Coronavirus III: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)

well hello again our we're back with a show that's clearly going to look a little unusual as I'm sure you've seen the corona virus has forced a number of late night hosts to record shows from their houses and we're no different as my home is and this is true a blank white void full of sad facts where else did you think I lived now a lot has happened in the last two weeks and I'll start with arguably the least important development the last time we spoke I mentioned the work done by a very informative tick-tock hamster well I'm thrilled to tell you it seems the hamster saw it a hamster just genuinely offered more useful public health advice in one at 12 second tick tock then the president has in multiple addresses to the nation yes yes yes yes the hamster knows who I am it might show just how much the isolation is getting to me that is genuinely heartwarming to experience even a connection like that right now and by the way I'd love to say that I would vote for that hamster for president but given that their average life expectancy is just three years I'm really gonna have to wait to find out who its VP pick is but Kovach 19 continues to rip around the globe on Friday Boris Johnson who had bragged early this month about shaking hands with coronavirus patients tested positive for corona virus meanwhile India's Prime Minister has imposed a nationwide lock down of its 1.3 billion residents with some police punishing those who disobey by hitting them with sticks and making them do squats and in Italy which continues to be hit incredibly hard there's been a trend of local leaders posting videos online yelling at their citizens for irresponsibly going outside and their incredible Mia Riva no no TTA qualcuno Bouree Bouree Bouree la fiesta de la brea man diamo Carabinieri molly mandy amo choreography on water duty police is not even Dottie Adelia to TiVo you recorded a Nidoran dr. Corday's Picacho deep are you cheering Evelyn gasps and to say gabble mm okay cut so servo chair malavika kappa doge a hoodoo voodoo Juvenal let me make a pedo gay key got some never never see copy like you said in dog food now I know that seems extreme but he is right if your hair is bad don't panic just let it be bad for a while yes people may see it and yes it'll be embarrassing but you will get through it trust me trust me hey listen trust me as for here in the United States the virus continues to spread rapidly we now have more confirmed coronavirus cases than any country in the world number one number one and the president has only recently seemed to realize the gravity of the situation as recently as a month ago he was saying we have it very much under control adding stock market starting to look very good to me before abruptly shifting gears to claim that he felt it was a pandemic long before it was called one and then just last week making this grand declaration I'm a wartime president this is a war there's a war different kind of a war that we've ever had yeah I guess it is different isn't it it's like World War two only the enemy is invisible or like the Vietnam War only this time Trump is actually taking part and yet incredibly after briefly embracing the need for everyone to engage in social distancing to flatten the curve on Tuesday our wartime president seemed to already be considering giving up the fight and encouraging everyone to go back to work we're opening up this incredible country because we have to do that I'd love to have it open by Easter okay I would love to have it open by Easter I will I will tell you that right now I would love to have that it's such an important day for other reasons but I'll make it an important day for this - okay sending us all to the east is an important day for other reasons the date he's setting is just two weeks from now which is objectively way too soon although if you're going to pick a holiday to break quarantine you could do a lot worse than one honoring the time that Jesus was supposed to say inside and didn't and it's worth taking a moment to appreciate just how irresponsible that attitude is because we wasted so much time that we could have spent preparing the virus is now widespread and thanks to how we have massively botched the rollout of testing for the virus we still don't know exactly how bad things are so strict social distancing measures are our best shot at slowing this outbreak epidemiologists have said if it were possible to wave a magic wand and make all Americans freeze in place for 14 days while sitting six feet apart the whole epidemic would sputter to a halt now obviously that magic wand is impossible but some people aren't even doing anything close to that and if you need proof of just how true that is just listen to the understandably exhaust Brayton governor of Kentucky we have a positive case today from someone who attended a corona virus party and this is the part where either person that tell everybody to be calm have to remain calm myself well good luck with that because you just used the phrase corona virus party and his disgust at that infuriating term was perfectly expressed by his sign language interpreter who really got across the whole what the is wrong with you people sentiment truly that gesture speaks for America right now give that woman immediately so we absolutely should not be relaxing measures yet and and Trump actually can't force states to do that it's up to governor's some of whom from both parties are taking this very seriously unfortunately other governors are not Ron de santis in Florida is still resisting issuing a statewide stay at home order and in Texas lieutenant governor Dan Patrick took things even further agreeing with the president that the economic damage of a lockdown is just too great to bear I'm not living in fear of covet 19 what I'm living in fear of is what's happening to this country and you know Tucker no one reached out to me and said as a senior citizen are you willing to take a chance on your survival in exchange for keeping the America that all America loves for your children and grandchildren and if that's the exchange I'm all-in what are you talking about first if you really want to die so the US economy can boom we already have a system in place for that and it's called Black Friday have at it second we know what's happened in other countries like Iran and Spain that didn't take social distancing seriously they're now home to mass graves you can see from space and ice skating rinks being used as makeshift morgues and I'm in no way minimizing the economic suffering caused by the shutdown and we should do everything we can to mitigate it this week stimulus bill is probably only the start of what is needed for workers but the idea that people should sacrifice themselves for the economy is absurd and yet it actually gained traction this week co-signed by a variety of conservative pundits perhaps not more enthusiastically than this guy I contend there are millions of Americans just like me that will look at their children and their grandchildren's future and they will say I am NOT going to have them a slave to debt I am NOT going to erase their future because I was afraid to die I'm not afraid to die I am afraid that our nation might die and that dooms millions to poverty illness starvation and a lack of hope let's see if that will trend yeah let's see if that will trend you're thirsty but you get that the corona virus is not the Hunger Games right you can't volunteer yourself as tribute and what you're doing is actually much dark you are actively volunteering others including people of all ages with health conditions to die and even if these guys are okay with letting the coronavirus kill as many people as it feels like so that the economies protected which again really there are and I cannot believe I have to say this significant drawbacks to hundreds of thousands of people dying hospitals would be completely overwhelmed which means people suffering from things that aren't the coronavirus also wouldn't be able to get the treatment that they need leading to even more people dying which to put this in the only terms that they seem to care about also tanks the economy so relaxing social distancing right now isn't just trading one bad outcome for another it's trading one bad outcome for both bad outcomes it's on your cake and choking on it too look it's critically important for America to be getting a clear consistent message about the severity of the threat that we're currently facing that is the only way that we will be able to manage this virus contain casualties and get back to something resembling normalcy and floaty and Easter end date isn't the only troubling decision the president has made right now one of the major challenges facing hospitals across the country is a critical shortage of even basic personal protective equipment like masks respirators gloves and face shields because they are running short to an alarming extent there are people that literally are wearing bandanas because they have nothing better than that to protect themselves I've seen people using the plastic protector sheets for their kids homework to put in as a is a face mask I've seen people even wearing ski goggles and Halloween costumes that were masked to try and cover up parts of their face holy that is terrifying both for the medical workers who are risking their lives to help patients but also for the patients imagine being hospitalized for coronavirus and then seeing this walk through the door I'd opt out yeah I died but that's better than whatever this freaky is and it's not just masks hospitals also need equipment like ventilators to help people breathe without enough of them people will die and yet as recently as Thursday Trump was choosing to not so much address the problem as try and minimize it what you dismiss a request for ventilators from New York Governor Andrew Cuomo I have a feeling that a lot of the numbers that are being said in some areas are just bigger than they're going to be I don't believe you need 40,000 or 30,000 ventilators you know you go into major hospital sometimes they'll have two ventilators and now all of a sudden they're saying can we order 30,000 ventilators yeah that's the problem hospitals don't have that many ventilators and now there's a pandemic Trump must be so confused by fire departments you walk into most houses they got some sinks maybe a few cups now all of a sudden they're on fire and they say they need hundreds of gallons of water sprayed at them with hoses I just don't buy it and the thing is medical equipment shortages are a problem that Trump actually could help solve as a wartime president he has a major tool at his disposal for defense production act it enables the federal government to compel companies to prioritize the production of essential supplies people have been banking him to use that authority for weeks now but he only did so for the first time on Friday to force GM and only GM to make ventilators and it's not like the DPA can magic them out of nowhere it could still take months for companies to make them that is why it would have been nice if Trump and invoked it months ago you know when he saw it was a pandemic before everyone else and there is still so much more he could be doing with the DPA because it also allows the federal government to take charge of allocating materials like protective equipment and direct them to where they're most needed and without that happening right now states are competing against each other in a free-for-all as New York Governor Andrew Cuomo will tell you I'm competing with other states I'm bidding up other states on the prices because you have manufacturers who sit there and camp California offers them for dollars and they say well California offered $4 I offer for $5 another state calls in and/or for $6 it's it's not the way to do it no it isn't States obviously shouldn't have to hope they can outbid each other for boxes of life-saving equipment while the nation watches this is the government's response to a pandemic not storage wars again and again Trump has failed to give this crisis the seriousness it requires and make no mistake this is serious too often people discuss this in bloodless terms citing the eeriness of empty streets or closed schools but while the streets may be empty hospitals are increasingly bursting at the seams and the agony this virus causes is profound I'm sure you've been reading the same stories I have of the woman who's 44 year old husband died from this or the parents have a 25 year old who was placed in a medically induced coma and the health care workers on the frontlines know that this is just the beginning today is kind of getting worse and worse we had to get a refrigerated truck to store the bodies of patients who are dying we are right now scrambling to try to get a few additional ventilators I want people to know that this is bad people are dying we don't have the tools that we need in the emergency department and in the hospital to take care of them and and it's really hard yeah and this was always going to be hard but it actually didn't need to be this hard and that is why it's so profoundly disheartening that we're being led through this crisis by a man who may be less equipped to deal with this historical moment than anybody in recorded his three just watch what happened when one reporter pressed him on whether his Easter deadline was wise just so you understand are you ready I think there are certain people that would like it not to open so quickly I think there are certain people that would like it to do financially poorly because they think that would be very good as far as defeating me at the polls and I don't know if that's so but I do think it's so that a lot of that there are people in your profession that would like that to happen Alfa sake no one is thinking about you these guidelines did not revolve around you for once something has come along that is more toxic and more threatening than this president and somehow he's got stage Envy and look I know this isn't exactly the first time that I've criticized Donald Trump but I can't tell you how much I was rooting for him to do this better handling a crisis well is not inherently political take Ohio Governor Mike DeWine I disagree with him on basically everything but he's doing a pretty good job so far also if I'm honest I never really liked Andrew Cuomo before this but I will admit he's doing admirably well and I can't wait to get to the other side of this when I go back to being irritated by him again and I wish I could honestly say that we're going to be fine but I don't know that most of us will but not all of us and the number who won't is very much up in the air right now what is clear is that a crisis of this magnitude ends up revealing a lot about who you are as a nation and not all of what's being revealed is good these viruses disposing some central vulnerabilities in our medical system our political system and our national psyche hospitals that have spent years trying to operate at maximum efficiency and now watching that efficiency turning to scarcity our decentralized government which can be good when local leaders are empowered to protect their communities has so led to States fighting each other for resources and a patchwork quarantine strategy that will almost certainly draw out the agony of this crisis meanwhile we've been forced to confront some of the strangest darkest implications of our national mindset in which market worship threatens to become a death cult but at the same time this virus has exposed some reserves of real strength in this country we've seen extraordinary heroism kindness and ingenuity from everyone in essential lines of work from our grocery store workers to those making deliveries and especially our medical professionals who deserve among other things a parade whenever we're allowed to have parades again and the least we can do right now is help them right now what we all choose to do outside of our hospitals has a direct and significant impact on what happens inside of them the more strictly that we all follow social distancing guidelines to the maximum extent that we can the easier it will be for our health care workers to do their jobs it is the only way to counteract an appalling federal response that inspires a mixture of anger bafflement and disgust perhaps best summed up by my new favorite sign language interpreter who said if I may translate what the and now this you

Channel: LastWeekTonight

Views: 10,489,724

Keywords:

Id: ElIf2DBrWzU

Length: 19min 28sec (1168 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 29 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/HadMyWayWithHaddaway]

Mirror

Part 1: https://streamable.com/9j0e4

Part 2: https://streamable.com/j76rl

[u/MontaukWanderer]

I dunno about y’all, but without audiences, John just seemed much more natural and funnier with his deliveries. Some of the jokes were really hilarious.

That WTF sign language woman was the best part though.

[u/violue]

I really thought that at the end of the episode he was going to stand up and reveal he was in underwear or sweatpants or something. My heart is broken.

[u/UndyingCorn]

Without the audience Oliver feels more like a frank and honest news anchor than a late night comedy host. At this point I'm watching these videos for his candor and the info. It's a shame so few news shows can match Oliver when it comes to delivering info.

[u/Max_1995]

Best part from the episode:

"I'm the only one in the room, so you won't hear any laughter. Please don't feel awkward. It isn't for me. I've started with doing stand-up in England, so I'm used to telling jokes to silence."

[u/alexefi]

so are we gonna start witchhunt for that painting?

[u/PM_ME_YOR_PUSSY_GIRL]

HAMSTER2020

[u/rmesh]

Oh wow, he's (understandingly) very angry. I have never seen him so mad. And he was also tearing up towards the end.

Such a good video.

[u/snakebit1995]

Gosh i forgot about long haired John Oliver