Interviewer(s): Henry
Interviewee(s): Rosa, Karl

Henry: Yes. It does make it easier to transcribe.

Rosa: Oh, yeah.

Henry: And your real name won’t be used.

Rosa: You can hear in that matter.

Henry: You'll be it's everyone's going to be pseudonymized, and any reference to organizations are going to be- they won't be directly named.

Rosa: Cool. That's awesome.

Henry: So do you any questions for me before we get started? I think I told you about what this was about.

Rosa: Yeah. And I mean nothing. Just thank you for including me. I'm glad I get to help.

Henry: Well, thank you for helping.

Rosa: Really? Of course. Thanks for caring about this.

Henry: Let's see what findings I have.

Rosa: Sometimes it feels like nobody does so.

Henry: It's not that. Look, this is not the last crisis.

Rosa: No, and horror from the first. No, you're right.

Henry: It's not the last pandemic either. Unfortunately.

Rosa: Not even a little bit.

Henry: So let's get started, I guess. So, how old are you, Rosa?

Rosa: 39.

Henry: And where are you located?

Rosa: New Jersey. South Jersey. Camden County.

Henry: That where you work?

Rosa: Yes, I work in a system that covers [counties], which is the county to the north of that. And overall, I think that our catchment area is about 500,000 people. And it's a mostly suburban, like, single family and townhouse home area with a lot, a lot of different folks from different walks of life and like different economic realities.

There's some rural areas and some industrial stuff, but like it's mostly suburban.

Henry: What's your position?

Rosa: A paramedic

Henry: And how long have you been a paramedic?

Rosa: I've been a paramedic for a little over four years and I've been with the project that I'm with now, which is that's what we call them in New Jersey, is called the Paramedic Projects because they're governed by hospitals since June 25th of 2018. So now almost four years on the same project.

Henry: Is this your only job?

Rosa: It is my only paramedic position where I'm working as a clinician. I also teach, I teach paramedic students through a community college program that's affiliated with my project.

Henry: And were you doing both of these in January? 2020?

Rosa: I was.

Henry: Anything else? Any other jobs? Side gigs?

Rosa: No, no. Nothing to nothing super serious. Like, you know, I had worked a whole lot when I was a brand new paramedic. Just kind of trying to figure out what worked best for me. So I used to work in Pennsylvania as both a teacher and as a practicing clinician. But since my partner and I bought our house over here in South Jersey, like, it no longer made sense to cross the bridge and still keep up my certifications because there's definitely some utility to being ready to work in both states.

But like I don't currently practice over there, so I'm down to the like I guess one and a half jobs between full time paramedic practice and teaching.

Henry: Where’d you guys move to?

Rosa: [Location], we love it. Like right on the end of the PATCO line. It's awesome. Awesome. We bought our house in May of 2020 Basically right before everything got shakier when it kind of transitioned from being a buyer's market to a seller's market seemingly overnight. But that's a story for another time, you know, we can go in on that.

But we got we were really fortunate.

Henry: So can You tell me about when you first heard about COVID?

Rosa: Yes. So I remember seeing just some kind of glimmerings in the news about how there might be some sort of like respiratory illness somewhere in East Asia and that there was concern for there being seemingly the way it was covered in the news was like government driven measures to contain this pandemic and that we weren't sure where it came from, but we don't want it to get worse.

So here's what we're going to do. And then I feel like there were a couple of things that mentioned it. Maybe having consequences outside of of China, but I don't think that they were very clear. And my biggest memory of when this, like, really seemed real to me was somewhere around like between the first and second week of March when the sentiment in the street seemed to be that things were going to shut down, unquote.

And it's going to be like it is in China. [PII] where he was there at the time. He was doing stroke research. So we were joking that he was like patient zero. And because he's so healthy, is so healthy, nobody would notice if he had COVID. Like, we were all trying to laugh it off.

Like, I, I definitely remember that. I was kind of like, well, I don't know, guys know, but I also didn't have enough information to go on. So you know, he came back from the West Coast about three weeks before this time that I'm describing. Didn't think anything of it. There was no restrictions on travel like no concern. He doesn't remember hearing anything about it.

But then I remember kind of the drumbeat growing and people just starting to talk about it on the job or, you know, like patients would ask, do you know anything about this? And say, I don't know. And everything was business as usual. So one day we were sitting around, I think it was March 13th, actually. We

Karl: and I were saying you know, we should probably do something social because it could be a little while if this is real, before we do something social.

Rosa: So we sat down and made a short list of like where we might like to go. And we settled on a bar that we really like in Burlington that has really good wings. And we went and I had a Mardi Gras fish sandwich because it was around the holiday, drank a couple beers and we were like, Well, I guess this is it.

So you see, maybe guys, you know, we don't know. Then I went back to work and went to work and everything was fine. The everything was on the next serious conversation I had about this was the end of March, and I feel like I don't remember exactly how it happened. I can't remember a chain of events with it, but I remember the perception intensifying that this was going to be real.

But we don't know how and we don't know why yet. And one of our chiefs asked me, like, Rosa, what are you really think about this? Because people they talked to calm themselves down, I guess, especially in my line of work. And they they'll say these things that come off, like really flippant or they'll say these things that come off, like, misguided or I don't think they are.

I think that they're just expressing themselves and we don't often get listened to. So I don't really find myself bothered by it. But very often it gets to be like the afterschool special music in South Park. It gets quiet, people. Rosa, what do you think? And then I'll be like, oh, well, so so I'm kind of that person and I said to one of the chiefs, I said, Honestly, I think if you do this right, you're not going to have a staff within ten days.

And I'm like, if you take this seriously, you are not going to be able to safely and ethically staff the MICU. And he said, OK, and I was like, Now you know what? I think they did nothing. They did absolutely nothing. So in the next month, the only change they made was we're going to do social distancing by having you assigned to being the same partner with the same partner in the same station for a month.

Great. So that was kind of how like what is COVID took shape in my mind early on, started as a news story from over there. Oh, there's this thing going on elsewhere, which is very typical American news coverage thing, in my opinion, and then conspicuous lack of discussion. Somebody who did cross-country travel in a medical research setting, you know, pertinent to my job is Karl's job.

No issue. You know, nobody was worried about nobody was worried about it. And then come back a little worried about things, but not so much that I would want to change my behavior more that I want to get one more chance to socialize in, which tells you where my priorities are. And then being asked a really ominous question and giving as honest an answer as I could like that was kind of how it took shape for me.

Does that answer your question?

Henry: It does. Why do you think there is that conspicuous lack of discussion?

Rosa: I don't know.

My opinion is that there may be some sort of cultural phenomenon here in America, like capitalism and this is like 100% my opinion, where people feel they have the ability to just kind of like stick their head in the sand and like let stuff go on all around them, you know, and they say, well, it's not real life.

I don't believe in it, you know? And I think that some people might the closest I've seen to people really trying to talk about this is like the discourse around like privilege, you know, or, you know, maybe even bringing it back to like, you know, American exceptionalism kind of ideas. Like if you could morph that into some sort of like domestic cultural perspective where it doesn't matter if it doesn't happen to me, you know, like we that's a whole thing.

And I think people just want to believe what they want to believe. And I've definitely tracked that pattern and tendency in my own experiences. As this situation has evolved. Like I've seen myself doing that, too. So, you know, I'm not really trying to say, well, other people do this and this is why I think there's something I do it to my mind for sure.

But where did it come from? Like, where did I learn that? You know, I certainly didn't learn it at home, you know, not directly with my parents. It was like, hey, you know, care about other people get don't be put upon about it, but care, you know? And then I've definitely been like, well, I'm not bothered by this, so I don't need to.

But yeah, I think that that's why people didn't talk about it. I think they didn't want it to be true. And I also think that this is more this is not very nice, but I'll say it. I think that there's like a lack of imagination among people here. And that's so sad because consider how innovative and incredible our country is.

Yeah, we have definitely screwed up a whole lot of things, but none of this would be possible if there weren't people with like slick rick level imaginations, like getting stuff done at every aspect in our history. Well, where are those people now? Like, really the best we can do is like, Jeff Bezos. Like, come on, guys. You know, we could have done so much better in this whole thing, but I think that people don't care.

I think they want to be in their silos. I think they want to have their little world and they want to craft at how they want to craft it. And I don't think they care to interact with other people. I don't think they care to consider other people's welfare or other people's perspectives. I don't think that they see it as relevant to theirs.

I don't you know, and my experiences as a paramedic like practicing going in and out of people's houses during all this time and, you know, basically being stuck hearing what they think, which is fine. They need somebody to talk to. You know, that's kind of cemented that in my perspective. I just don't think they care.

Henry: But at some point you said the sentiment in the street changed, right?

Rosa: It did. Oh, yeah. And I don't know if that was like related to increasing news coverage, you know, or what. Like, I don't really know. I kind of wonder if some of it was maybe, you know, because I definitely feel like a bit of an outsider in my line of work. It's I don't know how the working class got so red in our society, but it happened very fast and it happened during our lifetime.

And it's really scary.

But I'm I'm like a stranger in a strange land in my line of work. Like, there isn't really anybody who sees things the way I do. And a lot of ways, which is fine because it makes for interesting conversation when it's, you know, when it's germane. But I think a lot of people were saying a lot of like weird shit like, oh, the China virus, like the Wuhan flu.

Like I was around a lot of stuff like that. And people were, I think, trying to, you use you were you were going to resist this. Like, this is tyranny. You look, you could do that. Like that kind of stuff was like really early and that stayed, I'd say about a good 25% of the people that I spend time with at my job.

Like that's how they feel about things and I think that what changed was, you know, just kind of like increasing incidence of like the word COVID19, like being shown up in the news and, you know, like a lack of information and a lack of like a clear plan, you know, led to people kind of just leaning on their own experiences of radicalization.

So like kind of just bushwhack their way through it. I mean, that's it's grim, but that's what I saw happen. and a lot of people never change their minds about it.

You got a lot of we got a lot of dead paramedics and a lot of people never change their mind about it, It's all bullshit.

Henry: We thought it was real.

Rosa: Yeah. Oh, yeah. A lot of people that, like, totally don't think they think it's not real.

It's pretty real. You know, but yeah, I think it was it was pretty quick. Like it was definitely right around the first or second week of March that it seemed like and I really do think that most this was related to the news. And just like it's like it's almost like something happened to show people how ill prepared we were for this.

And not too many people had the will to realize that what they were experiencing was an awareness that we are completely unprepared for this. so then instead of just being like, Holy shit, we have no idea what to do in this situation, it was just this spiral like spiraling out of just like perspectives that are just to me, like the common denominator with all this perspectives is just like radicalization.

I'm going to think what I want. I'm going to do what I want. I don't care, you know, like everybody else be damned. Like, I don't care if this is real. If it's real, it's real. It was not it's not like you know. Yeah. And there wasn't there was no plan. There was no plan at all. You know, like I said to somebody in leadership, they asked me what I thought, and I was like, you're not going to be able to staff they didn't.

They were like, you know, what is that? Like, Wow. I mean, that was the closest thing I had to an interaction where someone with greater proximity to power to me, you know, which is most people. But like someone basically admitted by just simply acknowledging what I said, that, yep, they had no clue. And I saw that behavior writ large, you know, in our government's response to it.

You see it now, you know, the fast forward a while, it's like, oh, hey, you know, you should get like seven vaccines. Well, and the rest of the world has how much access?

Henry: Not sterilizing vaccine anyway. So in a macro sense is not really going to get us out of the crisis.

Rosa: It's not.

Henry: It’s only going to Reduce hospital load.

Rosa: Right. You can't vaccinate your way out of this like- you know-

Henry: Yes. Thank you. That's what I’ve been saying; the policies, uh, seem to be what's expedient and what is doable versus what is necessary.

Rosa: Absolutely. And I think it comes down to priorities, you know, and I just don't think that there has ever been a sense of shared priorities. And there definitely was a chance, I think, where we could have done that. And it was in that time. And I really think it has to do with the shifting news cycle. I mean, just one person's perspective.

But, you know, I think that that's probably what it was kind of a conscious choice to leave people to their own devices and then just watch it spiral out of control, at least here, you know, because this is where I've been.

Henry: So can you tell me more about the time when you realized that there was no plan?

Rosa: Oh, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I think the main thing was we were so late. Not that I'm like a huge fan of like wearing a mask. I mean, like I'm a sensory avoidant autistic person. And I have some problems communicating. I don't think I enjoyed wearing a full face respirator and a Tyvek suit and official to tell people I'm sorry, but your loved one has died and there is nothing I can do to fix this, which I did no fewer than a hundred times that summer.

And it's yes. You know, and that's sucked like that sucked a lot because I worry that people can't understand me anyway. I mean, that's my own personal thing. But the fact is like, I could really it would be helpful if I could see you. And if you could see me, that would help me a lot. But I had to deal with it because what am I going to do?

Tell you? You know, look, my job isn't testing us. You know, my job is asking us to do this silly thing, you know, which is a story for another time, so I think it's too much. I'm going to back up a little bit. The fact that people didn't start attempting to normalize wearing a mask until the fucking summer where, I mean, you know, you are very, very well traveled.

You are very experienced in things of the world and like why people do what they do. Like, you've direct experience with this from being around other people and being in other places, like I, cause especially compared to you, I only read about it, you know, I don't really know what it's like in a lot of places in the world. I don't really know how people make their life decisions directly.

I can read about it, but I don't see it. You know what I mean? It's my understanding that in many places in the world, particularly where the pandemic is said to have originated, it's a normal behavior. If you are sick and you can't, you have to go do your thing. Or if you don't want to get sick, like it's not that deep to wear a mask.

Like it's not that deep, you know, from what I understand. But here, especially where I'm from, like I grew up in what people would call the inner city. You wear a face covering, going into a store, you’re going to be told to get the fuck out you know, and if you don't get the fuck out, like you're going to have a real issue.

And, you know, people are often seen wearing face coverings. It's like being like up till no good, you know, like they're doing some sort of clandestine thing. Like we saw the police murder of a young man in Colorado. Hi, Karl. I'm just like, yeah, that story because he he looked weird. His neighbor ordered a hit on him. Elijah McLean, you know, he was wearing a ski mask and his neighbor thought he look weird.

So now we just ask all these people who are vulnerable in other ways to just wear a mask. And now this is like four months after, you know, we could have said like one sentence, listen, we don't know what this is. We do know that it's respiratory. Here's what you can do. Cover your face when you go out.

It's unavoidable that we have to go to Panera Bread or whatever it is we want to do. You know, I guess so, like this is what we can do. There could have been a moment where people could have owned it and said, we don't know what this is, but we do know that this works. And that didn't happen.

Until like the summer.

Henry: That should have happened in February.

Rosa: Oh, my goodness. Yes. If not sooner, if not sooner. You know, and I think that that was something about the barn door being closed, you know, with the horse being out of it. Like that's when I really realized on like a larger level. And then, you know, they had us wearing like preposterous amounts of PPE. But this was apparently the same thing.

The old timer said that it was the same thing with Ebola and like swine flu. Like they had all they all had like PAPRs and stuff like these like big like respirators helmets. And they gave us all this, like, stockpile of stuff so that all the people who had been paramedics for a long time were like, this isn’t that deep?

It's going to blow over. Like, this is what we did last time. This is those were the most sensible of us. But I realized that my profession and my project had no plan when two things happened. Firstly, instead of actually testing us when they were able to or doing like meaningful things to help limit our exposure to stuff, they started bending the rules.

So all these waivers came from the state to say that you could work with like one paramedic and one EMT on a transporting ambulance. They tried to break us up and spread us thin at the expense of the integrity of the system. They gave all these things to say, Oh, well, you can stay outside the nursing home or the home of someone who's COVID positive and wait for the BLS to say if they need you or not.

So there were people seven, eight, nine, ten, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 minutes outside a facility standing there waiting for a cancel. There's a case in L.A. Where there's a person who's in cardiac arrest. There's like a big lawsuit like it was the cop was on like the security camera, like pushing the bed, you know, of a patient who's being resuscitated out through the doorway to the paramedics were just standing there like, oh, it's cool, but we're not going in.

I saw that every day. I saw that every day, you know, and then what does my work do as far as putting me as keeping us safe? They ask us to self screen. So they talked a little thing up the door and they called it fit to work. And it was if you have any of these symptoms, you need to call your chief and go home.

Henry: And the symptoms would be like what? You've been to China and you have a fever.

Rosa: It's if you have like a sore throat or a runny nose or GI distress or a cough, at no point did they ask us to log to report anything that they asked for accountability to another person. Nothing. By clocking in, you have certified that you are fit to work. that was the best they could do you think they would.

Henry: Do you think they were worried about staffing issues? Why do you think they did that?

Rosa: I know they were worried about staffing issues. and they were worried. [crosstalk with Karl]

Henry: I’ll run through what I found at the end of the interview.

Karl: Awesome. But one think you're speaking real truth a couple of months ago, because I remember at the beginning of the pandemic in March and in late February.

There was a point where it did seem like everyone was kind of on the same page and willing to listen.

Like before it all got polarized

Rosa: that was the moment.

Karl: and the messaging could have made all the difference.

Rosa: Yeah. And they, they they just stood in the middle of the field like, you know, it's like the little kid in soccer kicks the ball you know, at midfield. It's like, I did it. No, you have to run after it, you know, and that did not happen.

Henry: Why do you think it didn't happen?

Rosa: I don't think that we had the political will. [crosstalk]. I don't think that we had the political will to do it. I think that we are. And maybe I'm getting old when I say this because I used to hate when people say this like including like folk of a more left persuasion.

I just don't think we're unified enough. and looking back, I wonder if in the times in history where I was taught like coming up and you were taught coming up that we were unified, like let's do a big war effort and like we're going to do things to get us out of this depression hole that we're in. We're going to go kill the Nazis and like we're going to beat the South and end slavery.

Like, I wonder if maybe we weren’t unified then either, you know, like it's pretty weird to look back through that and kind of accept that possibility that maybe maybe it's always been like this here. I don't know.

Henry: Pretty strong Nazi presence before World War Two.

Rosa: Oh, yeah, absolutely.

Henry: I mean.

Rosa: That sentiment's always been here. I mean, that sentiment is part of what enabled us to decimate the indigenous population for economic reasons here. You know, that's an old sentiment. That's old as the hills. Like, there's probably been like that since there was a thousand people in the world. There were always like a small percentage of people who were like, We don't have anything to stand on.

So we're just going to, like, Trump up this idea that we're better than everybody else and like, you can agree under pain of death, but occupiers always lose. Right?

Henry: Well, it might take a while.

Rosa: I guess we'll find out.

Henry: Yeah. America's been around for how many years, now?

Rosa: As a business entity. I guess you something like 400? khkhkh.

But, yeah, that's what I think. That's why I think that we lack. Like, this is the simplest thing I can get it down to is that I think we lack the we lack the political will.

Henry: Well. I thought I thought we lack the capacity right now is my perception, because my logic was that, I mean, I was in China up until, I think like January 15th ish and so we saw, you know, things started getting looked down. And this is right before Chinese New Year. Like, this is like the one holiday they have and the government basically shut down the country.

And, you know, they wouldn't have done this if it wasn't necessary.

Rosa: Right.

Henry: And they also I mean, not to cast aspersions on them or anything, but they also, you know, they didn't do… like, people left the country with Covid.

Rosa: Oh, yeah, sure.

Henry: And if this is necessary and COVID has made it to America, which it had.

Rosa: Oh, I'm sure.

Henry: But we didn't. We couldn't do something like that. We we don't our government we don't have the grid management system that they do. We don't have the political enforcers on that local level that they do. I mean, the cops don't really- I mean, they that's not really what they do.

Rosa: No, it's not. And they do everything they can to not do things like that because we have a structure. I'm going to get out of my depth fast because like, not a lawyer. I'm just like lawyer respecter, but like we don't have a structure that permits that. Like, you can't stop somebody walking down the street here and detain them.

That's not a thing. Like, you have to have reasoning for that. And we also have a for the sake of brevity, like shit starting tendency in our culture where if someone sees that happening, they're going to be like, Yo, what are you doing? You know, they're going to videotape, they're going to like do whatever it is they do.

You know, like you're saying that it wouldn't have happened if it wasn't necessary over there. People over here were saying Whoa, they don't even care about their economy. Like, man, they need that holiday. Like, all those people have to work and like, they need to make their money. Are you kidding? Like, what about morale? Like, can you believe that these guys are shutting this down?

Like, they people were very quick, you know.

Henry: You had that conversation on your job?

Rosa: Oh, yeah. People said a lot of stuff like that. Like, they don't they don't care about the people who live there. Look at this like they're just going to show everybody out. How authoritarian can you be? Like, there are many people saying many things like that here. And I was like had you considered the possibility that this is like a deadly thing.

You know, there's a lot of precedent for that, like many times. Has this happened? You know what? I'm sorry, but that was a kind of where the I think the beginnings of like, well, is the economy worth dying for? You know, like sub conversation in all of this started?

Henry: Were there any what was when in those conversations, is there any consideration of what would happen if the virus came to America?

Rosa: I don’t think people cared. And I think that people like that there very seldom would people mention it, you know, and like it was more it seemed like it was being made into this abstraction as if we don't have a global economy right? but as if it hadn't possibly already been here. And the only time I think that people started thinking in a sense, I know we're jumping around the time a lot, but I think it started getting real in the popular in the working person population that I am of that I spent my time.

And when we started seeing sick patients, which was like the middle of April, people started kind of speculating and saying, well, you know, maybe this is real. And there started to be this kind of like retrospective analysis of our small group, which is approximately 90 full time paramedics and probably about 110 part time are pretty and paramedics and I mean you try social distancing that, you try contact tracing that like most people have like four or five jobs.

In my line of work, I'm very, very fortunate. Double income, no kids, no debt previously educated my husband too like we're we're like set we are not typical for our line of work like as far as the reality that we live in very atypical you know most people I know have a $450,000 mortgage and three kids and make less than $100,000 a year.

You know that's not a problem that we have, fortunately but anyway back to it, people started doing kind of like a conversation about what I guess would amount to some sort of like epidemiological analysis of like, well, what is Covid’s relationship to us? Probably around second week of April is when it kind of started getting real like as a sickness.

And people started saying, Oh, well, you know what's funny? Remember when everybody was sick in like November and December, you know, and like everybody got there and it's true, like, there was like this cold that, like, ripped through our workplace. And most of us were OK. I don't remember getting sick at all. You know, one of my friends was had like horrible GI stuff and like ended up in the hospital like a bunch of people had like this, like, lingering respiratory thing.

And a small handful of people reported lasting exercise and tolerance after that. Many people just distributed it to like the holiday grind, you know, like, oh, I just have to, like, work to pay for my kids Christmas presents or whatever. It's very typical stuff because that's what their priorities are. And I nobody really gave a thought to it.

But then people started come around like the middle of it and the April people started saying, Oh, well, I bet I probably had COVID because this is kind of what it sounds like. And I must be good now. I'm good. I have previous immunity. Like I don't have to worry because I was sick in the fall and like this had in the end of the winter.

It had to be covid. It OK. That was like a big transition too. Perhaps a little bit off topic, but.

Henry: No, it's not at all. You're not the first person to mention either the weird g.I. Virus thing that was going around in late December or, you know, this desire to say like once COVID hits among, you know, among medical workers, you sort of say, oh, well, you know, I might have already had it and kind of remove yourself from the uncertainty.

Rosa: As though 90% of adults don't have latent Epstein-Barr virus. Right. You know, like what's a little MS between friends, right? Like, it's OK, I can have it. I can develop type one diabetes at 45, you know, like that's not going to happen, you know,

Henry: I'm healthy.

Rosa: Yeah, like, oh yeah, I'm good. Like, don't worry about me, right? Yeah.

Like the there is a staggering lack of health literacy among medical providers.

Henry: Among your, among your cohort though.

Rosa: Yeah.

Henry: Was there any reaction to the, you know, to the news out of Italy?

Rosa: Yes. It took upon primarily a clinical and like practical interest. I found a group on social media called Airway Management in the COVID era that was like driven by people from northern Italy who were doing pretty interesting shit from like a critical care perspective to try to deal with some of the what we had understood at the time to be like the hallmark symptomatology and, you know, the kind of like overarching presentation of like what is a sick COVID patient.

So I helped a bunch of my friends who care about clinical stuff to that with what they were doing in Italy from an advanced life support or critical care perspective, meaning putting people on ventilators early you know, and they did the same thing in New York people tried really hard to adopt that here. Like we had early directives to resuscitate sedate, slash induced, paralyze and intubate set COVID patients.

Myself and a few dissenters said, I don't think you want to do that. Where you're like, What's the big deal? You know? And I was like, I think that we're speeding these people's fall. Like, if it's pneumonia and you put them on a ventilator, they're going to develop acute respiratory distress syndrome and it's going to be unrecoverable. And especially if we're worried that there could be a hematologic aspect to this disease, like if the failure is oxygenation.

Like, I'm not really sure that intubating them and transitioning how they ventilate from the inside to the from the outside to the inside is really going to do the job. I don't think we want to do that. So that was more what people were worried about. It's like, God, why are so many people dying over there? You know?

And then it became a question of like, what are they doing to manage this? And we saw the same thing happening in New York.

Henry: What did you so so where did you get that information? Like what were you basing your position on there?

Rosa: Direct accounts from people who were working in these environments and some like little like white papers, like pre-publication things that would come out, you know. Yeah. From all over the place. You know, this is hey, this is something we're doing case studies. Like there's that's a great thing about social media is that there's a lot of information. And the thing about social media is there's a lot of information.

But, you know, being able to perform appropriate critical appraisal which is not a common skill among paramedics. But I tried to spread the gospel. I'm like, hey, do you want to learn how to actually do this? Like, that's why I get invited all the parties but it's it's true, though. So like, having access to all that information was great.

And then there was a there were a number of things that sprung up out of that, like noticing what was happening in Italy and then what was starting to happen in New York. And like drawing the parallels, people started really talking clinically with each other about how to manage these patients. Like, it took a distinctly clinical turn around that time, like when stuff was coming out of Italy.

Henry: Were the conversations solely clinical focused?

Rosa: For the most part, yeah. And I think I fell into this too. Like doing the job at that point sucked so much that I, I accepted my clinical nerd silo for like a good six months. Oh yeah, that's true.

Henry: I can see why you would do that.

Rosa: 100%. Like I went like full on just like let's talk about happy hypoxia. What do you think? It's blood clots. Oh, like, why is it like this? Oh, yeah, I was all over it. Like, I went ham on trying to understand why why critical COVID patients are critical and what can be done for them. And I saw a lot of them.

I had 58 Covid Patient Airways and critically ill people in the year 2020.

Henry: Wow, so you tubed 58 people. Wow.

Rosa: And I also by the way never got COVID. Interesting huh?

Henry: I too never got COVID but I you know I made my plan, I had my strategy. I was going into I don't know what your strategy was but when I was in I was in Thailand right before I was in Thailand up through mid-March for having come back to care for my parents who got COVID. And I was like alright, what's my plan?

So I went to the Thai pharmacy and the Thai pharmacies they have one side of the Western medicine, one side the Eastern Meds.

Rosa: Nice.

Henry: And I went to the eastern side and I got some of every word that said it did anything for respiratory illness.

Rosa: Fantastic. Very nice.

Henry: And I took all of them. Throughout. I have a bottle here.

Rosa: But it's great. Yeah. Herbalism it is man.

Henry: [indistinct]

Rosa: Oh, you're set with that. Yeah. In good shape.

Henry: I learned later it's active on the AC two receptor, which I think there's ACE-2 receptor. But also I've seen reports that people taking this like for chronic Lyme still get coverage. I don't really know how much it does, but the only thing that works on everything is the placebo effect, so you just have to make yourself believe, really.

Rosa: Think happy thoughts. Clap your hands very well. Come back right.

Henry: Clap your hands if you believe in America.

Rosa: Oh, my God, I love them. So does that answer your question about that? Because to me, like, the shape of the news from Italy was like less of a public health thing at that point for me and for the fellow paramedics who are like my people, like that was what we were focused on at that time. I can look back and I can think of it a little bit differently, but at that moment it was strictly like, what can we learn clinically from this?

That was really like my only concern.

Henry: Was there any any concern, though, about like the scope of this or the societal effects?

Rosa: I think at that point what was going on in New York City was like and North Jersey was like neck and neck with that, you know, because we had we had experienced our first like major outbreak, or at least in our perception, the thing that was pertinent to us as paramedics was what had happened in Washington state, in the nursing home.

You know, that little story, I think kind of like kind of wormed its way into our consciousness. And that was I don't like I can't remember exactly what the date of that was, but it was pretty early on. And it was like the first document I've ever if memory serves, that was the first documented outbreak of COVID 19 in the U.S. in a congregate setting. It was called like the Kirkwood Center or something like that.

I can't remember exactly it. I could look it up and find it be like, Oh yeah, that's it. But that we had talked about that and you know, it was note we started noting how many congregate care facilities there are in each of our like paramedic catchment areas. 27 in the medic 41 area directly north of me, you know, but yeah, that by that point we had really started to, in my view, use the clinical side of it as kind of like a life raft you know, to get us through the fact that our work experiences were just absolutely fucking demoralizing.

Because for many of us, you know, now all of a sudden you're teaching your kids at home, you know, like you are caring for your elders or, you know, other folks who have like higher support needs in your life. Who may not be able to adapt to like things changing. There's no one on the roads. It was like super spooky.

Like going to the grocery store was hard, like people. I used to say that people were like looked around like stingrays. They didn't know, like, how to talk to each other. They had no idea what was going on at all. Karl was like, I know you and I love you. And I'm going to stop you from catching a charge by going to the grocery store.

He's like, because you're dealing with a lot at work. So you stay home and you fix your face and you don't run the risk of like stepping on a landmine because someone else doesn't know how it is. Because like because you're Southwest Philly is going to come out and you're going to unload on somebody because you're stressed. So let me just deal with that.

And I'm all like, Is this true love? Because I think it is, you know? But now, like, that was huge. Like, it was so amazing to be able to have a partner to who we can work together on supporting each other through all of this. And we did. But that was that definitely didn't seem like it was the case for most of us.

I mean, a huge amount of us have had like meaningful break ups and like divorces out of this and like lots like deaths of loved ones and stuff. But for me, like, I really, really held to the, the clinical aspect of this as like a personal flotation device. I did.

Henry: So I mean, you've answered this already, but can you just summarize how your perception of COVID changed before the first wave hit?

Rosa: Yes.

I kind of never really bought the idea that it was this like localized thing, you know, that it was this thing that only came from China, that it was this thing that only affected, you know, people who were old and sick, that it only affected people with comorbidities. Like, for me, I was like yo, like, that is big able ism.

Like, let's not do that. You know, I saw all from the get, how vulnerable, how so many Americans are. You know, like one of the saddest things in my view is the cardiac arrest, survivors dinner, where the providers meet the patient who walked out of the hospital and you see these pictures of us. We look like shit. You know, the vast majority of paramedics I mean, I put on £70 in the last five years it's drastic and I can still run and lift heavy and like do what I need to do.

Like I'm pretty healthy. But like, you know, like most Americans like I have a BMI over 30, you know, huge risk factor for COVID. We know that, you know, and like the way people eat here, the way people have this, like what the old doctors would call like a sedentary lifestyle, right? You know, like they they sit. They sit.

They don't move. They can't. They're isolated, you know. And I think that my perception was this is in no way, shape or form some sort of like individual risk assessment thing. And it's not going to be for a very long time, if ever. You know, I think that what changed is this is not going away. You know, that it's going to blow up everybody's thought like every person is going to need to fundamentally reassess where they're at as a result of this, regardless of whether they get COVID or not.

Like, that's what changed for me. Is that it's not intellectually honest to look at it as like a purely clinical thing, to look at it as like a purely epidemiological thing, to look at it as a political thing. You know, no, like this is it's like a common denominator almost, is that we all are going to need to, like, really look at this and we're going to need to face the fact that it's going to be impossible to have a functional relationship with the phenomenon known as COVID19 on an individual level that's like that doesn't have anything to do with your context.

And I think that's the biggest thing that change I see. I don't know too many people who feel that way is that.

Henry: I think you've answered this also. But why? Why don't other people feel the same way we can?

Rosa: I don't think they want to. I don't think they want to. I think they can't be like, you know, arsed to think about things beyond themselves. I think they're afraid. I think fear is a really big part of it. I mean, look at us. Look at the society like the biggest uprisings against you. Know, racialized police brutality in the history of the world and what springs up, but like a fucking frank neo fascist movement in support of like the aggrieved and marginalized minority known as armed agents of the state and have qualified like, fucking kidding me, like, you know, like, what's it, you know, like what?

Like, listen to yourself. Like, you really believe that? Like, God, right? That's how lost like, I just want to be like, OK, are you lost? Like, do you need some help? Like, you listen to a lot of people and they it's I can see why so many people become like some jerks and they get like angry at other people and they're just like I'm just going to do me and take care of myself.

But you can try that. It's not going to work very well. Like, life is very much a team sport and you got to be in for the good part. If you're going to be in for the bad part and you got to be in for the bad part, you're going to be in for the good part. Like I was fortunate to be raised with that attitude, not that I'm some kind of like shining example of a good person.

Like I'm pretty gray area, but like I, I don't think people have like if we don't have the political will and all the infrastructure like you were saying and I think some of that is a little bit of a sidebar, but there's I think there's like a failure of federalism or like a failure of the legacy of federalism in the U.S. that needs to be looked into.

You know what the Covid response turfing everything to the states. Yeah, but there's something to learn from that. But like, I think turfing everything to individuals and saying that that adds up into a collective sentiment or response is not it's not possible in our political economy.

Henry: Yeah, well, people seem to I mean, that that's the strategy we took. And I mean, did people believe this was going to work?

Rosa: Yes, I think they did.

Henry: So why?

Rosa: I think that they got like what dog trainers would call like bootleg reinforcement, you know, like, why does my dog always read the trash mean? Well, why can your dog reach the trash can? You know, when you have poor health literacy and a lot of abundance of like trinkets and credit and, you know, like what I think is like a false sense of security in America.

It's like, yeah, you have you have a very nice house. You a very nice car. You know, you do, but you have them and the bank owns them. You know, we have a lot of illusions of being OK that we tie up with our like ability to consume things in this country. Like, that's a huge part of our culture.

And we have concomitant with that. The invitation to like not question that so much as to question why other people are such failures because they have less, you know, or they're more marginalized. It's like, oh, well, you just must like suck at life if you have like relatives who are incarcerated or if you live in a multigenerational house and like you have poor employment prospects and like a low wage floor in what you do, like that must be a personal failing of yours.

I mean, and Marc Fisher, who I totally love like has written a lot about this, and I just basically just like, I don't know, I just read Marc Fisher, don't listen to me, but like, he's gone too soon, that guy. But, you know, I think that that there's like a whole lot of betrayal all of American political will, you know, through us falling into that trap of like, I can just buy or like swipe or borrow my way out of feeling like I need to do what I need to do.

I mean, the vast majority of people I know, they don't know what plants grow here. They don't know what's poison and what's medicine. I do. You know, like they don't know how to grow their own food. I do. you know, and a lot of people who would be prepared for something like this in their own estimation, you know, like the right wing gun nut contingent.

Right they had some of the most just the most concentrated and potent, just abject ignorance during this entire thing. I was stunned, not surprised because my own biases are like, well, fuck that whole sentiment, you know what I mean? Like, I'll cop your loot when your blood pools, dude, you know, like, I'm not afraid of people like that at all.

Like, at all. I mean, like, like, no, you know, like, they don't do anything for me. I don't care, you know, come and take who's going to come and take it. Your fucking buddies and blue like you guys, you know, and it's just I'm not worried about people like that at all. But at the same time, I was pretty stunned to see the level of ignorance in all that.

Like, we had I think. Sorry, go ahead. [crosstalk]

Henry: Go ahead and tell me the example.

Rosa: This. OK, so and I think this will probably help like so very early on in all this. And I want to say this is probably like a summer, like maybe like the beginning to the middle of the summer. The questioning public, such as they were completely seeded the entire terrain and substance of the debate about, quote, lockdowns, unquote, and the whole thing.

Firstly, before you even start talking about that, I think that that's hell is that our lockdown on the East Coast and in New Jersey and whatnot in particular is other places reopening like, you know, like I mean.

Henry: We never did a real lockdown. I mean, we tried, but we tried and we had a wave of, you know, basically like an uprising that almost led to civil war later. I mean.

Rosa: We dud. We sure did.

Henry: I mean, do you think this this ignorance stems from from American exceptionalism or do you think there's other factors at play? What do you think.

Rosa: I think it's a fear that American exceptionalism doesn't mean what people think it means.

Henry: OK, that’s a good answer.

Rosa: I mean, that's yeah. Like I think that that's the short answer is like you keep saying these words, American exceptionalism. I don't think they mean what you think they mean.

Yeah, that's the short answer.

You know, pay no attention to the failing state behind the curtain.

I mean, come on. Two and a half years into this, the Dems have a triple majority. We don't even have, like, safety net health care for everyone. Like, stop it. You know, like, OK. Yeah, well, you know, it's like, yeah, I'm proud of that by a lot, but, like, really.

Henry: I mignt wanna to the doctor at some point now that I have insurance. OK. So now just a few wrap up questions. I think people I think you've answered many of these these interview questions I’ve listed without me actually asking them.

Rosa: Awesome.

Henry: So what would you like to tell me about the way you felt in early 20, 20 from like January to March.

Rosa: I I was kind of conflicted because firstly I felt like, man, I thought I truly felt my own like lost potential. I was like if I and then and that's such like a pretentious thing because like I take care of people for a living. I mean, look at my library. Like I have amazing life of the mind. Like I'm good, like I'm a good teacher, I'm a good paramedic.

Like lost potential, so what do you mean? But that's my ego talking. And I was like, shit. Like, if there were, if I would just play ball a little bit more than I do, and if I wasn't so butthurt with like so many things in the world and like the establishment or whatever, I could have been much more involved with this and I could have been making a more meaningful difference like man, like people my age and you know, around that are so checked out from the way decisions get made in our world that like, I kind of wanted to blame myself for not being more engaged in like a formal way with how things are

done. I felt like a total lack of, you know, ability to engage or have influence. I was like, Man, all right. You know, I guess we've just ceded it all to these, like, dumb political parties. Like, here we are like, this is not going to end well. Like, what could I have done differently or better? And then there is the other part of me that was like, all right, well, game on.

You know, like, you wanted to be a paramedic. You know, I wanted the call and for my sins they gave me one, you know, like some, like, [indistinct] right? You know, like, I guess this is going to be I'm going to be a paramedic in a pandemic. Oh, you know, and then if that kind of like morphed into two things, like by the the stage that we're at now, and that was number one.

Well, so about those years, I'm not using what would I like to do about that, you know, because we have a hurting world. And perhaps if I can get through this, you know, there are other things that I can do and do them well, you know, and do them with feeling, necessity, and composition, you know, like maybe I can do that.

You know, maybe there's more I can do. That's cool. Like, that's hope, right? And then the other side of it is I don't have to worry, like in like an existential sense. I think it's fair for paramedics in a pandemic. You know, we adapted all our teaching, like we protected our students. We did so much, you know what I mean?

With with very little. It sounds weird in like the Land of Abundance to say we did a lot with a little. But we have a lot of trash, we have a lot of trinkets, we have a lot of bullshit. Like we don't have a lot of like unified sentiment. We don't have a clear plot. We never did. But I don't have to worry about what I would do in those storied times in history.

That's not a concern of mine. I know what I did. I know what had to be done, and I did it. And I didn't stop until it was done. You know, I went into people's houses who would, like, pull up my mask and cough in my face and tell me like, oh, you know, cough. It's bullshit. It's just the flu.

And like, it's China trying to overthrow us. And, like, I dealt with a lot of that, you know, and I dealt with people who needed to be resuscitated, you know, sedated, slash induced, paralyzed and intubated, who were telling me it's not real, it's not real, it's not real. And I'm like, you know, what is real is that your blood oxygen saturation is 70% and your respiratory rate is 40, sir, you know, and like, I don't want you to suffocate to death.

Like, I have a chance to save you. Would you like me to try, you know, like I'm seeing a lot of, like, people with some cardiac arrest now. And, you know, I'm seeing a lot of people with very strange, you know, presentations and I worry myself because I work in a failing health care culture. And, you know, though I've never had COVID, like, why exactly can I not outrun my diet?

Why exactly do I, like, not look so good and not feel so good? At the end of the day? What if we're all sick? You know, what if it's going to be another 911 type thing where I'm going to die in five years because of everything that happened to me in that time? What then? Because I will tell you, our workplaces did everything they could, everything they could to blame us when we would get sick, everything they could. It’s disgusting.

Henry: […]

Rosa: Yeah, like it's disgusting, you know, and but then the thing is, it's also kind of equally disgusting to expect these, like, robber barons to care. Like, why, looking back through history, would you think that some shitty corporation cares about you? They don't. You know, if you don't want to do it, they're going to find somebody to do it for less and that them's the breaks, you know?

And I just like all that stuff. Like, I can't worry about that. Like, if I end up getting sick, you know, and all my friends end up getting sick then so be it. Like, I don't regret anything that we did because it had to be done. It had to be done because if this if the state or corporations or whatever it might be aren't going to back people up, then, you know, luckily me and, you know, 90 of my closest friends were like in there getting it done and I'm good with that.

Like, I don't know, regrets about that one at all, you know.

Henry: Is there any, anything you think that I should have asked that I didn't.

Rosa: I can't really think of anything, you know?

Henry: I mean, it's got up there in time.

Rosa: I Oh yeah.

Henry: Workplace preparation questions.

Rosa: Yeah. I mean, I'm sorry. Go ahead. No, I can't think of anything like honestly.

Henry: And anything else you want to tell me.

Rosa: Not really. Like, I just think it's really good that you're looking into this. You know, I think that, you know, I mean, Karl and I were caught up about, like, selling out and going to law school, like, if you were a loved one, were considered an essential worker in the Covid 19 pandemic of 2020 contact the law firm of Bernstein and Bernstein today you may be entitled to a substantial cash settlement.

You know, like I think there's going to be like, oh boy. Like there's going to be like a huge, like, regulatory inquiry into this if we don't have like an utter fascist takeover in like two years, which I think is fairly more likely, but like.

Henry: I think it’s more likely than an inquiry.

Rosa: Oh yes. All we, shit, like we're in so much trouble and yeah, yeah, like we're in a lot of trouble. It's going to be bad. But I I don't think that next time we're going to have people like me.

Henry: Mm hmm. Yeah. I mean, people quit.

Rosa: Like most of us.

Henry: So I. So here's where I'm at with what I found, and maybe you can OK, so there's like a specific logic that was present in January. And, you know, China has this problem. They deal with this problem this way. This problem is coming to us. Clearly, we don't have the tools to do it in that way. Therefore, we are fucked.

Rosa: Yes.

Henry: You know, there are several obviously not everyone had that same thought process. So what if we all had that thought process, you know, maybe we would have had gotten their shit together earlier. So what prevented everyone from having that process? Right. So the, the use of certain social, political heuristics […] you know, like you saw, like American exceptionalism, like I've had multiple people say this does not happen in America. So this is America.

One guy told me, uh, there's also like your trust in these hierarchies, these organizations that you trust your hospital to make the right decision you trust the CDC to make the right decision and trust that there is going to be better treatment in two months for the novel virus, stuff like that. And also you know, normalcy bias. And to a lesser extent, you know, there's these political problems. I mean, you're the first one to cite be the first one to go into depth on some of these political problems. I mean, they've been there just in the background.

Rosa: And that's what I care about. So, like, of course, I'm going to do that. That's my thing, you know? So you know, you leave that to me.

Henry: And also, I mean, among medical workers, you have prior experience of H1N1 and Ebola yeah.

Rosa: Less so. Like I mean, I have access to people who live that, you know what I mean? So, like, I have their tales and stuff, like not that much.

Henry: So neither neither H1N1 nor Ebola. So a significant disruption. Ebola was scary, but it's not it did not pose asignificant risk to Medical workers. And also from the older doctors, HIV AIDS, you know, which was scary, really freaked people out and freaked society out. But it also did not pose a significant personal risk to medical workers. So that was transmitted and then so people have these, you know, these these mental shortcuts that they take that kind of really hinders this realization that, you know, that this is coming in a very real way.

Rosa: Yes.

Henry: In in in en masse as scope, you know, at this big scale then people see Italy. That's generally the timeline. It's a roughly consistent timeline. People see it happen in Italy.

And they're like, oh, shit, this is a visible disruption. And they're like, oh, shit, I think Italy, because it's a Western country.

Rosa: And I was just going to say that. Yep.

Henry: I mean, people don't give a shit about China. They don't. I mean, that's them, you know, they don't give a shit about Iran. Them.

Rosa: Right? Yeah. So your people do that, but they do. They do. Yeah.

Henry: But there's still you know. People still don't really take that emotional action, you know, it's not…

Then by the time it by the time it really hits, you know, everyone kind of just puts their heads down and gets to work and so there's not really any doesn't seem like there's any real opportunity after it hits to really you know, I mean, to stand back and take stock of what exactly is happening.

Rosa: No, because the shit scramble like consumed so many of us. Like, I correlate the essential worker scam to put it briefly with a almost like a decentralized kind of like long tail of too big to fail, you know? And I think that there's a lot of this that we could talk about that I would love to like pick your brain about this.

But I think that there are some parallels in the financial crisis and its discontents and its manifestations with the COVID19 response on like an institutional to a personal access that I think we really fun to talk about.

Henry: So on this subject there's a, there's a paper about I think it's called like Frame Strategies of Crisis. Something they say something about crisis framing is how it’s the rhetorical strategies. I think Frame Actor is in the title and it's about how the stakeholders within the, within the industry that is just, you know, massively fucked up. It's about their rhetorical strategies and how they present the crisis internally or externally.

And how externally they're, you know, try to reinforce their legitimacy relative to everyone else, you know, and you know, I think maybe you can even see it with the I just thought about this. Maybe you can see it with our government wide. Yeah. Like our response sucks. But relative to China, I mean, do we really want to lock down?

Rosa: Absolutely. It's like and for so many people, it would be as evidenced by our practices, it's just inconceivable that you couldn't go to Panera fucking Panera Bread for two weeks. So now you set me like, you know, a mobile intensive care paramedic, you know, recognized by the state of New Jersey is such endorsed. I'm a medical director nationally.

Certified, I'm an educator, I'm a preceptor. Like, I'm good at my job and I am in this just bizarre freaking feedback loop where I'm supposed to be angry at people who work at Popeye's who have like a way higher like, objectively higher risk index than I do for COVID19 because they're working at Popeye's with like a mask made out of a sock, you know, and I'm here in my Tyvek suit and like all this other stuff, you know, but we both got conscripted and we're both told that we're essential workers and we're heroes, which means that there is a low likelihood because there's a false correlation between inflation and like the wage floor rising as

though we couldn't fix this with tariff and immigration reform. OK, I like that story for another time, but we're supposed to be mad at other workers. We're supposed to be mad at other workers. It's their fault, you know what I mean? It's not us. But the hero essential worker scam means that they can pay us less in perpetuity than they should, you know, because the reward of doing the job is enough.

That's why I left the veterinary field. I'm not going to work in conditions of exploitation because I love animals, just like I'm not going to keep helping people because I think it's necessary and it has to be done. Like, I also have to live, you know, like by hook or by crook, I'm going to do it, you know, but I think that's why many people are leaving is because they don't feel that they're compensated fairly for the risks they take and for what they do.

You know, it's presented in the media as like betrayal, like they don't care about us. No, we talked about that already. It's does it matter if they care? Like it matters if you can sustain your life doing what you do, it's it's interesting. I'd like to read the paper and look it up.

Henry: Well, if I find it in my Zotero, if I find it again, I'll send it to you.

Rosa: That be awesome.

Henry: OK, so I think we can.

I think we can wrap up for more than an hour.

Rosa: Yeah. Yeah. I don't know, I get a little excited, but yeah.

Henry: I thank you. Thank you very much for this. You give me some really interesting stuff.

Rosa: Awesome.

Henry: Yeah. I mean, you're very politically aware compared to most of the other people I've talked to.

Rosa: A lot of people are taught not to be, you know, and it's so funny. We're so quick to say like, oh, China over there like people are like heavily propagandist. Did you go up social credit score? Like, do you know you have one?

Henry: It doesn’t exist. It's not a thing!

Rosa: It’s not a thing! Yeah, like it's so does that has got to drive you up the wall.

Like I can only imagine how you feel with your lived experience. Like it's got to be so hard for you to hear this ignorant shit that people say like.

Henry: Look, I was pretty ignorant for a while and.

Rosa: You do. I’ve done a lot of cringe stuff in my life.

Henry: I you know, trying is not what you would expect. I mean, look, they have their problems, don't get me wrong. Oh, yeah. Like, you know, like when I look over I've a diary entry and for, like, once, like, December, where I'm like, im describing ocean on the bus in Shanghai and they are a bunch of bunch of factory workers get on.

All of them have their folding bicycles, and they're all they all have, like, all of them have productive coughs and I have a line in the diary, like, if I die because some because of some new, new virus, it's these fucking Chinese factory workers who gave it to me.

Rosa: Yeah. We didn't have.

Henry: And there was no soap in the bathrooms at our school in Yiwu. Yeah, there's no soap in the bathrooms.

Rosa: So.

Henry: Like, it's just they have, like, they got the problems there, don't get me wrong.

Rosa: But it's an old place with a billion people in it, you know, like, how can those that there's no easy way to know?

Henry: They're very, very, very ignorant and in their own ways. But it's also, you know, things work there in a way that don't work here. Like I had to, you know, get access to, you know, a room with a key card. And the key card didn't work. In America that’d take like a week and a half. And in China, some days send a text message 3 seconds later works nice.

So stuff like that. And the. Yeah, I mean, I know it's it's different over there. I mean, to be honest, I prefer Vietnam, but in China, the language is cooler yeah.

Rosa: You know what? I'm totally fascinated by just anything I can possibly learn about Southeast Asia. I feel like I would never want to leave if I weren't working with.

Henry: Thailand, Thailand to visit Vietnam to live. That’s my opinion.

Rosa: A lot of Americans over there aren't there?

Henry: Actually not so many because we don't get vacation time. We don't we don't leave America. A lot of Irish.

Rosa: know, like that is true. Not The worst place to go live there.

Henry: Yeah. I knew like one American. I think. He yeah. One of my neighbors was American. He was this like military dude with PTSD. He clearly I don't know what you call it, clear TBI. I mean, you can just tell him the way he talks, like he'd been blown up.

Rosa: Damning. Yeah.

Henry: Yeah. That was actually an interesting, I was drinking with him and you know, he started getting a little violent, started hitting me. Oh, no, not too hard. He's, like, showing me how to fight. So I took a few, it’s not a big deal, I took a few shots, but like the dog, he had this little dog, Rocco, or Rolo or something, and the dog could tell what was going to happen.

So the dog started biting me to try and get me to leave before the guy started getting violent. So…

Rosa: Wow.

Henry: it really wasn't serious that. I got hit lightly once in the neck. It wasn't…

Rosa: I'm glad you're OK, but like so funny how we think that modern warfare is, like, more sterile and clean and we kill less people. No, we kill more people. We just do it slowly. And as far as body counts go, it's people who we're taught to believe don't matter so think it's good time, right? Land of the home of the brave, huh?

Yeah. Yeah. Fucking great.

Henry: OK, I think I'm going to stop recording.

Rosa: Yeah.

Henry: If you have anything else, to add?

Rosa: I don't think so. I'm pretty good. You know, this has been great. Thank you.