Speaker 1: Welcome to Prognosis. I'm Laura Carlson. It's day eighty three
Speaker 1: since coronavirus was declared a global pandemic. Today, widespread protests
Speaker 1: against police violence show no sign of abating and have
Speaker 1: eclipsed COVID nineteen as the central issue in the nation.
Speaker 1: Our main story today New York City for the brunt
Speaker 1: of COVID's punishment and is now feeling the pain of
Speaker 1: civil unrest, just as it was poised to reopen. First.
Speaker 1: Some brief headlines around the country and the world, there
Speaker 1: are reminders the pandemic is far from over. COVID nineteen
Speaker 1: deaths among Florida residents jumped the most since May eight.
Speaker 1: Florida began a phased reopening on May four. Hong Kong
Speaker 1: extended virus prevention measures after a new cluster of cases
Speaker 1: and Tokyo's infections spiked, and in the UK, Prime Minister
Speaker 1: Boris Johnson plans to reset his government's agenda with the
Speaker 1: financial statement and a speech on the post pandemic landscape
Speaker 1: and now our main story. Mayor build A Blasio still
Speaker 1: plans to begin reopening New York City, the epicenter of
Speaker 1: the COVID crisis, in the US on Monday. That's despite
Speaker 1: the unrest related to protests over the death of George
Speaker 1: Floyd and a curfew that will continue for the rest
Speaker 1: of the week. Hundreds of thousands of people will return
Speaker 1: to work in construction, manufacturing, wholesale, and curbside retail during
Speaker 1: the first phase of the city's reopening. At least twenty
Speaker 1: one thousand New Yorkers are dead from COVID nineteen, with
Speaker 1: a few dozen added to the city's count. Every day,
Speaker 1: New York's outbreak eclipses others around the world. Drew Armstrong,
Speaker 1: Bloomberg's Health Team editor, looked back on the statements of experts, officials,
Speaker 1: and politicians to better understand the root causes of New
Speaker 1: York City's devastating outbreak. I recently talked to Drew about
Speaker 1: what he found out, so Drew. On March fourth, New
Speaker 1: York reported its first coronavirus case of unknown origin in
Speaker 1: a lawyer from Westchester County who worked in the city.
Speaker 1: Is that how the New York outbreak started. So the
Speaker 1: March fourth case was the first one in New York
Speaker 1: City that nobody could figure out where it came from.
Speaker 1: And that's really important because when we talk about the
Speaker 1: start of these outbreaks, especially in New York City, it's
Speaker 1: really important to remember that there were almost certainly cases
Speaker 1: popping up that weren't caught before that, and so we
Speaker 1: only found out about the lawyer because he got sick
Speaker 1: enough to be hospitalized. And you have to remember that
Speaker 1: back in early March, there was barely any testing for
Speaker 1: this disease. We halted travel for many people from coming
Speaker 1: from China the month before, but there was an outbreak
Speaker 1: spreading to Europe and growing there, and plenty of people
Speaker 1: were traveling freely back and forth between Europe and the
Speaker 1: US during those weeks. People get really fixated on this
Speaker 1: idea of a patient zero, where one person gets infected
Speaker 1: and starts an outbreak, but with COVID Night Team, because
Speaker 1: the lack of testing early and how easily it spreads,
Speaker 1: that's not really the right way to think about it.
Speaker 1: The sick lawyer was just the tip of an iceberg
Speaker 1: that was already there. He was the first one to
Speaker 1: get sick enough for anyone to notice and test him,
Speaker 1: But there was almost certainly many, many more cases before
Speaker 1: he was diagnosed. So if we had shut down most
Speaker 1: travel from China, where did the cases come from, so
Speaker 1: it does seem like some of the early cases came
Speaker 1: from China. And there's this great study that looks at
Speaker 1: the genetic history of the virus done by researchers at
Speaker 1: the Los Almost National Laboratory in Mexico that shows how
Speaker 1: this works. So all viruses mutate, and most of these
Speaker 1: mutations are tiny, so we can do more or less
Speaker 1: the same thing we do with a genetic test to
Speaker 1: find family members like some lost grade aunt. With the virus.
Speaker 1: You look at the tiny mutations of virus. Has you
Speaker 1: trace the family tree to see which branch ended over
Speaker 1: here and started an outbreak in which and which branch
Speaker 1: went somewhere else. And what we see in the US
Speaker 1: and in New York is really really interesting. In the US,
Speaker 1: you see a bunch of cases from a genetic strand
Speaker 1: of the virus that came from China in February and
Speaker 1: early March. But while that was happening, there was a
Speaker 1: major outbreak in Italy and the US hadn't limited travel
Speaker 1: from there. So when New York gets hit, it doesn't
Speaker 1: get hit from China, gets infected with this variant of
Speaker 1: the virus from Europe, and New York is a huge
Speaker 1: travel portal from Europe. In the week before the US
Speaker 1: limited European travel, New York City Airport, it's had two
Speaker 1: hundred and seventy four thousand travelers arrived from there, and
Speaker 1: some of those people coming here probably helped start the outbreak,
Speaker 1: but nobody knew because we weren't testing or checking anyone.
Speaker 1: Here's what Governor Andrew Cuomo has said about that. In
Speaker 1: April news conference, everybody said the facts where the virus
Speaker 1: was coming from China, those were not the facts. The
Speaker 1: virus had left China. The virus went to Europe, and
Speaker 1: nobody told us, and people came from Europe to New
Speaker 1: York and to New Jersey into Connecticut, and three million
Speaker 1: European travelers came January February March before we did the
Speaker 1: European travel band, and they brought the virus to New
Speaker 1: York and that's why the New York number was so high.
Speaker 1: And so the US stopped a lot of cases from
Speaker 1: coming in from China, but the outbreak was global by then,
Speaker 1: and there were fifteen thousand confirmed cases in Italy in
Speaker 1: early March, and probably a lot more than that that
Speaker 1: hadn't been found. And the janetic detective work shows that
Speaker 1: they nike of a big majority of what hit the city,
Speaker 1: So what happened when they got here? Didn't lots of
Speaker 1: other cities bring in cases and seed their outbreaks. You
Speaker 1: know they did, But there's some structural parts of New
Speaker 1: York City that made things even worse. The subways, the buses,
Speaker 1: the trains. A lot of people here don't have cars.
Speaker 1: And for all of our complaints about the city's mass
Speaker 1: transit system, it works really well most of the time.
Speaker 1: I lived in Brooklyn for most of my time in
Speaker 1: New York, and I took the subway. I live in
Speaker 1: the suburbs now and I take the train in and
Speaker 1: it's often packed, but it's great. So it's also, though
Speaker 1: not hard to see how it's also a really perfect
Speaker 1: way to transmit a disease. If you've ever been on
Speaker 1: the four five line during rush hour, your short shoulder
Speaker 1: and when the outbreaks started, the advice New York leaders
Speaker 1: were giving out was that it was all fine. So
Speaker 1: just listen to this March second clip of New York
Speaker 1: City Health Commissioner Oxyrus Barba. There's no need to do
Speaker 1: any special anything in the community. We want new Yorkers
Speaker 1: to go about their daily lives. Ride the subway, take
Speaker 1: the bus, go see your neighbors. The important thing, as
Speaker 1: both the Mayor and the Governor have said, we want
Speaker 1: New Yorkers to lean even more into frequent handwashing and
Speaker 1: covering their mouths and their noses. And if you can't
Speaker 1: get to a water source, make alcohol based sand a
Speaker 1: hand sanitizer your new best friend. Everybody thought that this
Speaker 1: was basically a disease where if you covered your coffee,
Speaker 1: your sneeze, and you washed your hands, things were going
Speaker 1: to be more or less fine, and that was wrong.
Speaker 1: We talked to Mayor build a Blasio last week and
Speaker 1: he now describes the subways and busses as a major
Speaker 1: vector for the disease, and epidemiologists think the same thing.
Speaker 1: So basically, you take a crowded, dense place like a
Speaker 1: New York City subway, and then you go to a dense,
Speaker 1: crowded New York City restaurant or office or elevator, and
Speaker 1: then you go to a small New York City apartment.
Speaker 1: You kind of get the idea here. You know, the
Speaker 1: four most dense counties in America are New York City boroughs.
Speaker 1: Is a really crowded place, and I personally love that
Speaker 1: about it. People in interaction. That's would makes the city
Speaker 1: and I missed that everyone does. But it's also absolutely
Speaker 1: perfect for a virus. Viruses don't spread in states or
Speaker 1: cities or countries. They spread between people. In New York
Speaker 1: City has a lot of them, all well within six
Speaker 1: ft of each other for a lot of a day.
Speaker 1: By March twentieth, the state announced business closures and stay
Speaker 1: at home orders for work. But I'm getting the impression
Speaker 1: you think it was too late by then. Yeah. Probably.
Speaker 1: I mean if you look at the first case, that
Speaker 1: lawyer from March fourth, and you have to figure that
Speaker 1: there was a significant amount of spread by them that
Speaker 1: hadn't been detected. You know, he's one guy who was
Speaker 1: commuting in and out of the city. There had been
Speaker 1: a spike in flu like illnesses reported around this time,
Speaker 1: and by the time the city more or less shut down,
Speaker 1: there were four thousand cases a day. And you gotta
Speaker 1: remember at this time testing was barely happening. You combine
Speaker 1: that with an incubation period of four or five days,
Speaker 1: meaning a lot of people had already been infected but
Speaker 1: hadn't started chewing symptoms, and we're kind of well into
Speaker 1: the acceleration phase of the outbreak. You know, there's been
Speaker 1: some research showing that earlier closing would have saved lives,
Speaker 1: and it's probably true. The Blasio and Governor Cuomo, they
Speaker 1: had a couple of days of disagreement before they shutdown happened,
Speaker 1: but the outbreak was here. I think it's important to
Speaker 1: remember well well before then. And if you look at
Speaker 1: how easily this disease spreads and how perfect the city
Speaker 1: is to spread it, then a lot of what happened
Speaker 1: may have been inevitable, at least with the tools we
Speaker 1: had in place and how we used them. Let's look forward.
Speaker 1: Is the city ready to open back up? And what
Speaker 1: about the protests going on? Yeah, the protests are of
Speaker 1: a wild card. Cases and deaths in New York City
Speaker 1: have been falling for weeks. But now you've got people
Speaker 1: out in the street demonstrating and very rightfully angry, and
Speaker 1: they're outside, but there's a lot of density. A lot
Speaker 1: of them are in masks, which is good, but some aren't.
Speaker 1: We really don't know how this is going to play out.
Speaker 1: We might see a surgeon cases in New York and
Speaker 1: elsewhere these protests are happening or we might not. I
Speaker 1: think it's a huge, huge, huge unanswered question. So businesses
Speaker 1: are starting to come back, but if you look at
Speaker 1: how it's really a trickle um. There are a handful
Speaker 1: of offices opening back up, but if you read the reports,
Speaker 1: it's really only a tiny percentage of people who are
Speaker 1: going back in. We don't have the million plus people
Speaker 1: who come into Manhattan and leave every day, all those commuters.
Speaker 1: It's gonna be really slow, in part because people in
Speaker 1: businesses just aren't ready yet. It seems like from everybody
Speaker 1: we've spoken to, I think the big question is what
Speaker 1: happens next time? There are more viruses out there like
Speaker 1: this one, and this isn't gonna be the last time
Speaker 1: we do this. I just hope we do it better.
Speaker 1: That was Drew Armstrong and that's our show today. For
Speaker 1: coverage of the outbreak from one bureaus around the world,
Speaker 1: visit Bloomberg dot com, flash Coronavirus Us and if you
Speaker 1: like the show, please leave us a review and a
Speaker 1: rating on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. It's the best way
Speaker 1: to help more listeners find our global reporting. The Prognosis
Speaker 1: Daily Edition is produced by top foreheads Jordan Gospore, Magnus Hendrickson,
Speaker 1: and me Laura Carlson. Today's main story was reported by
Speaker 1: Drew Armstrong. Original music by Leo sidron Our. Editors are
Speaker 1: Francesca Levi and Rick Shine. Francesca Levi is Bloomberg's head
Speaker 1: of podcasts. Thanks for listening.