YouTube has the video How an MMT understanding informs fiscal stimulus design – Professor William Mitchell.

In this presentation, Professor William Mitchell will develop a set of criteria for assessing the likely effectiveness of a fiscal policy initiative. This particular crisis is unusual in that it combines supply and demand elements and government-enforced closures. In that sense, the design of the fiscal policy intervention is particularly difficult.

The presentation will go through a number of desirable fiscal options to match the specific situation using this framework.

We will also discuss why we should not worry about the size of the fiscal deficits that are required to overcome the medical and socio-economic problems created by the coronavirus crisis.

This talk answers a lot of practical questions about policy implementation through the lens of MMT. I like the way he explains what MMT tells you, and what your value system says you can do with that knowledge. MMT itself does not dictate policy. MMT tells you what you can do. Your value system tells you what you want to do. Rational people try to tailor there choices of what they want to do to fit what is possible to do.

More information:

1. http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog
2. http://www.billmitchell.org
3. http://www.mmted.org
4. http://www.fullemployment.net
5. https://modernmoneyaustralia.org/

YouTube has the video The Genesis of the 1918 Spanish Influenza Pandemic.

Michael Worobey, Professor, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, The University of Arizona

The Spanish influenza pandemic of 1918 was the most intense outbreak of disease in human history. It killed upwards of 50 million people (most in a six-week period) casting a long shadow of fear and mystery: nearly a century later, scientists have been unable to explain why, unlike all other influenza outbreaks, it killed young adults in huge numbers. I will describe how analyses of large numbers of influenza virus genomes are revealing the pathway traveled by the genes of this virus before it exploded in 1918. What emerges is a surprising tale with many players and plot lines, in which echoes of prior pandemics, imprinted in the immune responses of those alive in 1918, set the stage for the catastrophe. I will also discuss how resolving the mysteries of 1918 could help to prevent future pandemics and to control seasonal influenza, which quietly kills millions more every decade.

This is from 2014, so it does not discuss the current Covid-19 pandemic. However, it is an introduction into how scientists can investigate the origins of a pandemic. I only hope this science is being applied to the current situation.