Dr. Raj Panjabi visits Fox 5 DC.

Thank you so very much. Well, this morning, Dr. Raj Panjabi, who served in the Biden administration as the Global Health Security Director, is discussing a new book he has out. It's called Safer. He's kind enough to join us now to talk about some of the impacts facing families today. You have a big launch of politics and pros tonight. We want to let people know about that, or today, I should say. But first of all, welcome. Thanks for joining us. Thanks for having me on. So who are you trying to reach with this playbook, so to speak, when it comes to all of the things that maybe make us a little uneasy out there? Yeah, SAFER is a playbook for turning fear into action and crisis into community. And I wrote it because I wanted to ensure any of us who are dealing with crisis or uncertainty in our lives, that could be a bad diagnosis, could be an outbreak, could be a job loss, have a play-by-play guide to help navigate that. So we're tapping, obviously, into your medical expertise here when it comes to some of these things, right? if it's a specific medical diagnosis, like you said, or concerned about something that might be going around that you're concerned about yourself. But you really take this beyond this and we go into like, you know, mental wellness as well when it comes to certain things that we might have some fear of. Well, when we face crisis in our lives, we tend to isolate ourselves. We hunker down, we freeze. And actually what I've learned is the greatest protection is not isolation, its connection. And so this book walks you through how to protect each other. How do you take action instead of freezing? How do you gain a little bit of control when the world feels chaotic? You spent a lot of time at the White House. Obviously, we mentioned that coming into this. What did you learn from some of those days in the Situation Room, right? And you were there during COVID. You were there during some very busy times health-wise. What did you learn in the Situation Room that you were able to take away from that that now you can share with others? Well, one of the critical things is that sometimes the slowest moving crises are the hardest ones for us to actually like take action on because they reach an acute tipping point before we realize it's happened. If you remember what happened during COVID, it wasn't until March 2020 when we all realized, oh, my goodness, like this is a lot worse than any of us thought. I learned that actually, you know, that when we're slow, it's not a character flaw. It's called normalcy bias, the bias towards believing what is today will be what is tomorrow. And I've described a few tactics from the Situation Room that we can use in our own living room to overcome that in our own lives. Which is part of why you wanted to do this, to have that playbook for the living room, so to speak. Aside from less isolation when it comes to times of concern and perhaps more community, what else do you want to get across to people? What can benefit people the most? Well, I think one of the key things is that, you know, there's so much uncertainty in our lives. And, you know, this is not a book for crisis managers. This is just anyone who recognizes that uncertainty, whether it's economic, political, relational, is just a feature of our modern life. And the book really makes the argument that we can find a way to gain control and be steadier if we're able to take meaningful steps. And, you know, in the end, you hear the saying, you know, it's better to be safe than to be sorry. What the book argues is it's actually better to be prepared than to be sorry. I do want to ask you because there's so much, I think, uncertainty or confusion when it comes to medical events these days. And you hear it a lot. And obviously vaccines take center stage in a lot of cases. But people just don't know where to turn. They don't know who to believe. So what do you recommend for people to get the best information for them? Trust comes from your local provider. 80 to 90 percent of Americans still trust their doctor, their health care practitioner. At times of uncertainty, when medical guidance is changing or you're reading something on social media, turn to them more frequently. More frequent contact, reaching out to those medical providers is helpful. And trust doesn't come from your social media feed. It comes from a trusted health care provider or a trusted community leader. Turn to those experts. Doctor, I appreciate you coming in today. The book is out now. It's called Safer. The launch today, you're going to be joined by somebody else at the launch, right? I will. Dr. Vivek Murthy, who was our Surgeon General, he wrote the foreword for the book. He and I will be at Politics and Prose tonight at 7 p.m. on Connecticut Avenue. Fantastic. Great venue. Great story, and I appreciate you joining us. And there's Raja's website if you'd like to learn a little bit more as well. Thanks for coming in today. Thanks. All right, Marcel, we'll send it back to you.