The World and Everything in It - October 5, 2021

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Good morning!

Governments are interested in creating their own cryptocurrencies, but some economists are sounding alarms.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Also hospitals face more severe labor shortages following the Covid vaccine mandates.

Plus our Classic Book of the Month.

And one family who went the extra mile for charity.

REICHARD: It’s Tuesday, October 5th. This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Mary Reichard.

EICHER: And I’m Nick Eicher. Good morning!

REICHARD: Now the news with Kent Covington.

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: COVID-19 cases falling after months-long surge » After a painful months-long surge, new COVID-19 cases are once again declining in the United States.

New recorded infections are now under 100,000 per day. That after spiking to nearly 200,000 one month ago. Deaths are also down to under 1,500 per day after surging to well over 2,000 in September.

And there’s more good news. Drugmaker Merck recently announced that its experimental pill for people sick with COVID-19 reduced hospitalizations and deaths by half.

President Biden’s top medical adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci told ABC News …

FAUCI: It’s a big deal, John. I mean, you have now a small molecule, a drug that can be given orally, and the results of the trial that were just announced are really quite impressive.

If cleared by regulators, it would be the first pill shown to treat COVID-19.

The company said it will soon ask health officials in the U.S. and around the world to authorize the pill’s use.

NYC school faculty vaccine mandate now in effect » New York City’s COVID-19 vaccinate mandate is now in effect for teachers and school staff members in the city's sprawling public school system.

The mandate took effect on Monday, and Mayor Bill de Blasio said most staff were already vaccinated.

DE BLASIO: AS of now 95 percent of all full-time DOE employees are vaccinated, 96 percent of all teachers.

The mayor had warned that unvaccinated school employees would be placed on unpaid leave and not be allowed to work this week.

Schools Chancellor Meisha Ross Porter told reporters...

PORTER: We have thousands of vaccinated substitutes on hand, and we are working hand in hand to support and ensure the continuity of instruction in every school every day.

Porter said she did not know exactly how many employees had declined the shots and been placed on leave.

The vaccination mandate in the nation’s largest school system does not include a test-out option, but does allow for medical and religious exemptions. It was supposed to go into effect last week, but a federal appeals court granted a temporary injunction. An appeals panel reversed that decision three days later.

Clean up continues after oil spill off Calif. coast » Oil is still soaking the sands of Southern California beaches after one of the state’s largest oil spills in recent history.

Scott White is among the volunteers pitching in to help clean up.

WHITE: We need to come out and get this oil out here because it harms the environment very, very badly.

A suspected leak in an underwater pipeline that fouled the sands of famed Huntington Beach and could keep the beaches there closed for weeks or longer.

Workers deployed booms on the ocean surface to try to contain the oil. But some are questioning whether authorities reacted quickly enough to contain the spill.

Martyn Willsher is CEO of Amplify Energy. He said his company is investigating whether their pipeline is the source of the spill, and if so, how it happened.

WILLSHER: Our employees live and work in these communities, and we’re all deeply impacted and concerned about the impact not just on the environment but on fish and wildlife as well.

The race continues to find animals harmed by the oil and to keep the spill from harming any more sensitive marshland.

2 win medicine Nobel for showing how we react to heat, touch » Two American scientists won the Nobel Prize in medicine on Monday for their discoveries into how the human body perceives temperature and touch.

And the Nobel Committee said those revelations could lead to new ways of treating pain or even heart disease.

One of the scientists awarded, David Julius, said the sense of touch and pain has always been difficult to understand.

JULIUS: And so, I think the work that our lab has done, that Ardem’s lab has done, really sort of provided the molecular tools to really understand the sense of touch in detail.

Julius, of the University of California at San Francisco, used capsaicin, the active component in chili peppers to help pinpoint the nerve sensors that respond to heat.

And the other Nobel winner, Ardem Patapoutian of Scripps Research Institute in California, identified receptors in the skin that respond to heat and pressure. And researchers are now working on drugs to target them.

William Shatner will fly to space aboard Blue Origin rocket » MUSIC: [Star Trek theme intro]

Captain Kirk is about to boldly go where he’s never gone before—at least not in real life. WORLD’s Kristen Flavin explains.

KRISTEN FLAVIN, REPORTER: William Shatner, best known as captain of the Starship Enterprise in the original Star Trek series is rocketing into space next week.

Jeff Bezos’ space travel company, Blue Origin, announced Monday that Shatner will blast off from West Texas on Oct. 12th.

The actor tweeted “Yes, it’s true; I’m going to be a 'rocket man!'” And the 90-year-old added: “It’s never too late to experience new things.”

Bezos, the founder of Amazon, is a huge fan of the sci-fi series and his rocket company invited Shatner to fly as its guest.

Shatner will become the oldest person to go to space. He’ll join three others — two of them paying customers — aboard a Blue Origin capsule.

The space flight will last just 10 minutes and reach no higher than about 66 miles. The capsule will then parachute back to the desert floor, not far from where it took off.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Kristen Flavin.

I’m Kent Covington. Straight ahead: government-backed digital money.

Plus, multiplying bologna sandwiches.

This is The World and Everything in It.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: It’s Tuesday, the 5th day of October, 2021.

Glad to have you along for today’s edition of The World and Everything in It. Good morning, I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. First up: digital currencies.

Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Atom have governments around the world worried. That’s because they operate outside traditional, government-controlled financial systems. In response, many governments are creating their own completely digital currency.

We’ll be referring to this later, Central Bank Digital Coins—C-B-D-C.

REICHARD: Digital money would be convenient. But it would also give the government much more control over our personal finances. WORLD’s Sarah Schweinsberg reports.

SARAH SCHWEINSBERG, REPORTER: In April 2020, China took a big step in its quest for a nationwide digital currency. It launched Central Bank Digital Coin pilot programs in four different cities.

Test users can download a mobile-phone app from the People’s Bank of China. The app holds small amounts of the government’s digital yuan. Users can spend it at stores like Starbucks and McDonald’s.

In this October 2020 report, a user shows a Chinese reporter how the currency works.

USER: This is the app.

REPORTER: You have to download the app.

USER: You can see the payment directly and you can also make a transaction here by putting in the telephone number.

REPORTER: It looks very easy.

USER: Yes, it’s very user friendly.

The digital currency’s debut came after six years of experimenting. In the coming years, the authoritarian country says it plans to roll out the currency across the country.

China isn’t alone. Ecuador, Senegal, Singapore, and Tunisia have also launched their own national digital currencies. And at least 50 other countries are researching their own versions. The United Kingdom is considering creating a CBDC called “Britcoin.” The European Union wants a digital Euro in four years.

And in May, the United States Federal Reserve said it was researching its own completely digital dollar.

Martin Chorzempa is a scholar at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. He says national interest in digital currencies is a direct response to cryptocurrencies.

CHORZEMPA: Many countries are worried about their monetary sovereignty. China's efforts really started in terms of developing a digital currency after Bitcoin really took off there in 2013, and made them worry that there might be some parallel currency, they can't control that circulating in China, that would allow people to get around capital controls, move their money out freely out of the country, transact without any record for the tax authorities.

Governments also got spooked when Facebook announced in 2019 that it would launch Libra—its own cryptocurrency—for its 3 billion users.

CHORZEMPA: That made a bunch of countries really worried that their domestic currency was going to potentially get replaced by something that was issued by Facebook.

But how exactly would these digital currencies work? They could never be converted into a physical form. They would use the same blockchain technology as cryptocurrencies.

But unlike cryptocurrencies, they would be backed and directly controlled by the government. They would also function more like physical cash, meaning they could easily be used to buy everyday goods and their value would hold relatively steady.

Peter St. Onge is an economic policy scholar at the Heritage Foundation. He says CBDCs could be distributed in a couple different ways.

ST. ONGE: The sort of simplest one is where it's administered through the banks. Alright, so the bank, basically, from the end user perspective, it would look identical to how dollars do today... Now a second design philosophy, which the banks really don't like, is a design where you basically bypass the banks. Alright, so individual Americans could hold a, essentially a bank account at the Fed.

Adam Hersch is an economist at the Economic Policy Institute. He says there’s three benefits to creating a government-backed cryptocurrency. First, it’s expensive to print and manage physical money. Completely digital currency would cut costs.

HERSCH: The Federal Reserve, last year spent almost $800 million printing currency, and they spent almost another $800 million managing the currency.

Second, blockchain technology would let the government keep track of every single transaction ever in a giant ledger.

HERSCH: So when there's a digital ledger of every transaction, it's easy for authorities to be able to monitor money laundering, say for narcotics, or human trafficking, or terrorist financing.

And finally, if a CBDC could cut out banks, more people could access financial services.

HERSCH: There are a lot of people that don't have access to standard bank accounts, checking accounts. And by creating a universal system run by central banks this would improve financial inclusion.

But for all of those possible upsides, Central Bank Digital Coins have some serious red flags.

Heritage’s Peter St. Onge says right now financial transactions go through commercial banks. But a digital currency would allow the Federal Reserve to do transactions directly with people. So the Fed could potentially put stimulus money right into banking accounts. Or automatically collect taxes. 

ST. ONGE: If the Fed has direct control of your money...they could just tell you, hey, listen, we need you to spend money to make the economy, you know, come alive. And so if every month we're just gonna go ahead and take 6 percent of your money away until you spend it.

St. Onge says digital currency also holds some dangerous privacy concerns.

ST. ONGE: So if this coin fundamentally is being managed at the Fed, in theory, they would know every single dollar you spent, and who you gave it to. So if you donated to a political cause they don't like, if you bought something that they don't like, China has been the leader in this, which is unsurprising because China likes authoritarian things. And this is a huge increase in authoritarian control over the people.

Martin Chorzempa at the Peterson Institute for International Economics says a Central Bank Digital Coin could also disrupt financial systems.

CHORZEMPA: If you provide a form of payment and a way to store money that is directly backed by the Central Bank, then some people might decide they want to take their money out of the banks and put it into there, the risk there is that if you suddenly have money pouring out of the banks, you could make some serious negative economic dent, and even potentially cause a financial crisis.

It’s for all of these uncertainties that Chorzempa, St. Onge, and Hersch say the possibility of a CBDC in the United States is still a long way off, but maybe still too close for comfort.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Sarah Schweinsberg.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: hospitals brace for more tough times.

Nearly 2,000 workers at Mercy Hospital in Buffalo, New York traded their scrubs for picket signs on Friday. They said an ongoing staffing crisis is endangering patients and making it impossible for them to do their jobs.

And the healthcare worker shortage in the state appears to be getting worse, not better.

NICK EICHER, HOST: A state vaccine mandate is now in effect for all healthcare workers in New York. That means they must now have at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine.

The vast majority of healthcare workers got vaccinated long before the governor rolled out the mandate. But not everyone did: Some quit rather than comply. Others have gone out involuntarily: losing their jobs or being placed on unpaid leave.

REICHARD: But New York is not alone. Healthcare systems nationwide are facing staffing shortages, and a federal vaccine mandate for healthcare workers is looming.

Joining us now with more insight is Dr. Bret Nicks. He is director of the Master of Science in Healthcare Leadership program and a professor of emergency medicine at Wake Forest School of Medicine. 

Doctor, good morning!

BRET NICKS, GUEST: Good morning. How are you today?

REICHARD: Doing well. I know this varies from state to state and city to city, but give us a snapshot of the staffing situation nationally. How shorthanded are hospitals in the United States at the moment?

NICKS: Yeah, boy, I tell you it is a complex issue. And most hospitals, if they haven't been feeling it for the preceding years, COVID has certainly made it a whole lot worse. From a national perspective, we have to recognize a couple things. This is almost a perfect storm that we could have predicted in the absence of COVID. Back in 2015, there was a study that predicted that over a million nurses would retire between that time and 2030. Here we are in 2020, where we knew that we had a looming deficit of nurses and now we have not just the increased demand because of COVID and the challenges associated with that, we have an increasing number of retirees within the nursing population. You add to that that a lot of hospitals had been dependent on nurse overtime to go ahead and meet ongoing demands and you add in the complexity and stress associated with COVID that we've been dealing with now for well over a year and a half and people are exhausted. They're tired. And so now what you find is we have a complex health system. We have an aging population that requires a greater breadth of nursing care, not just in hospitals but across the paradigm of health. And at the same time, we don't have a nursing windfall coming out of an educational paradigm. And yet those that have been well educated in practicing and nursing retiring and taking with them that knowledge base, we really do face tremendous challenges right now. And I see it every day in our health system. You hear about issues on the inpatient side of massive medical centers that may have upwards of 1,000 beds, only being able to staff 500 or 600 beds because of shortages.

REICHARD: While many states don’t have vaccine mandates, there are plenty of health systems within those states that do—Wellstar Health System in Georgia, for instance. Are the vaccine mandates a significant cause of worker shortages ?

NICKS: I don't think it's a significant shortage issue. I do think that it's interesting. If you look across most health systems on an annual basis, you have vaccine mandates that are fairly common—things like our influenza vaccine, that unless you have a medical reason not to have it, most systems actually require it. So now we're having the issue around COVID vaccinations and immunizations where you have people that would like to be excluded and go through that process. Even in our health system here, we do have a percent of folks that as the mandate moves forward, we will have them leaving their positions and leaving unfilled positions because of it. Will it have an impact on the ability for us to provide care? Absolutely. Is it a critical number? Well, when you are already stretched to the capacity that we are, any additional loss is critical. The percent is small, but the effects of it will certainly be felt.

REICHARD: What are the other drivers of these staffing shortages?

NICKS: A lot of them really come into the fact that healthcare is difficult. Healthcare is a difficult specialty to go into in the sense of what is expected from a work perspective. A lot of it also has to do with the amount of effort required to get into the practice within healthcare and the longevity associated with it. You know, we will find a lot of components of things where, from a health education perspective, the number that go into that are not adequate to replace the number that are retiring or moving into it number one. Number two, as we look at our aging population, which I mentioned briefly before, we have an increasing number of long term care facilities. We have increasing numbers of outpatient facilities to a degree that is even greater than the number that are coming out of an educational pathway. That educational pathway is required for those to fill the medical center and the clinic basis that exists, but as we continue to expand the pathways that require nursing and other types of healthcare professional expertise, we're not meeting the demand as we continue to grow the underlying offerings. And so, really, it's just incredibly spread thin. Right now, the workforce data sets that are there are really saying that we're probably not going to see relief, at least from a nursing perspective, until possibly 2030.

REICHARD: Well, here’s the million dollar question. What’s the answer here? How can health systems fix the staffing crisis?

NICKS: I don't know that there's an easy answer. I think the reality is, within healthcare itself, we have to recognize that healthcare is a supportive team. And that we need to go ahead and elevate the expertise of those that are practicing. At the same time, let them feel that not only are they valued for the expertise that they bring, but really, when I say elevate the capacity for what they can do, it is also to create opportunities for technicians, nursing assistants, integral use and maybe perhaps new use of paramedics in our space, such that they can provide resources that help to backfill in some of these aspects. I work in the emergency department and on a daily basis, we have areas that are closed down, because we don't have enough nurses to cover those spaces. At the same time, more than half of my operational space is occupied by patients that are boarding. And what that means is they need to be admitted to the hospital, but there are no beds in the hospital for them. And it makes it very difficult for a nurse that goes into emergency medicine to say, boy, I love my job, but I'm not taking care of what I signed up for. And so the question is, how do we improve our operations to make capacity? And in doing so, what ways and perhaps what have we done or what should we be doing in the future that we've not done that helped to offload nurses to do just nursing tasks? Many times nurses are tasked to be a secretary or a phlebotomist or a technician because we don't have the secondary staff to support them. Maybe we need to be investing not just in nurses, but the things that allow nurses to do their job in isolation.

REICHARD: Dr. Bret Nicks with the Wake Forest School of Medicine has been our guest. Dr., thank you!

NICKS: Thank you.

NICK EICHER, HOST: A bad haircut prompted a court in India ordered a hair salon to pay a stiff fine for the offense.

A model alleged in court that the stylist at a salon in a hotel cut off her long locks against her wishes. That in turn caused her to lose modeling jobs for hair product companies.

She also claimed a subsequent free hair treatment damaged her scalp.

In September, a consumer affairs court ruled in the customer’s favor, saying it caused her emotional harm and hurt her career.

The owners of the salon may appeal the decision. But as of now, the bad haircut will cost them BIG. The court ordered fine:

$271,000!

New meaning for bad hair day. 

It’s The World and Everything in It.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Tuesday, October 5th. Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard.

Emily Whitten joins us now with our Classic Book of the Month. She talked recently with author and blogger Tim Challies about church history and the book she recommends this month, Church History in Plain Language.

AUDIO BOOK CLIP: Many Christians today suffer from historical amnesia.

EMILY WHITTEN, REPORTER: That’s Adam Verner, reading the 4th edition of Bruce Shelley’s classic book, Church History in Plain Language.

AUDIO BOOK CLIP: Time between the apostles and our own day is one great blank. That is hardly what God had in mind. The Old Testament is sprinkled with reminders of God’s interest in time.

For a concise, one volume work on church history, Shelley’s book is hard to beat. And I’m not the only one who thinks so. Author and blogger Tim Challies recommends the book on his website. So, I tracked him down recently to ask what he thinks sets the book apart.

CHALLIES: A lot of church historians are specialists rather than generalists. So they can write about their topic, and they can write about it in depth. But there's not too many who can tell the whole story. 

Shelley does that from the inside, as a believer. Challies finds this significant.

CHALLIES: There's quite a number of people who have written surveys of Christian history, church history, who have not been Christians, not to say an unbeliever can't tell history well, but they certainly won't be looking for God's acts of Providence, for example, or making proper distinctions between truth and error.

Another strength in the book’s early chapters—he clearly puts the New Testament in historical context. He describes challenges Paul and other apostles faced when passing God’s truth to the next generation. Here’s the audio version again.

CLIP: The world in Ancient Rome meant cities. The apostle Paul set the pattern for evangelism in the early centuries of Christianity by settling for a time in one of the great cities of the empire, and through his younger helpers, thrusting out from this center to smaller towns of the region…

Shelley also does a good job explaining early controversies of the church. He helps us see what’s at stake in debates about the Trinity or the nature of Christ. Challies says these issues still come up today.

CHALLIES: There's very few issues or controversies in the present of the church that haven't already been addressed in the past. The best thing to do is to look back to just see, has this happened before? And you'll probably find this battle’s already been fought. The answers are already there. We can just take hold of them.

Challies also appreciates the emphasis on people. Shelley organizes the book according to historical eras like the Middle Ages or the Reformation, but he devotes whole chapters and sections to individuals.

I recently came across a pastor who made use of this in a Facebook video. Here Pastor Vic Carpenter from Redeemer Bible Church of Virginia reads from Chapter 14. In that chapter, Shelley describes how Pope Leo saved the city of Rome from being burned by Vandals in 455 A.D.

CARPENTER: Though he had saved Rome for a second time, Leo made no reference to himself. It wasn’t really necessary. He had assumed the old heathen title of Pontifex Maximus [which means] the high[est] priest of religion throughout the empire, and everyone understood. Leo, not the emperor, had shouldered responsibility for the Eternal City. Peter had come to power.

Shelley uses Leo’s story to show how the papacy became the political head of Europe in the Middle Ages. So, big, sweeping changes told through the story of one man.

In terms of weaknesses, Church History in Plain Language has sold more than 330,000 copies since 1982. That means the book continues to get new editions, including edits and additions by other historians. This summer, publishers released a 5th edition. Here’s Challies.

CHALLIES: Others have taken the baton and changed the book, so, it isn’t fully his anymore. And I think, as I was looking at the list of characters who have had many biographies added, I am a little bit concerned that some of them are somewhat fringe...

Shelley doesn’t provide much guidance on later conflicts like the Reformers versus Roman Catholics or arguments between modern denominations. So, most readers will find something to criticize.

But that’s how it usually is with family, right? Plenty of carping, bad decisions, even wolves in sheeps’ clothing. But at the end of the day, Christ will get His people home. That’s what I like most about this book—despite “fightings and fears within, without,” we see God continue to preserve His people.

CHALLIES: As we study those people, we realize what a cost there was. We see there's tremendous suffering, to pass the gospel to us, to translate the scriptures, and pass the scriptures to us. We’re nothing if not ungrateful as human beings. It’s our default setting. And I hope that study of church history really does generate some gratitude in our hearts for what we've been given.

So much of God’s plan for history remains unseen. I, for one, can’t wait to hear the names and deeds of all His unknown saints, to see God’s good purpose revealed in tragedies large and small.

But as we wait on that day, I hope you’ll consider reading our Classic Book of the Month: Church History in Plain Language by Bruce Shelley.

I’m Emily Whitten.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Today is Tuesday, October 5th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. WORLD commentator Whitney Williams now on the family barbecue for charity that almost wasn’t.

WHITNEY WILLIAMS, COMMENTATOR: My husband doesn’t always use his weekends to help others, but when he does, it usually includes smoked meats.

At 5:15 p.m. last Monday he burst into our house, heart stirred: “I just heard a radio drive for this ministry that gives new shoes to orphans and kids who don’t have much—what if we sold pulled pork and smoked bologna sandwiches in the front yard this Saturday to raise money …”

At first, I was all in and so were our three boys. But then my husband and I started counting the costs—we’d need meat, buns, drinks, ice, foil, poster board, bar-b-q sauce. My husband would need to put the meat on the smoker Friday night, staying up late and getting up early to tend to the fire. We’d need to make signs and advertise heavily on social media—our neighborhood doesn’t get a lot of traffic. It felt overwhelming.

“I’ll just write a check,” he said, looking defeated.

I didn’t like his placement of the word “just” in that sentence—after all, giving money to this ministry was the end goal of our smoked meat sale, was it not? But anyway, I slept easy that night, having released all of the stress and responsibilities of a front yard charity barbecue. The next morning, when my boys jumped up and down and told their Gigi about our weekend plans to help kids without shoes by selling food in our front yard, I knew the BBQ was back on.

My husband went to the store on his lunch break and texted me a photo of pork butts on sale. “I think it’s a sign,” he wrote. When he arrived home with 200 buns in his backseat, things got serious. And stressful, at least in my mind.

I envisioned the sale going poorly and my husband never wanting to help anyone EVER AGAIN. My Apple watch told me to breathe.

“We have the fish and the loaves taken care of, Lord,” I prayed later on, as I hoisted logs of bologna into my grocery buggy. “We need you to bring the multitude.”

AUDIO: [Kids talking]

Saturday came, and so did the people. So many that I didn’t sit down for two hours, nor did I have time to take photos. I couldn’t stop smiling as I met some of our neighbors for the first time, and felt the love of others near and dear. Our boys had a ball.

I’m a bit flabbergasted to report that we ended up bringing in just over $2,000 for the charity that day—no baloney! But still, one of our 4-year-olds had a hard time deeming the sale a success: “Mom,” he said, lifting concerned eyes and questioning hands. “The kids without shoes, they didn’t even show up!”

I’m Whitney Williams.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Tomorrow: government spending deadlock. We’ll talk about the battle lines in Washington.

And, World Tour.

That and more tomorrow.

I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard.

The World and Everything in It comes to you from WORLD Radio.

WORLD’s mission is biblically objective journalism that informs, educates, and inspires.

The Apostle Paul wrote while in prison: one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

Go now in grace and peace.

WORLD Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of WORLD Radio programming is the audio record.