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Speaker 1: If you're actually successful at preventing a pandemic, it looks

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Speaker 1: like you're not doing anything because nothing happens. That pandemic

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Speaker 1: doesn't happen. It's the big take from Bloomberg News and

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Speaker 1: iHeart Radio. I'm West Gasova today. How we're preparing or

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Speaker 1: not preparing for the next global pandemic. The coronavirus pandemic

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Speaker 1: may not be over, just look at the deadly surge

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Speaker 1: in China right now, But in the US and many

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Speaker 1: other parts of the world, it's no longer as front

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Speaker 1: of mine. And if we're all breathing a tentative side

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Speaker 1: of relief, virologists and public policy officials are already starting

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Speaker 1: to look ahead to the next pandemic and making sure

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Speaker 1: we don't get caught so flat footed when, not if,

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Speaker 1: it happens again. So how do we prepare to fight

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Speaker 1: off a possible threat we know nothing about when we're

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Speaker 1: still struggling to keep on top of the one that's

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Speaker 1: right in front of us. Here to answer that question

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Speaker 1: is Dr Angela Rasmussen. She's a virologist at the University

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Speaker 1: of Saskatchewan's Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization, and she has

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Speaker 1: spent years studying the emergence of Avian flu ebola and

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Speaker 1: of course COVID nineteen. Dr Esmuson, thanks so much for

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Speaker 1: being here, Thanks so much for having me, Wes, and

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Speaker 1: she has someone who thinks about pandemics a lot. I'm

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Speaker 1: going to ask you, maybe an unfair question just to start.

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Speaker 1: We're not done with this one yet, but where do

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Speaker 1: you think the next one comes from? Well, I mean

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Speaker 1: I think the next one probably comes from someplace similar

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Speaker 1: to where this one came from, and that is, are

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Speaker 1: increasing interactions, increasing encroachment on animals on wild spaces, in

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Speaker 1: places where people either haven't been before, or in places

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Speaker 1: where we're using the land potentially in different ways, interacting

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Speaker 1: with nature in different ways. Now, this pandemic started likely

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Speaker 1: due to zoonotic spill over at a market in Wuhan, China,

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Speaker 1: where live animals were being sold, but this can happen

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Speaker 1: in many, many different scenarios, so where people are in

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Speaker 1: contact with animals um whether that be through animal sales,

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Speaker 1: raising animals, farming those types of activities, or just clearing land,

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Speaker 1: disrupting ecosystems, driving animals from where they live into new

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Speaker 1: places and coming into contact with people. I really do

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Speaker 1: think that that is where the next pandemic is going

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Speaker 1: to come from, and that's really where all of the

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Speaker 1: pandemics that we've been experiencing are coming from. So we

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Speaker 1: are seeing viruses increasingly emerging. You use this expression zoonotic transmission,

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Speaker 1: Can you explain exactly what that is? Zoonotic transmission or

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Speaker 1: zoonotic spillover refers to a virus or any kind of

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Speaker 1: infectious disease being transmitted from an animal host into a

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Speaker 1: human host. Now that's probably how this pandemic got started.

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Speaker 1: Myself and other colleagues have been involved in research that

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Speaker 1: really that's the only explanation that fits the evidence that

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Speaker 1: we have. But zoonotic spillover really refers to that virus

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Speaker 1: which was not previously in humans, coming from its animal

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Speaker 1: host and getting into the human population and spreading from there.

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Speaker 1: You know, we think about pandemics as being these fairly

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Speaker 1: rare things. Pandemics are actually fairly common. Certainly in virus

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Speaker 1: emergence and epidemics are very very common, and it's you know,

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Speaker 1: not always novel viruses that is sort of infrequents compared

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Speaker 1: to other viruses that we know about. But for example,

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Speaker 1: in two thousand nine, we had an H one N

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Speaker 1: one influenza pandemic. We have influenza pandemics roughly every ten

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Speaker 1: to thirty years, so they have been a lot more

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Speaker 1: frequently than people realize. They can be less disruptive than

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Speaker 1: this particular pandemic has been really globally an epidemic can be.

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Speaker 1: It might not spread around the world, but it can

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Speaker 1: still be incredibly disruptive regionally, um and it actually can

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Speaker 1: cause global disruption. So stars coronavirus one when it emerged

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Speaker 1: was for the most part restricted to East Asia, and

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Speaker 1: then it did come over here to Canada, but nonetheless

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Speaker 1: caused huge disruptions and things like global travel cost a

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Speaker 1: lot of money, harms the global economy. So certainly something

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Speaker 1: doesn't even have to be technically a pandemic to cause

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Speaker 1: problems around the world and to really impact the global community.

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Speaker 1: So you've described how the next pandemic is likely to emerge.

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Speaker 1: Do you anticipate that it could be a deadlier pandemic,

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Speaker 1: a deadlier virus than the one that we've you know,

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Speaker 1: just lived through. I mean, that's certainly possible. And you know,

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Speaker 1: I think that this pandemic has shown us that a

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Speaker 1: virus doesn't actually have to have a catastrophically high case

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Speaker 1: fatality rate to still kill millions and millions of people

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Speaker 1: and to cause tremendous harm globally to people, to communities,

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Speaker 1: to economies. It doesn't have to be something that is

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Speaker 1: like ebola, where you know, you see a majority of

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Speaker 1: people who get sick die from it. And actually viruses

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Speaker 1: like that they can cause big epidemics for sure. But

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Speaker 1: you know, there's not a lot of viruses that are

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Speaker 1: transmitted by the respiratory route, which is one of the

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Speaker 1: reasons why the COVID pandemic has been so destructive and

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Speaker 1: it has impacted so many people. It's a lot easier

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Speaker 1: to control viruses that aren't being transmitted in the air

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Speaker 1: that you breathe. There's also viruses that are not coronaviruses

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Speaker 1: that don't necessarily even cause primarily respiratory disease, like NIPA virus.

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Speaker 1: It's in another family of viruses, but it can have

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Speaker 1: as much as mortality rate. Can you see more about

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Speaker 1: that one, because I think people aren't as familiar with that. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: So NIPA virus is actually transmitted from bats and from pigs.

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Speaker 1: Pigs get it from the bats and they can transmit

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Speaker 1: it to people. It also can be spread person to person,

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Speaker 1: but fortunately it's not as efficiently transmitted, and NIPA is

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Speaker 1: spread by the respiratory route, but it is primarily deadly

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Speaker 1: when it causes encephalitis, so it actually causes a brain disease.

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Speaker 1: If anybody's familiar with the movie Contagion, that fictional virus

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Speaker 1: was based on a more transmissible version of NIPA virus

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Speaker 1: out NIPA virus keeps me up at night as well

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Speaker 1: as as its cousin Hendra, because they do have such

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Speaker 1: a high mortality rate and they can potentially be transmitted

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Speaker 1: by the respiratory route. A more transmissible mers coronavirus Nipa

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Speaker 1: hendra H five N one highly pathogenic avian influenza, which

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Speaker 1: also is not very efficiently transmitted from person to person,

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Speaker 1: could be potentially catastrophic. And I'm not exaggerating by saying

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Speaker 1: that a virus like that that spread light covid around

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Speaker 1: the world could potentially have civilization ending consequences. I mean,

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Speaker 1: can you imagine what would have happened if of the

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Speaker 1: people who got stars coronavirus two died from it? If

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Speaker 1: we were having problems with at the highest two to

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Speaker 1: three percent case fatality rate, our hospitals are overwhelmed. Even

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Speaker 1: now with vaccines and the mortality rate is even lower.

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Speaker 1: We're still seeing so much transmission that we're still seeing

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Speaker 1: huge burden on our health care system. Imagine what that

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Speaker 1: would be like if we were talking about a virus

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Speaker 1: that was as transmissible but killed up to half the

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Speaker 1: people that get it. That would be absolutely catastrophic and

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Speaker 1: potentially an existential threat to our civilization. So you're not

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Speaker 1: speaking metaphorically when you say it keeps you up at night.

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Speaker 1: As a virologist, it actually keeps you up at night. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I don't think about it sometimes if I want to sleep. Well, that,

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Speaker 1: I guess raises a question. If this is a concern

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Speaker 1: to you, as a scientist and other scientists looking at

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Speaker 1: what could come down the road, how do we prepare

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Speaker 1: for that, how do we protect against it should it arise? Well,

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Speaker 1: this is why I'm glad to be a virologist, actually,

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Speaker 1: because even though I know about all of these really

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Speaker 1: scary viruses that are out there, we also do this

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Speaker 1: work so that we can develop countermeasures, and that means

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Speaker 1: developing new anti viral drugs, developing new ways to treat

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Speaker 1: these emerging viruses. And one thing I think that is

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Speaker 1: going to be very impactful is we know what a

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Speaker 1: lot of these virus families are. So like I said

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Speaker 1: Nip ben Hender, the Hannup of viruses, and there's many,

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Speaker 1: many other viruses. There's twenty five families of viruses I

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Speaker 1: think that can cause disease and humans. You know, some

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Speaker 1: of them have known pathogens, but any of them could

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Speaker 1: potentially produce a virus that would infect people, be capable

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Speaker 1: of human to human transmission and cause a pandemic. The

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Speaker 1: problem is trying to figure out which of those viruses

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Speaker 1: are the threat. Here at my own research institution and

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Speaker 1: many other virologists around the world are working on this too.

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Speaker 1: There's a push to make vaccines that can recognize viruses

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Speaker 1: based on which family they're in, rather than working on

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Speaker 1: individual viruses. So, for example, people are developing pan influenza

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Speaker 1: vaccines that would cover any influenza that you would get

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Speaker 1: exposed to, and not just the three strains that are

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Speaker 1: in this year's flu shot, or pan coronavirus vaccine that

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Speaker 1: could protect against Stars one and stars too, as well

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Speaker 1: as maybe mirrors and any other novel coronaviruses that might emerge.

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Speaker 1: And I think that this is one really powerful way

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Speaker 1: to approach countermeasures, because if you can vaccinate people who

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Speaker 1: are at risk of being exposed to these viruses, you

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Speaker 1: have a stockpile of these vaccines ready to distribute should

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Speaker 1: an outbreak happen. You could contain that very early before

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Speaker 1: it became a pandemic, and you could potentially contain viruses

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Speaker 1: that we don't even actually know about yet. What is

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Speaker 1: the timeline do you think for something like that to

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Speaker 1: be developed, produced, and stockpiled. Certainly not overnight. Many of

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Speaker 1: these vaccines are currently still in development. There are some

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Speaker 1: clinical trials however, going on. And one of the challenges

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Speaker 1: I think that people don't always appreciate is that it's

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Speaker 1: not just developing the vaccine and then testing it. You

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Speaker 1: have to get it all the way to the point

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Speaker 1: where it has regulatory approval, and you have to be

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Speaker 1: able to fund manufacturing so that you can actually make

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Speaker 1: the vaccine in large enough numbers. So it's really important

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Speaker 1: that we not only develop these things as scientists, but

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Speaker 1: that we actually also follow through to make sure that

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Speaker 1: we're doing the right kind of testing. We're doing safety testing,

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Speaker 1: and we have processes in place that can allow us

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Speaker 1: to actually manufacture vaccines that could be used in an

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Speaker 1: emergency immediately. And when you make the case for this

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Speaker 1: with policy makers, politicians are in charge of spending the

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Speaker 1: money on this, do you find that there's urgency to

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Speaker 1: do it in the absence of an emergency. So this

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Speaker 1: is one of the great challenges to doing any type

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Speaker 1: of pandemic prevention or preparedness work. If you're actually successful

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Speaker 1: at preventing a pandemic, it looks like you're not doing

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Speaker 1: anything because nothing happens, that pandemic doesn't happen, and it's

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Speaker 1: very difficult to maintain, you know, from one Congress to

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Speaker 1: the next, from one president to the next, it's very

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Speaker 1: difficult to justify spending lots and lots of taxpayer money

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Speaker 1: on something that seems like it's not doing anything. And

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Speaker 1: things are probably worse than they've ever been right now

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Speaker 1: because it has been so politicized. Public health itself, pandemic prevention,

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Speaker 1: and virology research have all been sort of uniquely politicized

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Speaker 1: and in many cases demonized, and that also makes it

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Speaker 1: very difficult to make the case that we need continued funding.

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Speaker 1: We need continued support for this type of work, and

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Speaker 1: we actually need a lot more of it than less.

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Speaker 1: When you know, people are kind of over the pandemic,

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Speaker 1: and people aren't dying in the same numbers that they

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Speaker 1: were at the beginning of or during some of the

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Speaker 1: subsequent ways before we had vaccination and there was a

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Speaker 1: lot more population immunity, it's really hard to make the

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Speaker 1: case that we should continue to be investing in this.

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Speaker 1: But what people, I think really need to know, what

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Speaker 1: politicians need to know, is that this is an investment

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Speaker 1: in our future, not only the future of our country

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Speaker 1: and our public health, but also the future of our economy.

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Speaker 1: And because we do live in a global world, this

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Speaker 1: is really an investment in the future of the entire

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Speaker 1: global population of the human race, and I think that

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Speaker 1: people really need to be reminded of that as well

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Speaker 1: as educated on what the benefits are of doing this

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Speaker 1: type of work. Dr Angela Erasmus, and thanks so much

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Speaker 1: for talking to me today. Thanks for having me, Wes

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Speaker 1: anytime when we come back. What the US government has

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Speaker 1: learned from the COVID nineteen pandemic. I'm here with Bloomberg's

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Speaker 1: bio Security reporter Riley Griffin and White House reporter Josh

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Speaker 1: wind Grove. Riley and Josh, thanks much for being here,

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Speaker 1: Thanks us, thanks for having us. We just heard from

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Speaker 1: virologist Angie Rasmussen who talks about the increasing threat of

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Speaker 1: virus transmission from animals to humans. Riley, when you talk

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Speaker 1: to scientists and policymakers, what do they say worries them

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Speaker 1: most about how the next global pandemic might go? So

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Speaker 1: I actually want to take you back to twenty nineteen

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Speaker 1: when BARDA, which sits within the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness

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Speaker 1: and Response which is now the Administration for Strategic Preparedness

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Speaker 1: and Response, presented on biological threats. They called it the

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Speaker 1: Wheel of Misfortune, and it was like the Wheel of fortune,

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Speaker 1: but instead of numbers, you had biological threats. And on

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Speaker 1: it were things like anthrax, smallpox, plague, bautual is um, ebola,

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Speaker 1: sudan ebolas, i hear Marburg virus, some things that you

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Speaker 1: may have heard come up. The World Health Organization also

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Speaker 1: releases its own list of priority pathogens, and you know

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Speaker 1: on it are similar things Marbur Glass of fever, mers

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Speaker 1: and stars, those relatives of COVID nineteen zica. So I

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Speaker 1: can name specific pathogens for us, but I think partly

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Speaker 1: what scares me is the unknown pathogens, those that we

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Speaker 1: don't have names for, or might be new iterations of

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Speaker 1: viruses we may have seen before. And the way to

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Speaker 1: deal with that is something we like to call in

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Speaker 1: this world biosurveillance. Think of it as like a weather map.

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Speaker 1: We're forecasting for infectious disease. And what we need to

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Speaker 1: get to is really taking a pathogen agnostic approach to

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Speaker 1: pandemic preparedness. What does that mean? That means not preparing

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Speaker 1: for one individual threat. One of the big shortfalls of

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Speaker 1: our preparedness for COVID nineteen is that all these years

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Speaker 1: we've been preparing for pandemic influenza. Think the eighteen flu

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Speaker 1: also sometimes called the Spanish flu that killed up to

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Speaker 1: a hundred million people. We've been preparing for that for

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Speaker 1: years because that was really the last big epic pandemic.

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Speaker 1: All of our presidents, going back to Bill Clinton, he

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Speaker 1: actually in the late ninety nineties he read a fictional

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Speaker 1: book about a bio terrorism attack called the Cobra Event,

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Speaker 1: and it spurred him to create the Strategic National Stockpile,

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Speaker 1: which stockpiles all of our medicines and ppe and so forth,

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Speaker 1: and so it's a protective gear that we all started

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Speaker 1: wearing dandemic and every president since then has had their

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Speaker 1: own kind of plan. But many of these plans haven't

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Speaker 1: been implemented, and a lot of them have been geared

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Speaker 1: at pandemic influenza. So I think we need to think

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Speaker 1: a little bit broader because these are all aimed at

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Speaker 1: fighting the last pandemic instead of looking forward to the

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Speaker 1: one we don't know about exactly. And the Biden administration

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Speaker 1: they released their own plan. First it was the American

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Speaker 1: Pandemic Preparedness Plan, and now it's transformed into the National

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Speaker 1: bio Defense Strategy. They lay out their own strategy for

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Speaker 1: combating naturally occurring, accidental, and man made biological threats. So

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Speaker 1: it's quite comprehensive, but what we're still seeing missing is

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Speaker 1: real implementation and resources put to this. They've requested eighty

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Speaker 1: eight billion in mandatory funding, but they're not necessarily likely

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Speaker 1: to get it, and so what do you do with

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Speaker 1: all these documents but not a lot of action. What

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Speaker 1: was made so clear early in the pandemic is that

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Speaker 1: we did not really have a system for this or

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Speaker 1: a plan for this, and I think those are two

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Speaker 1: separate things. And the plan question is now hanging over

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Speaker 1: is what can we do to prepare for the next one.

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Speaker 1: But a lot of the things that really hobbled the

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Speaker 1: response in the US, in particular, which namely a patchwork

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Speaker 1: of fifty different systems, one for each state that isn't

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Speaker 1: going away, and that will continue to hobble whatever we

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Speaker 1: decide as a country to do about COVID, which right

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Speaker 1: now is not a lot, and whatever the country decides

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Speaker 1: to do for the next thing. Riley, you mentioned man

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Speaker 1: made biological threats. What exactly are those and what is

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Speaker 1: the concern there? The concern there is that viruses, bacteria,

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Speaker 1: other pathogens could be weaponized and used, either inappropriately or

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Speaker 1: for nefarious intent, or that legitimate research done in academic

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Speaker 1: and private sector laboratories and in government facilities might have

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Speaker 1: accidental consequences. And so I actually just got back from

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Speaker 1: Geneva from going to the Biological Weapons Convention, a review

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Speaker 1: conference for this international treaty that bans a class of

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Speaker 1: weapons of mass destruction. This is an ever present threat

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Speaker 1: and an increasing threat as biology and our understanding of

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Speaker 1: it advances. And as a lot of these tools become

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Speaker 1: cheaper and more accessible, and when scientists look at their

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Speaker 1: best guesses about what to prepare for, you know, like

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Speaker 1: every year there's the flu vaccine and they take the

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Speaker 1: best guess of which strains might be the ones that

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Speaker 1: hit us all, and we hope that we hit a

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Speaker 1: year where they guessed right. When they don't, we got

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Speaker 1: a bad flu year. When they're preparing for the future,

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Speaker 1: how do you guess you just named like fifteen different

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Speaker 1: things that could kill us all, how do you know

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Speaker 1: which is the one that we should be preparing for

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Speaker 1: most in which one would be a little bit further

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Speaker 1: down the list. Science, sometimes, I think is an art.

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Speaker 1: You know, scientific stakeholders convene in the u N and

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Speaker 1: they sometimes have to resort to their best guests. If

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Speaker 1: we had had this conversation in the middle of nineteen

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Speaker 1: and we'd asked ourselves then what we needed or what

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Speaker 1: was around the corner, I do think we now have

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Speaker 1: clarity and more information and pathways than we did before.

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Speaker 1: That is a silver lining of the few years that

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Speaker 1: we've been through. One is that we didn't really know

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Speaker 1: how the early warning system would work right and with

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Speaker 1: China really didn't work, and that will be the focus

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Speaker 1: of congressionally hearings with Republicans holding the House in the

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Speaker 1: next couple of years. But like it did work with Omicron,

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Speaker 1: and so now there are systems in place where public

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Speaker 1: health agencies can sound the alarm and it's taken seriously.

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Speaker 1: When you say the early warning system, you mean they

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Speaker 1: saw it coming and were able to act in timely fashion. Right,

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Speaker 1: Joe Biden started talking about OMICRON. I think it was

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Speaker 1: like a Thanksgiving vacation in Nantucket a year ago, you know,

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Speaker 1: like because South Africa and countries in Southern Africa had

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Speaker 1: picked it up, and the sound of the alarm. Now

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Speaker 1: that kind of stuff is critical and you know, is

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Speaker 1: a carry over the COVID experience. Another thing, for example,

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Speaker 1: is like Kovacs and how they got vaccines that that

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Speaker 1: was totally unprecedented and if we, god forbid ever have

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Speaker 1: to go through that again, there is now a system

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Speaker 1: because it is actually really annoying and legally thorny to

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Speaker 1: shove vaccines out across international borders with dueling regulatory agencies,

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Speaker 1: and what happened. So there are silver linings to having

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Speaker 1: gone through this questions that we would have had in

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Speaker 1: this exact conversation. Pre COVID do have answers now, but

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Speaker 1: so many others do not have answers now. And to

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Speaker 1: Riley's point, it's like, have public health experts sort of

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Speaker 1: shot their shot? Like have they sapped or worn thin

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Speaker 1: the patients of the public, many of whom couldn't tell you,

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Speaker 1: for instance, what the CDC recommendations are right now because

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Speaker 1: it's changed so much and they tuned out. So there

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Speaker 1: is a silver lining on the one hand, But on

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Speaker 1: the other hand, I wonder whether even though we have

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Speaker 1: a playbook, that might not help as much if people

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Speaker 1: are willing to listen to it. Riley and Josh tell

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Speaker 1: us about the planning happening for the next pandemic when

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Speaker 1: we return. Josh, you said that if we had the

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Speaker 1: benefit of foresight in when this was coming down in December,

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Speaker 1: maybe things would have been different. Riley was talking about

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Speaker 1: how every president had prepared or tried to prepare for this,

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Speaker 1: so those preparations actually didn't work. How then, does the

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Speaker 1: administration do all of the agencies involved in this sort

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Speaker 1: of work figure out how to prevent what Riley is describing. Well,

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Speaker 1: I think there's a lot of them who are doing

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Speaker 1: that work right now. The question I have is whether

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Speaker 1: they'll have the money to do anything about it right

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Speaker 1: like early on, just to go back west to those

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Speaker 1: early days of COVID. You know, Trump really did take

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Speaker 1: it seriously for a while. There was not enough ppe,

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Speaker 1: there was not enough supplies, there are non enough ventilators.

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Speaker 1: There were hospital ships outside in New York, remember this,

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Speaker 1: And like that was all under Trump. I think we

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Speaker 1: sort of like forget you know that there was a

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Speaker 1: dilection of this, uh, and then he stopped really caring

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Speaker 1: to that extent for rajuries. And so now what we

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Speaker 1: have is this question of like what's left over and

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Speaker 1: where to go from it. As we stand here, the

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Speaker 1: administration is begging for money from Congress that they are

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Speaker 1: not getting for COVID response, and that is for stuff

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Speaker 1: to deal with developing vaccines. You mentioned the flu shot

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Speaker 1: that we get yearly. That's what they want to do

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Speaker 1: with COVID. The first version of that has had really

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Speaker 1: abysmally low uptake, and there's not really money in the

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Speaker 1: system right now to develop next year's annual COVID type

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Speaker 1: flu shot because they just haven't allocated anything. They also

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Speaker 1: have no money to buy more vaccines or you know,

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Speaker 1: buy more packs of it, which we give to more

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Speaker 1: severe cases when they get it to minimize your symptoms.

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Speaker 1: And so the current question of what are we gonna

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Speaker 1: do about the next pandemic I'm kind of worried about

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Speaker 1: we're gonna do about the current pandemic we're still in.

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Speaker 1: There is just simply no appetite in Congress as of

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Speaker 1: now to fund anything for it, and that at some

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Speaker 1: point you have to think is going to start being

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Speaker 1: a problem. Riley. It's kind of an important point. If

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Speaker 1: we can't get enough money to pay for a pandemic

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Speaker 1: that's still happening right now, where is the resolve to

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Speaker 1: pay for something that we can't see, you don't know

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Speaker 1: which it is, and don't know when it's going to come.

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Speaker 1: I'm going to give an answer you might not expect.

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Speaker 1: I think it's coming out of the Defense Department. I

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Speaker 1: think you're seeing an increase in interest from other stakeholders

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Speaker 1: beyond the obvious ones at the Department of Health and

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Speaker 1: Human Services take up this mandate. I think the intelligence

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Speaker 1: community has an increased focus and appetite, partially at the

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Speaker 1: direction of the Biden administration, and I think the Defense

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Speaker 1: Department does as well. And what does that look like?

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Speaker 1: How does when the Pentagon takes over the preservation of

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Speaker 1: the human race, what does that look like? Well, I'll

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Speaker 1: give you one example. Recently, my colleague Madison Muller and

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Speaker 1: I broke a story where the Department of Defense had

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Speaker 1: cut a deal with Maderna for messenger RNA vaccines for

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Speaker 1: EBOL viruses and other threats. This wasn't a function of

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Speaker 1: congressional funding for pandemic preparedness. This was d O D

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Speaker 1: saying this is something that affects troops, and we have

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Speaker 1: the money to deploy, and we don't need to go

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Speaker 1: through all those layers of bureau oocricy and approval to

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Speaker 1: get this done. They just did it. I think there's

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Speaker 1: a lot more work like that happening. If you look

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Speaker 1: to the intelligence community, they're developing tools for bio attribution,

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Speaker 1: that is actually to look at a pathogen, to look

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Speaker 1: at its genome, to sequence it, to look into the

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Speaker 1: DNA and say can we see human signatures? Meaning can

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Speaker 1: we look at the DNA of a virus and determine

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Speaker 1: whether or not it was naturally occurring or that this

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Speaker 1: was a function of a human touch. These are quiet

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Speaker 1: things that are happening outside of the Department of Health

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Speaker 1: and Human Service enterprise that are in the name of

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Speaker 1: bio defense biosecurity. And so I am watching this closely

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Speaker 1: because I think a lot of that work. If it's

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Speaker 1: going to get done, it's going to shift in that direction.

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Speaker 1: Josh is a political matter, I suppose as a policy

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Speaker 1: matter too. I don't know. It feels kind of weird

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Speaker 1: to let the Department Defense and the Intelligence Committee lead

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Speaker 1: the way in this sort of thing. Is that how

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Speaker 1: say the Biden administration wants this to play out, how

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Speaker 1: any White House wants it to play out. Getting funding

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Speaker 1: for d D is often a lot easier than getting

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Speaker 1: funding for HHS, So d D can be the fig

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Speaker 1: leaf for funding for this. The Biden administration will, I think,

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Speaker 1: probably be okay with that. They could sleep at night

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Speaker 1: and that's the case. But d D has been a

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00:26:19,800 --> 00:26:21,960
Speaker 1: battleground on this already. I mean, we just saw a

432
00:26:21,960 --> 00:26:25,440
Speaker 1: big throwdown fight over the NDAA, which is a defense

433
00:26:25,520 --> 00:26:28,240
Speaker 1: funding bill, and one of the concessions made in that

434
00:26:28,359 --> 00:26:31,680
Speaker 1: was eliminating the vaccine requirement for service members. I mean,

435
00:26:31,720 --> 00:26:36,000
Speaker 1: this has been a partisan fight until now. And you know,

436
00:26:36,320 --> 00:26:38,280
Speaker 1: what is the goal here? Right? I mean, this is

437
00:26:38,280 --> 00:26:41,800
Speaker 1: a question that gets different answers these days around COVID,

438
00:26:41,960 --> 00:26:44,119
Speaker 1: Like a lot of public health experts would like the

439
00:26:44,200 --> 00:26:47,200
Speaker 1: numbers to be a lot lower than they are now. Um.

440
00:26:47,240 --> 00:26:50,240
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm sitting here, you know, a positive COVID case,

441
00:26:50,320 --> 00:26:54,800
Speaker 1: working from home, talking to you guys with relatively mild symptoms,

442
00:26:55,440 --> 00:26:59,200
Speaker 1: dedication to the cause. Josh, we wish you were here. Josh,

443
00:26:59,320 --> 00:27:02,720
Speaker 1: I'm feeling thank you. I've dodged it for you know,

444
00:27:02,760 --> 00:27:04,919
Speaker 1: however many years and time they got me. But like

445
00:27:05,160 --> 00:27:07,680
Speaker 1: cases like mine are probably in the eyes of like

446
00:27:08,160 --> 00:27:11,200
Speaker 1: the Biden people kind of what they want if you're

447
00:27:11,200 --> 00:27:13,959
Speaker 1: going to have a COVID case having and someone who

448
00:27:14,040 --> 00:27:17,240
Speaker 1: has mild symptoms because they got vaccinated and they stay

449
00:27:17,240 --> 00:27:20,439
Speaker 1: away from others and that's it. And so when it

450
00:27:20,480 --> 00:27:23,960
Speaker 1: comes to the question of other pandemics and ending this one,

451
00:27:24,280 --> 00:27:27,040
Speaker 1: there is disagreement on like what the victory line is,

452
00:27:27,280 --> 00:27:31,760
Speaker 1: where the goal line is. You know, it's hard to

453
00:27:31,840 --> 00:27:35,200
Speaker 1: be optimistic when you're thinking about doomsday threats like this.

454
00:27:35,320 --> 00:27:38,159
Speaker 1: And Josh and I have been in the trenches together

455
00:27:38,240 --> 00:27:42,480
Speaker 1: covering COVID since the very beginning. Politics are at play,

456
00:27:42,520 --> 00:27:45,280
Speaker 1: They've always been at play, But there are public health

457
00:27:45,280 --> 00:27:48,920
Speaker 1: officials that have made this their life work and they

458
00:27:49,119 --> 00:27:51,840
Speaker 1: have been at the CDC for decades. They were thinking

459
00:27:51,880 --> 00:27:56,439
Speaker 1: about COVID well before COVID happened. Coronaviruses have been on

460
00:27:56,480 --> 00:28:02,920
Speaker 1: the radar. We've seen coronaviruses before. The CDC is undergoing

461
00:28:02,920 --> 00:28:05,639
Speaker 1: a reorganization right now and overhaul, if you will, to

462
00:28:06,520 --> 00:28:10,840
Speaker 1: become more of a responsive agency, and there will be

463
00:28:10,920 --> 00:28:16,000
Speaker 1: workforce changes and structural changes that will potentially outlive the

464
00:28:16,119 --> 00:28:20,520
Speaker 1: tenure of Director Wilenski, who currently runs the CDC. And

465
00:28:20,560 --> 00:28:24,360
Speaker 1: you interview Dr Wilenski back in November of last year,

466
00:28:24,920 --> 00:28:26,879
Speaker 1: Let's hear what she had to say about some of

467
00:28:26,920 --> 00:28:29,920
Speaker 1: those changes. So one of the things that we learned

468
00:28:29,960 --> 00:28:32,200
Speaker 1: is that we need to be more nimble about how

469
00:28:32,240 --> 00:28:35,960
Speaker 1: we develop and deliver our science. We have to communicate

470
00:28:36,160 --> 00:28:41,320
Speaker 1: that not to necessarily only public health officials and to scientists,

471
00:28:41,360 --> 00:28:44,080
Speaker 1: but we need to communicate it to the American public.

472
00:28:44,560 --> 00:28:48,560
Speaker 1: We need easy to understand, easy to implement policies that

473
00:28:48,600 --> 00:28:52,640
Speaker 1: are dedicated and science devoted and and based on science,

474
00:28:52,920 --> 00:28:58,040
Speaker 1: but that we can really convey in a simple policy message. Riley,

475
00:28:58,080 --> 00:29:02,080
Speaker 1: you said there are structural changes happening at the CDC

476
00:29:02,280 --> 00:29:06,600
Speaker 1: to minimize the threat of the next pandemic. What are they.

477
00:29:06,640 --> 00:29:09,280
Speaker 1: I'll give you a really simple example. I don't know

478
00:29:09,320 --> 00:29:11,040
Speaker 1: if a lot of people know this, but over at

479
00:29:11,040 --> 00:29:14,400
Speaker 1: the CDC, the folks working on COVID had to volunteer

480
00:29:14,440 --> 00:29:16,720
Speaker 1: to do so. They actually raised their hand right they

481
00:29:16,720 --> 00:29:21,800
Speaker 1: were working potentially on HIV or birth defects. People had

482
00:29:21,840 --> 00:29:24,080
Speaker 1: to raise their hand to go over and work on COVID,

483
00:29:24,120 --> 00:29:25,800
Speaker 1: and that cost a lot of issues in terms of

484
00:29:25,840 --> 00:29:28,560
Speaker 1: the speed of the response. If you needed three epidemiologists

485
00:29:28,600 --> 00:29:30,680
Speaker 1: work on something, you had to scan the agency and

486
00:29:30,720 --> 00:29:33,800
Speaker 1: find them. One change that they're making is that you're

487
00:29:33,800 --> 00:29:37,120
Speaker 1: going to deploy CDC staff like troops. They're going to

488
00:29:37,200 --> 00:29:40,480
Speaker 1: give their availability months in advance, and if a crisis emerges,

489
00:29:41,080 --> 00:29:45,080
Speaker 1: the CDC will readily deploy them. So that's a readiness change.

490
00:29:45,360 --> 00:29:47,240
Speaker 1: There are other changes we can outline, but the point

491
00:29:47,280 --> 00:29:50,280
Speaker 1: is there are these cultural and operational things that are

492
00:29:50,320 --> 00:29:53,600
Speaker 1: just gonna be flipped if you will, to make it

493
00:29:53,640 --> 00:29:57,400
Speaker 1: more of a responsive agency rather than the academic, bureaucratic,

494
00:29:58,200 --> 00:30:02,560
Speaker 1: scientific kind of guidance entity that it's been for so long, Josh.

495
00:30:02,760 --> 00:30:04,480
Speaker 1: One of the things we saw in the pandemic was

496
00:30:04,520 --> 00:30:06,200
Speaker 1: how in the U S there's fifty different states, so

497
00:30:06,280 --> 00:30:09,800
Speaker 1: fifty different responses, some better than others. Another thing we

498
00:30:09,840 --> 00:30:14,120
Speaker 1: saw was every country had its own response. Have governments

499
00:30:14,400 --> 00:30:20,080
Speaker 1: learned from COVID that there's value to coordinating and cooperating

500
00:30:20,120 --> 00:30:22,560
Speaker 1: from the beginning, or are we going to see something

501
00:30:22,600 --> 00:30:26,040
Speaker 1: similar the next time sort of hell breaks loose. The

502
00:30:26,120 --> 00:30:31,400
Speaker 1: optimistic answer is yes, some things worked better. KOVACS exists.

503
00:30:31,960 --> 00:30:34,560
Speaker 1: KOVACS is the system that we set up to help

504
00:30:34,640 --> 00:30:38,600
Speaker 1: get vaccines to low and lower middle income countries when

505
00:30:38,760 --> 00:30:42,120
Speaker 1: rich countries jammed to the front of the line. Like

506
00:30:42,160 --> 00:30:45,280
Speaker 1: if you think Ticketmaster is bad, like the COVID vaccine

507
00:30:45,320 --> 00:30:48,280
Speaker 1: process buying was insane and rich people got it and

508
00:30:48,320 --> 00:30:51,040
Speaker 1: poor countries did not. And so we now have a

509
00:30:51,080 --> 00:30:54,200
Speaker 1: system to at least get some vaccines to poor countries,

510
00:30:54,320 --> 00:30:59,840
Speaker 1: but countries fundamentally responded in kind of everyone for themselves way.

511
00:31:01,280 --> 00:31:04,040
Speaker 1: I don't know, No, I don't think it's a Kumbaya moment.

512
00:31:04,560 --> 00:31:07,760
Speaker 1: I think one of the real benefits of God willing

513
00:31:08,000 --> 00:31:11,280
Speaker 1: not having a new pandemic to new something, a new pathogen,

514
00:31:11,320 --> 00:31:13,800
Speaker 1: a new plague over the next couple of years will

515
00:31:13,840 --> 00:31:16,600
Speaker 1: be to take the temperature down so that if and

516
00:31:16,640 --> 00:31:19,760
Speaker 1: when we do face another one and we do hear

517
00:31:19,800 --> 00:31:23,160
Speaker 1: these warning systems from the people whose job it is

518
00:31:23,560 --> 00:31:25,960
Speaker 1: to tell us, and who have gone to school for

519
00:31:26,040 --> 00:31:27,960
Speaker 1: years and years and years and years to be able

520
00:31:27,960 --> 00:31:30,280
Speaker 1: to say no, this is the one that when they

521
00:31:30,360 --> 00:31:33,840
Speaker 1: say that warning that the broad public, you know, is

522
00:31:33,880 --> 00:31:37,000
Speaker 1: willing to hear it. And at the international level. Two,

523
00:31:37,040 --> 00:31:39,760
Speaker 1: I think there will be some basic learning lessons. Like

524
00:31:39,880 --> 00:31:44,080
Speaker 1: travel bands, they're not very effective. Just because you're blocking

525
00:31:44,160 --> 00:31:47,280
Speaker 1: flights from one country doesn't mean a virus is going

526
00:31:47,320 --> 00:31:51,480
Speaker 1: to enter through another. So there have been some successes

527
00:31:51,520 --> 00:31:56,360
Speaker 1: and some obvious failures throughout the pandemic. And you gotta

528
00:31:56,680 --> 00:32:01,720
Speaker 1: think that those very equipped public officials that Josh is

529
00:32:01,760 --> 00:32:05,760
Speaker 1: describing are taking note of what didn't work. Riley, When

530
00:32:05,760 --> 00:32:08,760
Speaker 1: you look down the road, which is your entire job,

531
00:32:09,480 --> 00:32:12,200
Speaker 1: what are you watching for? What should people listening to

532
00:32:12,240 --> 00:32:16,920
Speaker 1: this podcast be looking at for. I'll give you a

533
00:32:16,960 --> 00:32:19,080
Speaker 1: present answer in a little bit down the road. I mean,

534
00:32:19,120 --> 00:32:21,160
Speaker 1: I think we're still grappling with a lot, Josh said.

535
00:32:21,440 --> 00:32:24,200
Speaker 1: He alluded to some of the issues with the lack

536
00:32:24,240 --> 00:32:27,200
Speaker 1: of funding for current pandemic response. We've got COVID, we've

537
00:32:27,200 --> 00:32:31,160
Speaker 1: got polio, we've got ebola, we've got RSP, we've got empox.

538
00:32:31,960 --> 00:32:34,200
Speaker 1: Our hands are full right now, and I think there

539
00:32:34,280 --> 00:32:37,280
Speaker 1: might be some pandemic fatigue, but that doesn't mean that

540
00:32:37,320 --> 00:32:43,200
Speaker 1: there aren't active threats that demand active response. So I'm

541
00:32:43,280 --> 00:32:47,320
Speaker 1: thinking about that quite often. Down the road. I'm following

542
00:32:47,920 --> 00:32:50,640
Speaker 1: this question of biosurveillance. What are the tools that are

543
00:32:50,680 --> 00:32:54,280
Speaker 1: cropping up out of the public and private sector to

544
00:32:54,480 --> 00:32:57,440
Speaker 1: better detect these threats right and there are a number

545
00:32:57,440 --> 00:33:00,800
Speaker 1: of companies that are working on this. The technology is

546
00:33:00,880 --> 00:33:05,240
Speaker 1: fascinating and it's accelerating really quickly. Even if the government

547
00:33:05,240 --> 00:33:08,520
Speaker 1: isn't investing in it, the private sector seems to see

548
00:33:09,520 --> 00:33:13,600
Speaker 1: market opportunity here. This looks like wastewater surveillance. It looks

549
00:33:13,680 --> 00:33:17,920
Speaker 1: like putting in detection in airports, which are these hubs

550
00:33:17,960 --> 00:33:21,040
Speaker 1: of global travel where a lot of disease comes through.

551
00:33:21,920 --> 00:33:25,440
Speaker 1: And so seeing what sticks and what continues to have

552
00:33:26,280 --> 00:33:29,920
Speaker 1: investment beyond this cycle of panic and neglect, I think

553
00:33:29,920 --> 00:33:34,960
Speaker 1: will be a really telling portrait of the future. If

554
00:33:35,000 --> 00:33:38,680
Speaker 1: we can continue to buy into these technologies, we will

555
00:33:38,720 --> 00:33:42,000
Speaker 1: be better equipped those early warning signals are the most

556
00:33:42,040 --> 00:33:44,600
Speaker 1: important thing. You can't catch it late, You've got to

557
00:33:44,600 --> 00:33:49,480
Speaker 1: catch it early. And so where government, academia, and the

558
00:33:49,520 --> 00:33:52,160
Speaker 1: private sector will rise to that opportunity and create a

559
00:33:52,160 --> 00:33:55,440
Speaker 1: better weather map for infectious disease, That's what I'm looking for.

560
00:33:56,720 --> 00:33:59,040
Speaker 1: I don't want to leave us too sad. You know

561
00:33:59,040 --> 00:34:04,080
Speaker 1: I'm a Debbie downer parently right now, you know, yeah,

562
00:34:04,120 --> 00:34:05,880
Speaker 1: I know, you know, I'm trying to be up. Like

563
00:34:06,240 --> 00:34:11,080
Speaker 1: the price of unfortunate threats and the distrust that has

564
00:34:11,440 --> 00:34:16,280
Speaker 1: stewed up with medical professionals is that lives are saved.

565
00:34:16,400 --> 00:34:18,800
Speaker 1: Right The recent study showed three million lives are saved

566
00:34:18,840 --> 00:34:21,520
Speaker 1: in the US because of the COVID vaccines. They got

567
00:34:21,560 --> 00:34:26,920
Speaker 1: a vaccine to development production into pharmacies in incredible time,

568
00:34:27,360 --> 00:34:30,920
Speaker 1: that stretched over two administrations that agreed on virtually nothing else.

569
00:34:31,000 --> 00:34:33,680
Speaker 1: There is positive that comes from that, and you would

570
00:34:33,680 --> 00:34:36,520
Speaker 1: hope that God forbid we deal with something else like

571
00:34:36,560 --> 00:34:39,120
Speaker 1: this again, that all that would be true as well.

572
00:34:39,320 --> 00:34:41,680
Speaker 1: So you know, as we deal with the fallout, like,

573
00:34:41,719 --> 00:34:45,480
Speaker 1: it's those lives saved, it's those cases avoided, and as

574
00:34:45,520 --> 00:34:48,840
Speaker 1: a result, those long COVID cases avoided. That is the

575
00:34:48,880 --> 00:34:51,560
Speaker 1: reason that these health professionals who are getting heckled and

576
00:34:51,640 --> 00:34:55,320
Speaker 1: like bullied on social media, get up every day. Riley Griffin,

577
00:34:55,440 --> 00:34:57,759
Speaker 1: Josh wynd Grove, thanks for taking the time to talk

578
00:34:57,800 --> 00:35:00,360
Speaker 1: to me today. Thanks for having us. It's fun to

579
00:35:00,400 --> 00:35:03,640
Speaker 1: be with you. Josh, Thank you, Wesh. Riley swimming in

580
00:35:03,680 --> 00:35:06,040
Speaker 1: a wake as always, but West I try to bring

581
00:35:06,120 --> 00:35:10,080
Speaker 1: some optimism. You can check out more of Riley and

582
00:35:10,160 --> 00:35:14,840
Speaker 1: Josh's reporting about preparations for the next pandemic at Bloomberg

583
00:35:14,840 --> 00:35:17,840
Speaker 1: dot com. Thanks for listening to us here at The

584
00:35:17,840 --> 00:35:20,840
Speaker 1: Big Take, the daily podcast from Bloomberg and I Heart Radio.

585
00:35:21,160 --> 00:35:23,520
Speaker 1: For more shows from my Heart Radio, visit the Heart

586
00:35:23,600 --> 00:35:27,440
Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen. Read today's

587
00:35:27,440 --> 00:35:30,239
Speaker 1: story and subscribe to our daily newsletter at Bloomberg dot

588
00:35:30,320 --> 00:35:33,200
Speaker 1: com slash Big Take, and we'd love to hear from you.

589
00:35:33,560 --> 00:35:36,359
Speaker 1: Email us with questions or comments to Big Take at

590
00:35:36,360 --> 00:35:40,680
Speaker 1: Bloomberg dot net. The supervising producer of The Big Take

591
00:35:40,840 --> 00:35:45,560
Speaker 1: is Vicky Bergalina. Our senior producer is Katherine Fink. Our

592
00:35:45,600 --> 00:35:52,400
Speaker 1: producers are Mo Barrow and Michael Falerro is our engineer.

593
00:35:52,800 --> 00:35:56,880
Speaker 1: Original music by Leo Sidrin. I'm West Cosova. We'll be

594
00:35:56,920 --> 00:36:02,279
Speaker 1: back tomorrow with another big take, Don Don Don b