WEBVTT - Is the Virus Getting Worse? 0:00:02.840 --> 0:00:09.640 Welcome to Prognosis. I'm Laura Carlson. It's day since coronavirus 0:00:09.680 --> 0:00:14.640 was declared a global pandemic. Our main story. Some new 0:00:14.680 --> 0:00:19.120 research suggests the coronavirus could have mutated into a more 0:00:19.200 --> 0:00:23.560 contagious strain, but the truth may not be that cut 0:00:23.560 --> 0:00:27.440 and dry. We'll discuss what it really means that the 0:00:27.560 --> 0:00:36.599 virus is changing, but first, here's what happened today. The 0:00:36.720 --> 0:00:40.840 US unemployment rate more than tripled in April to fourteen 0:00:40.880 --> 0:00:45.640 point seven in what was the harshest downturn in history 0:00:45.760 --> 0:00:51.199 for American workers. Employers cut twenty point five million jobs. 0:00:52.720 --> 0:00:56.120 We now have the highest jobless rate since the Great Depression. 0:00:57.280 --> 0:01:00.200 The losses were brought on by coronavirus force in the 0:01:00.240 --> 0:01:04.040 economy to a halt two months ago. They erase a 0:01:04.080 --> 0:01:08.280 decade of job growth and show how precarious employment is 0:01:08.920 --> 0:01:13.920 for huge swaths of Americans. The job's report showed an 0:01:13.959 --> 0:01:17.639 outsize impact on lower paid workers, as well as women 0:01:18.160 --> 0:01:23.560 and minorities. Spain reported its biggest increase in new cases 0:01:23.600 --> 0:01:26.520 in nearly a week, as the country goes through the 0:01:26.600 --> 0:01:30.200 first phase of a plan to relax its lockdown after 0:01:30.360 --> 0:01:36.040 eight weeks of confinement Portugal, which began easing confinement measures 0:01:36.040 --> 0:01:39.840 on Monday, reported a bigger increase in new cases for 0:01:39.920 --> 0:01:46.559 a third day on Friday. New complaints alleged chip maker 0:01:46.720 --> 0:01:50.800 Intel compromised worker safety at some of its factories to 0:01:50.920 --> 0:01:54.600 keep churning out semiconductors. In the midst of the pandemic, 0:01:56.000 --> 0:01:59.800 Intel kept staff and an Arizona plant working closely within 0:02:00.000 --> 0:02:03.480 ployees who had tested positive, according to people who work there. 0:02:04.720 --> 0:02:09.120 The sources say factory managers also didn't test workers and 0:02:09.200 --> 0:02:14.079 dismissed concerns that social distancing guidelines were not being followed properly. 0:02:15.280 --> 0:02:18.600 The company said it responded with new policies to improve 0:02:18.639 --> 0:02:23.280 employee safety and kept factory output high because its products 0:02:23.400 --> 0:02:29.200 are essential. Finally, the World Health Organization discussed its latest 0:02:29.200 --> 0:02:33.200 thinking on where the virus came from. Today, the novel 0:02:33.240 --> 0:02:37.080 coronavirus belongs to a group of viruses that begin in bats. 0:02:38.240 --> 0:02:42.040 It probably arrived in humans through contact with animals they 0:02:42.040 --> 0:02:44.880 were raising as food, according to the w h O, 0:02:45.680 --> 0:02:51.160 though it's unclear through which species. Cats and ferrets are 0:02:51.200 --> 0:02:54.400 susceptible to the virus, and dogs to a lesser extent, 0:02:55.080 --> 0:02:58.040 and it's important to find which animals can get it 0:02:58.320 --> 0:03:03.600 to avoid creating a reserve are in another species. President 0:03:03.639 --> 0:03:06.480 Donald Trump has suggested that the virus came from a 0:03:06.560 --> 0:03:10.680 lab in China, but scientists who have studied the issue 0:03:10.960 --> 0:03:15.120 maintained that the virus originated in an animal and probably 0:03:15.280 --> 0:03:25.920 entered the human population. In November and now our main story. 0:03:27.160 --> 0:03:31.440 Last week, researchers at the Los Alamos National Laboratory released 0:03:31.480 --> 0:03:35.680 alarming news at least one variant of the virus that 0:03:35.760 --> 0:03:41.440 causes COVID nineteen had significantly mutated to become more contagious. 0:03:42.640 --> 0:03:47.840 If true, this would have major implications. A new variant could, 0:03:47.880 --> 0:03:51.880 for example, hamper efforts to develop a vaccine, or mean 0:03:51.960 --> 0:03:55.360 that people who have already had COVID nineteen might face 0:03:55.400 --> 0:03:59.760 a greater risk of getting it again. But critics said 0:03:59.800 --> 0:04:04.160 that didn't support such a big claim, and some accuse 0:04:04.240 --> 0:04:09.920 the scientists of sensationalizing. Reporter Kristin V. Brown discusses the 0:04:09.960 --> 0:04:13.640 implications of a changing virus and what we should make 0:04:13.640 --> 0:04:20.040 of this and other controversial findings. So what does it 0:04:20.120 --> 0:04:25.640 mean when a virus mutates? So viruses are constantly mutating. 0:04:25.920 --> 0:04:29.240 Viruses replicate by copying themselves, and they are not very 0:04:29.279 --> 0:04:32.719 good at it, so when they copy themselves, they make 0:04:32.760 --> 0:04:35.800 these little, tiny errors, and most of the time those 0:04:35.880 --> 0:04:40.320 errors are insignificant. They don't really mean anything, don't change 0:04:40.320 --> 0:04:44.080 the way the virus operates. Occasionally you get these changes 0:04:44.560 --> 0:04:48.760 that are what we call a functionally significant mutation. And 0:04:49.000 --> 0:04:54.440 that's where things get interesting. When do these mutations actually 0:04:54.600 --> 0:04:57.880 mean something for us as humans? They call them functionally 0:04:57.960 --> 0:05:02.760 significant mutations because the rusus mutated in a way that 0:05:02.839 --> 0:05:06.080 makes it behave differently. So that behavior could mean all 0:05:06.080 --> 0:05:09.040 different kinds of things. It could mean that it can 0:05:09.120 --> 0:05:12.279 enter a new species, right, It could mean that it 0:05:12.320 --> 0:05:16.279 affects different kinds of people. It could mean that it 0:05:16.560 --> 0:05:20.359 latches on to its host cell in a more efficient way. 0:05:20.880 --> 0:05:24.680 But something about that mutation means that the virus now 0:05:24.839 --> 0:05:29.600 behaves differently from the version of the virus that existed before. 0:05:29.880 --> 0:05:35.839 And those are the mutations that scientists, drug makers, policymakers 0:05:36.120 --> 0:05:38.640 are really looking out for when it comes to stars 0:05:38.680 --> 0:05:41.760 COVI two, because those are the mutations that could change 0:05:41.800 --> 0:05:45.480 the way we respond to the virus. Have we seen 0:05:45.600 --> 0:05:50.640 mutations already happen with the coronavirus, So we've cataloged over 0:05:50.760 --> 0:05:54.640 seven thousand coronavirus mutations, and there are probably many, many 0:05:54.680 --> 0:05:58.640 thousands more that we have not cataloged. But a paper 0:05:58.720 --> 0:06:00.440 last week caused a bit of a star because it 0:06:00.520 --> 0:06:05.040 suggested that one of those mutations was functionally significant. So 0:06:05.160 --> 0:06:09.159 the coronavirus has these little spiky pieces, and those spiky 0:06:09.200 --> 0:06:13.920 bits are proteins that allow a virus to latch onto 0:06:13.920 --> 0:06:18.960 a host cell. So the mutation these researchers found was 0:06:19.160 --> 0:06:22.200 in that part of the virus, in the part that 0:06:22.400 --> 0:06:26.800 latches on to a host cell, and that's why they 0:06:26.839 --> 0:06:29.279 took a closer look at it. Why are they focusing 0:06:29.279 --> 0:06:32.400 on this mutation? What the theorist here is there's the 0:06:32.400 --> 0:06:34.880 original form of the virus that came out of Asia, 0:06:35.320 --> 0:06:37.760 and there is what appears to be a new form 0:06:37.839 --> 0:06:41.680 of the virus in Europe with this mutation, and that 0:06:41.800 --> 0:06:45.400 European form of the virus seems to be gaining a 0:06:45.480 --> 0:06:49.000 lot of ground. So they theorized that this mutation in 0:06:49.040 --> 0:06:51.880 the part of the virus that latches on to host 0:06:51.960 --> 0:06:57.400 cells was actually making the virus able to spread more efficiently. 0:06:57.880 --> 0:07:00.520 That's a pretty big claim that all of a sudden, 0:07:00.560 --> 0:07:03.800 you have this virus that's even more robust than the 0:07:04.000 --> 0:07:09.360 original Asian stars Kobe two, which is already extremely contagious. 0:07:09.400 --> 0:07:12.720 So you're saying that there are actually two different forms 0:07:12.760 --> 0:07:16.160 of the virus. The form that emerged in China is 0:07:16.280 --> 0:07:18.360 different than the form of the virus that we saw 0:07:18.560 --> 0:07:22.720 in say Italy. Researchers are able to use these mutations, 0:07:22.760 --> 0:07:27.880 these really small incremental mutations, and basically do like a 0:07:27.920 --> 0:07:31.440 family tree for the virus. Right, and as they've done 0:07:31.440 --> 0:07:35.680 this family tree, it's seemed like there are two forms 0:07:35.680 --> 0:07:37.800 of the virus, the original one that came out of 0:07:37.840 --> 0:07:42.440 Asia and one that has emerged in Europe as the 0:07:42.520 --> 0:07:46.240 virus has mutated over time, and interestingly, in the United States, 0:07:46.240 --> 0:07:48.720 we actually have both forms of the virus. On the 0:07:48.760 --> 0:07:52.080 West coast, we seem to primarily have gotten the Asian 0:07:52.120 --> 0:07:54.080 form of the virus, and on the East coast it's 0:07:54.120 --> 0:07:58.360 the European form. And we've seen both sort of mix 0:07:58.400 --> 0:08:01.240 and mingle here in the US. So there are what 0:08:01.360 --> 0:08:05.160 appears to be these two forms of the virus, and 0:08:05.800 --> 0:08:09.480 the researchers were looking at the European form and trying 0:08:09.520 --> 0:08:12.320 to figure out if there is anything significant about it 0:08:12.400 --> 0:08:17.160 that might explain why the European form has overtaken this 0:08:17.240 --> 0:08:22.200 Asian form in some places, is there any way to know, 0:08:22.640 --> 0:08:26.000 for example, if you have COVID nineteen, if you have 0:08:26.200 --> 0:08:29.920 the Asian form or the European form, they would have 0:08:29.960 --> 0:08:33.000 to sequence the virus, right, because these variants are still 0:08:33.320 --> 0:08:35.920 tiny bits of genetic code. So I don't think at 0:08:35.920 --> 0:08:38.720 this point that you can go get a coronavirus test 0:08:38.760 --> 0:08:40.920 and they can be like, oh, you have the Asian coronavirus. 0:08:41.280 --> 0:08:43.560 What's the takeaway in terms of knowing that there are 0:08:43.600 --> 0:08:46.480 these multiple forms. So the big question right now is 0:08:46.480 --> 0:08:49.800 actually doesn't matter that there are two forms. It's interesting 0:08:50.200 --> 0:08:52.520 from the perspective of then you can track how the 0:08:52.600 --> 0:08:55.679 virus moves around the world, right, We can track the 0:08:56.320 --> 0:09:00.520 virus went to Europe from Asia and then evolved to 0:09:00.559 --> 0:09:03.400 become slightly different, and then that that virus came to 0:09:03.400 --> 0:09:07.160 the United States. So that helps epidemiologists understand how the 0:09:07.240 --> 0:09:11.280 virus is moving. And that's interesting and important just for 0:09:11.360 --> 0:09:13.800 basic research to allow us to get a handle on 0:09:13.840 --> 0:09:16.960 how this virus operates. But the big question is does 0:09:16.960 --> 0:09:21.520 the specific mutation mean anything? And like many things with 0:09:21.559 --> 0:09:25.200 the novel coronavirus, at the current moment, we actually just 0:09:25.240 --> 0:09:28.520 don't know, and that's what's kind of scary, because it 0:09:28.640 --> 0:09:32.280 is very possible what these researchers Posit is very possible 0:09:32.800 --> 0:09:37.360 that there is a mutation in this European virus that 0:09:37.760 --> 0:09:41.280 has allowed it to spread more quickly, and that that 0:09:41.360 --> 0:09:44.320 mutation is in this really key part of the virus. 0:09:44.679 --> 0:09:46.360 The key part of the virus it'sin is the part 0:09:46.400 --> 0:09:49.040 that attaches to a human cell. Right. That's also the 0:09:49.040 --> 0:09:53.040 part of the virus that we target when we make vaccines. 0:09:53.400 --> 0:09:56.160 So if you have a virus that has mutative there's 0:09:56.160 --> 0:09:59.360 a question, for example, of will that vaccine now work 0:09:59.440 --> 0:10:02.400 only your pan virus? And we don't know the answer 0:10:02.400 --> 0:10:06.400 to those questions right now. But these researchers were like, Hey, 0:10:06.600 --> 0:10:10.320 this looks really interesting. It could potentially be important. We 0:10:10.360 --> 0:10:12.840 need to look at this so we know that we're 0:10:12.920 --> 0:10:17.240 developing treatments and vaccines that actually work for the form 0:10:17.320 --> 0:10:20.000 of the virus it's becoming more dominant. And how did 0:10:20.080 --> 0:10:24.240 drugmakers react to the news about this mutation? So interestingly, 0:10:24.360 --> 0:10:29.240 drugmakers at this point feel like this particular mutation does 0:10:29.280 --> 0:10:33.599 not matter, that they have not seen anything that suggests 0:10:33.800 --> 0:10:38.080 that the versions of vaccines that they're developing will not 0:10:38.200 --> 0:10:40.880 work with the European form of the virus. So there's 0:10:40.920 --> 0:10:44.840 all this debate over how meaningful this area of the 0:10:44.960 --> 0:10:48.800 virus is in terms of the significance of that mutation. 0:10:49.800 --> 0:10:52.120 So it sounds like there's still a lot of confidence 0:10:52.200 --> 0:10:55.559 that if a vaccine can be created, it can treat 0:10:55.640 --> 0:10:59.760 both the European and the Asian form of the virus. 0:11:00.960 --> 0:11:04.920 Right right now, drug maker rs do not see anything 0:11:05.120 --> 0:11:08.560 that worries them, anything that makes them think that the 0:11:08.720 --> 0:11:11.720 version of vaccines they are developing based on the Asian 0:11:11.760 --> 0:11:14.680 form of the virus will not treat the European version. 0:11:15.080 --> 0:11:18.800 But there's debate, there's questions that need to be answered 0:11:18.920 --> 0:11:22.480 to ensure that that's true, because if they turn out 0:11:22.520 --> 0:11:27.239 to be wrong, then we can have really catastrophic outcomes. 0:11:33.760 --> 0:11:38.319 That was Bloomberg's Kristen V. Brown and that's our show today. 0:11:39.120 --> 0:11:42.559 For coverage of the outbreak from one bureaus around the world, 0:11:43.200 --> 0:11:48.240 visit bloomberg dot com slash coronavirus and if you like 0:11:48.360 --> 0:11:51.160 the show, please leave us a review and a rating 0:11:51.400 --> 0:11:55.200 on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. It's the best way to 0:11:55.280 --> 0:12:00.079 help more listeners find our global reporting. The prognosis The 0:12:00.240 --> 0:12:03.839 edition is hosted by Me Laura Carlson. The show was 0:12:03.880 --> 0:12:08.760 produced by Me topher Foreheaz, Jordan Gospoure, and Magnus Henrickson. 0:12:09.800 --> 0:12:14.559 Today's main story was reported by Kristin V. Brown. Original 0:12:14.640 --> 0:12:19.200 music by Leo sidran Our editors are Francesco Levi and 0:12:19.280 --> 0:12:24.760 Reck Shawn. Francesco Levi is Bloomberg's head of podcasts. Thanks 0:12:24.800 --> 0:12:25.320 for listening.