country like China that will easily lock up cities and partition states. The trust is going to be that people will take care of themselves, but that's not really going to happen. I think that people will isolate themselves. There is social distancing. I think a lot of Americans are taking this very responsibly. But still there's not going to be an absolute wall up the way that there is in China.

[B]

In a sense, what you're suggesting is that there is an innate advantage to an authoritarian state like China's over a democratic, fluid state like the United States in this kind of situation.

[C]

Here's what I think about China in that, you know, it's an authoritarian country. It does not like to have any criticism. It hides any kinds of interior problems it might have, as we saw at the beginning of this outbreak, where that young doctor made an outcry and he was suppressed. And of course, he eventually died of COVID 19. Previously, SARS had broken out in China and China hid that. When World Health Organization authorities went to China to examine the situation, there were reports that the authorities had placed SARS patients in taxis and had them ride around until the HU officials were gone. That is the downside of an authoritarian government. The other side of it is a government that is as authoritarian and brutal as the Chinese government can enforce a quarantine that I don't think any other country in the world would be able to attempt.

[B]

What was your first thought when you heard about this outbreak in China late last year? Did you immediately think we could end up where we are today? Did you expect a different outcome somehow?

[C]

David Good evidence is I didn't unload my stocks. I didn't take any of the precautions that a person, given all the knowledge that I had, should have done. Like so many people, I kept thinking, this isn't going to affect me. It won't reach my home. But I've been unnerved by it. I think is going to be a real challenge to our democracy and is going to inflict a whole lot of grief on the world in one way or another.

[B]

When you say there's a threat to our democracy with COVID 19, what do you mean?

[C]

You know, let's start with just the difficulty of having politics in a place where people can't assemble. You know, if what's going to happen with the conventions? How about voting? How are we going to manage those kinds of things? This is not a good time to be going out to mass rallies.

[B]

Larry, what concerns do you have for publishing a novel into the teeth of this?

[C]

Are you worried?

[B]

Well, you're worried how?

[C]

I don't know how people are going to react to it.

[B]

You're worried because what, or do you think it can provide information that's useful in a way that's maybe more easily or transmitted than a CDC announcement on television?

[C]

I think it'll make it understandable to people in a way that they couldn't. Maybe in another way, you know, there should be at least some hope from this novel in that there are these really ingenious, courageous people that are involved in fighting it. I went to the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda and talked to immunologists at Pfizer, and I went to Fort Detrick where a lot of the biowarfare research had been done. And I was so struck by the ingenuity and the courage of people who work in public health, and that's why the book is dedicated to them. People actually go into those situations and confront these very cunning ways that nature has of sickening and killing us. That really impresses me, and I have a lot of confidence in them.

[B]

Larry Wright, thank you so much.

[C]

It's my pleasure, David, and best of.

[B]

Health to your family and everyone you know.

[C]

And same to you and yours.

[B]

Lawrence Wright has been a staff writer since 1992. His book the End of October, Just To Be Clear, is a work of fiction. It's due to be published this spring. Right now we are living through some of the most tumultuous political times our country has ever known. I'm David Remnick, and each week on the New Yorker Radio Hour, I'll try to make sense of what's happening alongside politicians and thinkers like Cory Booker, Nancy Pelosi, Liz Cheney, Tim Waltz, Ketanji Brown Jackson, Newt Gingrich Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Charlemagne, the God, and so many more. That's all in the New Yorker Radio Hour wherever you listen to podcasts.

[C]

From prx.