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Speaker 1: Welcome to Prognosis. I'm Laura Carlson. It's day seventy two

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Speaker 1: since coronavirus was declared a global pandemic our main story.

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Speaker 1: When lockdown measures went into effect in countries around the world,

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Speaker 1: many expected to be trapped at home for a few weeks,

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Speaker 1: but months into the pandemic, people are now looking for

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Speaker 1: a way to make social distancings sustainable while tentatively returning

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Speaker 1: to some of their old activities. State and local governments

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Speaker 1: are having a hard time helping people navigate those gray

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Speaker 1: areas because there are few clear answers. But first, here's

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Speaker 1: what happened today. Yet another study is showing the dangers

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Speaker 1: of antimillaria drugs touted by US President Donald Trump for

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Speaker 1: treating COVID nineteen. Hydroxy chloroquine and chloroquine were linked to

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Speaker 1: an increased risk of death and heart ailments. The drugs

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Speaker 1: don't benefit patients with the coronavirus, either alone or in

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Speaker 1: combination with other drugs, according to a study published today

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Speaker 1: by the Lancet Medical Journal. Trump's endorsement has led many

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Speaker 1: people to take the medications without scientific proof of their benefit.

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Speaker 1: An experimental vaccine developed by Chinese company Cancino Biologics is

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Speaker 1: showing promise. An early study shows that the vaccine was

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Speaker 1: safe and generated an immune response. That's according to another

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Speaker 1: report out today from The Lancet. The researchers from the

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Speaker 1: Beijing Institute of Biotechnology and other organizations said further study

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Speaker 1: is needed to show its effectiveness against the virus. And finally,

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Speaker 1: coronavirus is having another direct health effect, this one on

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Speaker 1: very small children. The pandemic has kept parents from taking

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Speaker 1: their children to routine doctor visits. That means, according to

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Speaker 1: the world's top health agencies, that more than eighty million

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Speaker 1: children under the age of one are at risk of

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Speaker 1: life threatening diseases like polio and measles. That's because routine

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Speaker 1: vaccinations of children have been substantially hindered in at least

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Speaker 1: sixty eight countries, according to data from the World Health

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Speaker 1: Organization UNICEF and other organizations. The agencies called on countries

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Speaker 1: to resume campaigns against vaccine preventable diseases and made recommendations

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Speaker 1: on how to safely deliver shots. Amid the pandemic and

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Speaker 1: now our main story, there's a growing public health argument

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Speaker 1: about how people should calculate risk when it comes to

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Speaker 1: social distancing. Many U S States are now lifting stay

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Speaker 1: at home restrictions. Summer is around the corner, and people

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Speaker 1: in the third month of what many hoped would be

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Speaker 1: a week's long disruption are desperate to visit friends and

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Speaker 1: get outside. That means we will be socializing a lot

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Speaker 1: more in many cases without clear guidelines as to what's

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Speaker 1: really risky. As we learn more about how the virus

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Speaker 1: spreads and what constitutes risky behavior, messaging from experts will

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Speaker 1: have to become a little more nuanced than just stay home,

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Speaker 1: stay safe, reports Kristin V. Brown. Here's Kristen with more

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Speaker 1: on how we can make social distancing work for the

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Speaker 1: long haul. A few weeks ago, I did something that

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Speaker 1: broke social distancing rules. I live in Oakland, California, and

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Speaker 1: on March seventeen, my county enacted a strict shelter and

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Speaker 1: place order That means no hanging out with friends or

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Speaker 1: family you don't live with, or spending time outside of

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Speaker 1: the house unless it's necessary at all. Like many people,

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Speaker 1: I coped by moving my social life to the screen.

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Speaker 1: I had lots of Zoom happy hours and Zoom game nights.

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Speaker 1: My best friend I would go for runs while chatting

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Speaker 1: on the phone. But a few weeks ago I hit

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Speaker 1: a wall. I just wanted to have a drink with

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Speaker 1: a friend in real life, so I suggested that my

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Speaker 1: best friend and I meet for a drink in her backyard.

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Speaker 1: We were careful, We stayed six ft apart, weight chips

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Speaker 1: from separate bowls. It seemed really low risk, but still

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Speaker 1: I felt guilty. Julia Marcus is an epidemiologist at Harvard University.

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Speaker 1: She calls what I've been experiencing quarantine fatigue, and she

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Speaker 1: says I am far from the only one feeling it today.

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Speaker 1: The public health health messaging right now has been um

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Speaker 1: stay at home, and of course that is the safest

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Speaker 1: option right now, staying at home, either on your own

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Speaker 1: or with your family, But it's not sustainable for the

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Speaker 1: long term. Julia is among a growing number of people

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Speaker 1: in the public health world to think the messaging around

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Speaker 1: COVID nineteen needs to change. At the beginning of the pandemic,

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Speaker 1: the idea was that we would all hunker down for

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Speaker 1: a few weeks or even a few months until the

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Speaker 1: virus was more under control. But now we're at an

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Speaker 1: inflection point at states reopen. On the one hand, we

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Speaker 1: still don't have a vaccine, and the threat of a

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Speaker 1: new outbreak of disease is very real. But on the

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Speaker 1: other hand, forcing people to continue to exclusively stay inside

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Speaker 1: it's unsustainable and taking a real psychological toll. Julius has

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Speaker 1: all of this means we need to make a plan

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Speaker 1: for the long haul, and now that that's become clear

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Speaker 1: that this is a long term proposition, we have to

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Speaker 1: rethink how we're going to do this so that we

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Speaker 1: can do it in a sustainable way and people can

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Speaker 1: live their lives such that they have things to look

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Speaker 1: forward to and they have joy, and they're not oppressed

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Speaker 1: and isolated. And it's not going to look the way

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Speaker 1: it did before. But you know, we have to adjust

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Speaker 1: to a new normal that balances people's need for human

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Speaker 1: contact with keeping the risk of transmission as low as possible.

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Speaker 1: Julia studies HIV and points to the AIDS epidemic as

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Speaker 1: an example of why our COVID nineteen playbook needs to change.

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Speaker 1: Asking people to not have sex doesn't work, but advising

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Speaker 1: people in ways they can have sex while reducing the

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Speaker 1: chances that they'll contract the virus does. She says, New

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Speaker 1: York City today is setting a good example, It just

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Speaker 1: put out guidelines on sexual health during COVID nineteen. The

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Speaker 1: best way to avoid risk, the guidelines say is to

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Speaker 1: not have sex, but it does recognize not everyone is

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Speaker 1: going to follow that advice and suggest some ways to

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Speaker 1: decrease the risk of other scenarios. To health is not

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Speaker 1: just prevention of disease transmission, and there are other aspects

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Speaker 1: to health that we're going to need to consider. We

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Speaker 1: don't want to see an increase in suicide, you know

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Speaker 1: what I mean, It's there. There's a lot to balance

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Speaker 1: here that I think needs the more holistic approach to

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Speaker 1: health if we're going to do this. The other thing

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Speaker 1: is that we know more about COVID nineteen than we

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Speaker 1: did two months ago. We have a better idea of

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Speaker 1: how it spreads and of who is most susceptible to

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Speaker 1: getting really sick from it. Marty Marqueri is a public

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Speaker 1: health expert at Johns Hopkins. He says he first supported

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Speaker 1: sheltering in place in order to reduce the burden on hospitals,

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Speaker 1: but things have changed now that we have flatten the

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Speaker 1: curve nationally, now that we have data coming in showing

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Speaker 1: that it is it has fallen short of some of

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Speaker 1: the more dire projections. We need to evolve our strategy,

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Speaker 1: and at the same time, the country simply cannot tolerate

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Speaker 1: anymore of a harsh shutdown. Marty says that we need

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Speaker 1: to customize public health recommendations to better fit what we

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Speaker 1: now know about the virus. For example, we now know

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Speaker 1: that the virus is much less likely to spread outdoors.

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Speaker 1: Most cases seem to come from people who have close

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Speaker 1: contact with each other, so have that socially distanced drink

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Speaker 1: in the backyard. Some of this thinking has actually already

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Speaker 1: made its way into policy. For example, in California, businesses

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Speaker 1: can now open up for curbside pickup that will reduce

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Speaker 1: contact opportunities, but will also allow life to inch back

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Speaker 1: towards normal. Marty says that businesses might even be able

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Speaker 1: to just shift to sidewalk shopping. He says, we need

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Speaker 1: to completely rethink many aspects of society. We can actually

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Speaker 1: fight this thing with a pretty good toolbox of many

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Speaker 1: different interventions and have a lot of success. Now does

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Speaker 1: that mean that people can resume summer camps and kids

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Speaker 1: can play soccer together? It depends on the local viral

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Speaker 1: burden in that community. So there's no one size fits

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Speaker 1: all strategy, and the strategy needs to evolve. But not

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Speaker 1: every region has taken into account what we've learned about

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Speaker 1: the virus in deciding how to roll back restrictions. In Alabama,

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Speaker 1: for example, restaurants and bars have been allowed to reopen

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Speaker 1: with limited seating, even though the state has yet to

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Speaker 1: meet White House reopening criteria. The percentage of positive tests

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Speaker 1: in the state has increased, causing concern that a second

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Speaker 1: wave of the virus may be on the way. Marty

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Speaker 1: says public health officials could create a virus threat level

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Speaker 1: for every community. This would change as a virus does

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Speaker 1: and help people better make their own risk assessments. In

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Speaker 1: the United States now with the pandemic, we have numbers

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Speaker 1: of cases, hospitalizations, new intubations, and we can create a

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Speaker 1: risk level for every locale, which will actually stratify the

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Speaker 1: degree of elective activities, be it um, social gathering, sporting events,

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Speaker 1: or essential services. And so we can do this. We

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Speaker 1: can figure out, hey, in this particular community, the disease

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Speaker 1: burden is so low that it's reasonable for young, healthy

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Speaker 1: people to essentially do whatever they want in that community.

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Speaker 1: In other areas, we can say, look there's still a risk.

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Speaker 1: It's not a severe risk, but it's a moderate risk.

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Speaker 1: We're going to ask people to limit themselves to activities

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Speaker 1: where they can conduct them selves with distancing hygiene masks

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Speaker 1: and redesigned business processes. That's very feasible and that's what

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Speaker 1: we should be doing. The big message here is that

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Speaker 1: now that the virus spread has slowed, public health policy

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Speaker 1: requires more of a balancing act. We need to consider

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Speaker 1: not just risk of exposure to the virus, but mental health,

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Speaker 1: economic well being, access to other kinds of healthcare, and happiness.

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Speaker 1: That said, don't count on shaking hands anytime soon. That

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Speaker 1: was Kristin V. Brown and that's our show today. For

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Speaker 1: coverage of the outbreak from one bureaus around the world,

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Speaker 1: visit Bloomberg dot com slash coronavirus and if you like

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Speaker 1: the show, please leave us a review and a rating

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Speaker 1: on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. It's the best way to

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Speaker 1: help more listeners find our global reporting. The Prognosis Daily

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Speaker 1: edition is produced by Topher Foreheads Jordan Gospore, Magnus Hendrickson

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Speaker 1: and me Laura Carlson. Today's main story was reported by

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Speaker 1: Kristin V. Brown. Original music by Leo Sidran. Our editors

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Speaker 1: are Francesca Levi and Rick Shine. Francesca Levie is Bloomberg's

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Speaker 1: head of podcasts. Thanks for listening.