Speaker 1: Welcome to Prognosis. I'm Laura Carlson. It's day fifty seven
Speaker 1: since coronavirus was declared a global pandemic. Our main story.
Speaker 1: Perhaps you've heard of antibody tests. These tools, different from
Speaker 1: COVID nineteen tests, which look for an active infection, can
Speaker 1: help determine whether you've had the virus and recovered. The
Speaker 1: federal government deemed them so important that it loosened regulations
Speaker 1: to get a bunch of them produced quickly, but that
Speaker 1: led to a flood of shady tests. Now the government
Speaker 1: is trying to tighten up again. But first, here's what
Speaker 1: happened today. It's a report that's become familiar. The number
Speaker 1: of Americans filing for unemployment benefits topped three million for
Speaker 1: a seventh straight week. The consistently high numbers suggest there's
Speaker 1: little relief in sight for the economy. Since the coronavirus
Speaker 1: began closing restaurants, factories, and offices from coast to coast
Speaker 1: in mid March, initial jobless claims totaled three point one
Speaker 1: seven million in the week ending May second, according to
Speaker 1: a Labor Department report released today that brought the seven
Speaker 1: week total to about thirty three point five million, and
Speaker 1: yet another move to make air travel safer. A new
Speaker 1: policy will require all US airport security screeners to start
Speaker 1: wearing masks. The Transportation Security Administration will announce the rule
Speaker 1: as soon as today, according to two people familiar with
Speaker 1: the discussions. The move comes as a government and industry
Speaker 1: working group considers a broader requirement that everyone entering an airport,
Speaker 1: including all employees and passengers, must also cover their faces.
Speaker 1: More than five hundred t s A screeners have tested
Speaker 1: positive for COVID nineteen, including six who died. According to
Speaker 1: the agency's website, The agency had left mask use voluntary
Speaker 1: for months. The coronavirus has caused people with other health
Speaker 1: conditions to delay their normal medical care. That has caused
Speaker 1: a surprise windfall for health insurers. In response, some of
Speaker 1: the US's biggest for profit insurers will give money back
Speaker 1: to customers and cut some upfront costs. United Health Group,
Speaker 1: the nation's largest insurer, said it will rebate premiums to
Speaker 1: some commercial customers and way of cost sharing for Medicare members.
Speaker 1: It's part of a one point five billion dollar pandemic
Speaker 1: assistance program. Separately, Signal Core said it's pharmacy unit will
Speaker 1: cap the costs of some drugs for people who have
Speaker 1: lost health insurance. Earlier this week, Humana Incorporated announced it
Speaker 1: would wave cost sharing for Medicare members to see primary
Speaker 1: care doctors for the rest of the year. France will
Speaker 1: roll back lockdown measures, joining countries including Germany, Italy and
Speaker 1: the Netherlands in easing restrictions as the economic pain from
Speaker 1: the coronavirus intensifies. France is preparing to go back to
Speaker 1: work and reopen schools starting on Monday, in a gradual
Speaker 1: process designed to avoid a second wave of infections. Even
Speaker 1: though more than one hundred and forty thousand people have
Speaker 1: died in Europe, the region's leaders are feeling pressure to
Speaker 1: return to normality. They are trying to walk a fine
Speaker 1: line between reactivating the economy and avoiding a renewed outbreak,
Speaker 1: and finally, one luxury brand as a winner. Amid the
Speaker 1: stock market carnage, Peloton Interactive shares hit another record high
Speaker 1: after reported its third quarter results. The company's high end
Speaker 1: exercise bikes and video fitness subscriptions have soared in popularity
Speaker 1: as fit people with high disposable incomes are forced into
Speaker 1: their homes and Jim's are shut down, and now our
Speaker 1: main story. Antibody tests are suddenly everywhere. Those tests measure
Speaker 1: whether someone contracted the virus in the past. They help
Speaker 1: policymakers understand how the virus spreads and whether measures to
Speaker 1: contain the virus are working. In some cases, it's been
Speaker 1: floated that they could help determine who has immunity to
Speaker 1: the virus and could therefore be allowed to return to work.
Speaker 1: Federal regulators relaxed guidelines to make it easier for companies
Speaker 1: to produce these tests, but this has allowed for a
Speaker 1: flood of unreliable and sometimes fraudulent tests to be offered
Speaker 1: to consumers. Now, Bloomberg reporter Kristen V. Brown reports the
Speaker 1: government is trying to control the mess. When the first
Speaker 1: antibody tests were coming online in mid March, the US
Speaker 1: Food and Drug Administration did something pretty remarkable. The agency
Speaker 1: said manufacturers wouldn't have to jump through any of the
Speaker 1: usual regulatory hoops. The tests could just go straight to
Speaker 1: market without any authorization. Suddenly there were ads for antibody
Speaker 1: tests everywhere. We have identified helpers of tests who are
Speaker 1: inappropriately marketing them. Many of them are marketing them for
Speaker 1: use at home. That was never permitted under a policy
Speaker 1: unless authorized by the FDA. Jeffrey Sharon is the director
Speaker 1: of the Center for Device is and Radiological Health at
Speaker 1: the f d A. It's his job to oversee things
Speaker 1: like performance and safety of tests. Some are marketing them
Speaker 1: as being authorized by the agency when they're not. We're
Speaker 1: making other claims. We've also have detained fraudulent test kits
Speaker 1: that have been attempted to have been imported into the US. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: there are people who take advantage of any circumstance and
Speaker 1: people who are taking vantage with the pandemic, and we
Speaker 1: are trying to be pic joint in going after those
Speaker 1: perfect trators. There have been reports of companies doing things
Speaker 1: like advertising that their test can tell you whether you're
Speaker 1: immune to COVID nineteen. For the record, scientists are still
Speaker 1: unclear on whether having the virus once makes you immune
Speaker 1: to it in the future. Now the FDA is changing
Speaker 1: its policies to curb the release of these shady tests.
Speaker 1: FDA Commissioner Stephen Hans as tests will now need to
Speaker 1: get authorization from the agency for going to market. As
Speaker 1: I've said many times throughout this pandemic, every step this
Speaker 1: agency has taken in our approach to COVID nineteen has
Speaker 1: been a careful balancing of risks and benefits. We are
Speaker 1: striving to anticipate and meet the constantly evolving public health
Speaker 1: needs of this unprecedented public health emergency. That's why the
Speaker 1: FDA issued enough state to our COVID nineteen policy on
Speaker 1: antibody tests. There is another reason why the FDA changed course.
Speaker 1: It's bigger than just fraudulent tests advertise on social media.
Speaker 1: Unreliable tests could be prevented policymakers from getting a good
Speaker 1: sense of how widespread the virus is. Major studies on
Speaker 1: the topic have gotten blowback. For example, one Stanford University
Speaker 1: study used antibody tests to conclude that as many as
Speaker 1: four percent of local people had contracted the virus. Critics
Speaker 1: were skeptical that those tests were accurate it. Another study
Speaker 1: analyzed fourteen antibody tests and found only three produced consistently
Speaker 1: reliable results. Anibody tests are just complicated to design. For example,
Speaker 1: if a test isn't fine tuned, it could accidentally pick
Speaker 1: up on antibodies from a different virus and mistake it
Speaker 1: for COVID nineteen. Eric Toble is the director of Scripts
Speaker 1: Research Translational Institute. He says this is a problem because
Speaker 1: policymakers need accurate information when deciding how to roll back restrictions.
Speaker 1: We're trying to reopen, We're trying to get some semblance
Speaker 1: back to pre COVID world, and that has been the
Speaker 1: idea is, oh, well, I can screen people for the
Speaker 1: antibody and if they have it, we can just go
Speaker 1: back to work and back to life. Well, it turns
Speaker 1: out that could be a recipe for trouble because currently
Speaker 1: the false positive rates are you know, two three on
Speaker 1: these tests doesn't sound like much, but it could be
Speaker 1: actually a real troubleing factor. Health officials also worried that
Speaker 1: testing for antibodies could give people a false sense of safety.
Speaker 1: We haven't yet determined whether people become immune to the
Speaker 1: virus after they've had it. The FDA cracked down on
Speaker 1: antibody tests after scientists and lawmakers spent weeks raising the alarm.
Speaker 1: The tests have become so infamous for their murky results
Speaker 1: that last week the White House even suggested that we
Speaker 1: should be using two of them at the same time
Speaker 1: to check the results against each other. But Eric says
Speaker 1: even the f d recent actions won't be enough. A
Speaker 1: lot of the tests that have gotten through the FDA,
Speaker 1: or not even gone through the FDA are based on
Speaker 1: twenty or thirty people, which is, you know, just grossly inadequate.
Speaker 1: Right now, there just isn't enough data to assess the
Speaker 1: quality of most tests. The good news though, is that
Speaker 1: better tests are coming, and people like Eric are really
Speaker 1: excited about some of them. In the meantime, if you
Speaker 1: see an ad for a test that promises to tell
Speaker 1: you whether you have coronavirus immunity, don't take the bait.
Speaker 1: That was Bloomberg's Kristen V. Brown and that's our show today.
Speaker 1: For coverage of the outbreak from one and twenty bureaus
Speaker 1: around the world, visit Bloomberg dot com slash coronavirus and
Speaker 1: if you like the show, please leave us a review
Speaker 1: and a rating on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. It's the
Speaker 1: best way to help more listeners find our global reporting.
Speaker 1: The Prognosis Daily edition is hosted by Me Laura Carlson.
Speaker 1: The show was produced by Me Tophor Foreheads, Jordan Gospore,
Speaker 1: and Magnus Hendrickson. Today's main story was reported by Kristin V. Brown.
Speaker 1: Original music by Leo sidran Our editors are francesco Levy
Speaker 1: and Rick Shawn. Francesco Levy is Bloomberg's head of podcasts.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening.