Speaker 1: Welcome to Prognosis. I'm Laura Carlson. It's day three, twenty
Speaker 1: six since coronavirus was declared a global pandemic. Today's main story,
Speaker 1: Biden's new covids are is known among Democrats as a
Speaker 1: problem solver. But will that be enough for the job ahead.
Speaker 1: But first, here's what happened in virus news today. Astra
Speaker 1: Zeneca and the University of Oxford are planning to have
Speaker 1: a re engineered shot that protects against new mutations available
Speaker 1: by the fall. The more protective vaccine would come just
Speaker 1: in time for another round of immunizations that may be
Speaker 1: required before next winter. Andrew Pollard, chief investigator of the
Speaker 1: Oxford Trials, said switching out the genome sequence, manufacturing and
Speaker 1: completing new studies for a vaccine against variants should be
Speaker 1: fairly quick. A new study shows promising signs for the
Speaker 1: immunity of people who have been infected with COVID nineteen.
Speaker 1: According to a report by UK Biobank, a major biomedical database,
Speaker 1: some eight percent of participants who tested positive for previous
Speaker 1: infection retained antibodies for six months. At three months, the
Speaker 1: number was The results follow other smaller studies that indicate
Speaker 1: some level of immunity for at least six months after
Speaker 1: a natural infection. Finally, Mexico's Health agency approved Russia's spot
Speaker 1: Nik five vaccine for emergency use. That's according to Deputy
Speaker 1: Health Minister Hugo Lopez Gatell, who spoke at a press
Speaker 1: con Frinds today. The country has secured one point for
Speaker 1: million doses of the vaccine through March. Mexico is betting
Speaker 1: on close to fifty five million total vaccine doses by
Speaker 1: the end of April. The nation was the first to
Speaker 1: start vaccinating in Latin America, but fell behind others in
Speaker 1: the region after a delay in visor shipments. And now
Speaker 1: for today's main story, Joe Biden's new COVID nineteens Are
Speaker 1: is a former business executive and Biden ally named Jeff Zience,
Speaker 1: who was little known to most Americans. Zience doesn't have
Speaker 1: a medical or military background like the two men who
Speaker 1: ran Operation Warp Speed, the Trump administration's vaccine delivery program.
Speaker 1: I spoke to reporter Anna Edney, who says the posting
Speaker 1: will test sciences reputation with Democrats and Washington as the
Speaker 1: go to guy when things go. There's a new face
Speaker 1: to the Biden administration's policy to beat COVID nineteen in
Speaker 1: the US. But to many Americans it's not exactly a
Speaker 1: familiar one. I was wondering if you might just tell
Speaker 1: us who is Jeff Science? Sure, UM, you know, he's
Speaker 1: somebody who has worked behind the scenes UM a lot
Speaker 1: in government actually, but hasn't really been kind of the
Speaker 1: main face of some of his efforts. UM. Like he
Speaker 1: is now out in front on this COVID response for
Speaker 1: the Biden administration. UM. But Jeff Science actually started his
Speaker 1: career on the business side. UM. He was doing some
Speaker 1: consulting and stepped into the Obama administration actually UM after
Speaker 1: a pretty successful business career, and he was Bamba's first
Speaker 1: Chief Performance Officer. UM. It was a new position that
Speaker 1: the administration had created to try and UM get government
Speaker 1: running a little more smoothly, tackle big things like the
Speaker 1: hiring process, the procurement process. UM. Dian's ended up also
Speaker 1: doing some work at the Office of Management and Budget
Speaker 1: UM for the White House, and he had left government
Speaker 1: for a little bit very shortly, and then in healthcare
Speaker 1: dot com dot gov, which was Obama's signature domestic issue UM,
Speaker 1: trying to get health insurance to more people This was
Speaker 1: the website that let them sign up. It launched in October,
Speaker 1: it crashed and Science was called in to come and
Speaker 1: and fix it, to get the people together to fix it.
Speaker 1: He doesn't have experience really in kind of the medical world,
Speaker 1: but he's known as somebody who can pull people together,
Speaker 1: um find the right people to do the job, get
Speaker 1: the motivate, did keep people on time, and get it done.
Speaker 1: And that's why he's been called back at this point
Speaker 1: now that Democrats are back in the White House. You know,
Speaker 1: hearing the term covids are one might be forgiven to
Speaker 1: think that someone would need a medical background for this role.
Speaker 1: But of course, as you mentioned, Jeff Science does not
Speaker 1: have a medical background. I was wondering if you might
Speaker 1: outline some of the responsibilities he's going to be involved
Speaker 1: with in being the COVID's are so as the COVID's
Speaker 1: are he is going to first off be tackling the
Speaker 1: the vaccine issue. I talked to Andy Slavitt, who also
Speaker 1: worked in the Obama administration and now has come back
Speaker 1: as an adviser to Biden's COVID Response Task Force, who
Speaker 1: said that vaccines are the biggest focus right now for
Speaker 1: the team. Obviously there's a lot of other things they
Speaker 1: need to work on, but getting backsineans out two Americans
Speaker 1: will be will be number one, and so science is
Speaker 1: going to have to focus on things like ramping up manufacturing. UM.
Speaker 1: You know, there's a lot of concern that we won't
Speaker 1: have enough of the vaccines soon enough. That's been kind
Speaker 1: of a slow rollout. But there's other things that that
Speaker 1: will be looking at two, and that's testing UM sequencing
Speaker 1: of the virus because we're seeing all these variants coming.
Speaker 1: So the US is trying to check for variants that
Speaker 1: are happening UM and see if they can sequence the
Speaker 1: virus many many times a day UM as samples come in,
Speaker 1: and so he has a pretty big task. One of
Speaker 1: the things people will be looking for is how he
Speaker 1: might use the Defense Production Act to get a lot
Speaker 1: of these things done. UM syringes are needed for vaccines,
Speaker 1: more vaccines themselves are needed. Some people have criticized this
Speaker 1: appointment because of sciences business background, specifically a group called
Speaker 1: the Revolving Door Project, an arm of the Center for
Speaker 1: Economic and Policy Research that scrutinizes Executive Branch appointees. Tell
Speaker 1: me more about that. The Revolving Door Project took a
Speaker 1: deep dive into some of his past work UM to
Speaker 1: come onto the Biden administration. Science recently resigned from a
Speaker 1: private investment firm called Cranmere that had a health care focus,
Speaker 1: and so their their concern at the Revolving Door Project
Speaker 1: was less about Science himself and more about UM, someone
Speaker 1: who kind of has held his his business positions before.
Speaker 1: They didn't really know as much about him per se,
Speaker 1: But we're concerned that someone with those kind of ties
Speaker 1: would not be able to kind of deal with the
Speaker 1: business community in in a direct enough way UM. And
Speaker 1: that obviously remains to be seen. But Science has been
Speaker 1: pretty adamant that he will use the Defense Production Act
Speaker 1: to get supplies where they're needed. And I mean, is
Speaker 1: there any worry that he is he is too friendly
Speaker 1: to businesses essentially that he will not kind of force
Speaker 1: their hand in in doing something, certainly when it comes
Speaker 1: to the pandemic for for the national good um rather
Speaker 1: than state At the bottom line, Yeah, I think that's
Speaker 1: the concern that the Revolving Door Project has is he
Speaker 1: he won't want to ask companies to do things they
Speaker 1: don't want to do, or he won't want to force
Speaker 1: companies to do things they don't want to do. Obviously,
Speaker 1: there there's a great need um for certain supplies to
Speaker 1: address this pandemic, and it's hard on companies to make
Speaker 1: a switch to making things that they don't normally make,
Speaker 1: or to take some things offline that they make a
Speaker 1: lot of money off of, to make things that they
Speaker 1: might not make a lot of money off of for
Speaker 1: the greater good. The concern is that he's he's friendly
Speaker 1: enough with businesses that he won't want to force their
Speaker 1: hand that way. What are some benchmarks that will indicate
Speaker 1: whether or not Sciences is a success in the role?
Speaker 1: You know, I the administration has targeted closer to really
Speaker 1: more the the end of the year for everyone to
Speaker 1: be able to get their vaccines. Um access would come sooner,
Speaker 1: but just you know, given the time it would take
Speaker 1: for everyone to get one will be closer to the
Speaker 1: end of the year. And so I think we're looking
Speaker 1: out further along those lines to see if something that
Speaker 1: if there's a return to some sort of normal before
Speaker 1: the year is out. Is probably his his main benchmark,
Speaker 1: but there are other other things, other numbers that will
Speaker 1: pop up along the way. Um the sequencing of the virus.
Speaker 1: The US was not doing a lot of that under
Speaker 1: the Trump administration, so they weren't potentially catching variants. UM.
Speaker 1: As soon as they got to know US soil they
Speaker 1: were UM. They're now trying to increase that so you know,
Speaker 1: we can kind of track the number of samples of
Speaker 1: the virus that are sequenced on a daily basis. UM
Speaker 1: testing is another thing. You know, there's been a lot
Speaker 1: of complaints about testing times, wait times once you do
Speaker 1: get a test, so that's something that people are still
Speaker 1: keeping an eye on. That was Anna Edney, and that's
Speaker 1: it for our show today. For coverage of the outbreak
Speaker 1: from one bureaus around the world, visit Bloomberg dot com
Speaker 1: slash coronavirus and if you like the show, please leave
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Speaker 1: global reporting. The Prognosis Daily edition is produced by Tophor Foreheads,
Speaker 1: Magnus Henrickson and me Laura Carlson. Today's main story was
Speaker 1: reported by Anna at original music by Leo Sigrian. Our
Speaker 1: editors are Rick Shine and Francesco Levi. Francesco Levi is
Speaker 1: Bloomberg's head of podcasts, Thanks for listening.