WEBVTT - Life After Lockdown in Wuhan 0:00:03.400 --> 0:00:08.800 Welcome to Prognosis. I'm Laura Carlson. It's day forty three 0:00:09.119 --> 0:00:13.800 since coronavirus was declared a global pandemic. Our main story, 0:00:14.800 --> 0:00:17.439 the US is still trying to figure out what normal 0:00:17.480 --> 0:00:21.880 life looks like after a pandemic. For a clue, we 0:00:21.920 --> 0:00:25.880 can look to Wuhan, China, the early center of the outbreak, 0:00:26.160 --> 0:00:30.080 where tight restrictions on movement were lifted only weeks ago. 0:00:31.240 --> 0:00:36.120 Bloomberg's Beijing bureau chief, Sharon Chen, visited Wuhan as the 0:00:36.159 --> 0:00:40.479 lockdown ended. She reports the city's residents are living in 0:00:40.479 --> 0:00:46.120 a world that's far from normal. But first, here's what 0:00:46.240 --> 0:00:55.720 happened today. It was the fifth week that new unemployment 0:00:55.760 --> 0:01:00.240 claims reached astronomical levels. It brings the five week total 0:01:00.360 --> 0:01:05.160 during the pandemic to twenty six point five million. That's 0:01:05.200 --> 0:01:09.840 the steepest labor market downturn since the Great Depression. The 0:01:09.959 --> 0:01:13.400 numbers suggest that the US jobless rate for April will 0:01:13.440 --> 0:01:19.280 potentially reach that's double the ten peak reached in the 0:01:19.280 --> 0:01:25.000 wake of the two thousand nine financial crisis. Any minute now, 0:01:25.280 --> 0:01:28.279 the U s House of Representatives is expected to pass 0:01:28.720 --> 0:01:32.640 the four hundred and eighty four billion dollar interim coronavirus 0:01:32.720 --> 0:01:36.399 Rescue package. They met for debate leading up to the vote, 0:01:36.520 --> 0:01:42.200 while taking extraordinary health precautions. Most members were masks and 0:01:42.480 --> 0:01:45.559 members took turns in the chamber to debate the bill. 0:01:47.040 --> 0:01:49.080 It was the first time they convened as a group 0:01:49.360 --> 0:01:54.120 since March. The measure will add new funds to the 0:01:54.160 --> 0:01:59.680 paycheck Protection program of loans to small businesses. The President 0:01:59.720 --> 0:02:03.720 of the European Central Bank, Christine Lagarde, told EU leaders 0:02:03.920 --> 0:02:06.880 that its gross domestic product could follow by as much 0:02:06.920 --> 0:02:11.400 as fifteent. Lagarde set in a video conference with the 0:02:11.440 --> 0:02:14.800 twenty seven EU heads that they have done too little, 0:02:15.240 --> 0:02:20.840 too late, according to people familiar with her remarks. Finally, 0:02:21.320 --> 0:02:24.880 a new antibody test can tell in fourteen minutes whether 0:02:24.960 --> 0:02:30.000 someone was infected with a novel coronavirus. According to Siemens 0:02:30.000 --> 0:02:33.120 Health and Years a G, the company that developed the test, 0:02:33.639 --> 0:02:37.280 it is more than accurate and will be available by 0:02:37.400 --> 0:02:46.840 late May. And now our main story. Millions of people 0:02:46.880 --> 0:02:50.840 in Wuhan, China, the city where the novel coronavirus first emerged, 0:02:51.360 --> 0:02:53.920 are trying to figure out what life looks like in 0:02:53.960 --> 0:02:59.640 the bustling industrial city after the worst pandemic in a century. 0:03:00.000 --> 0:03:03.960 Bloomberg's Beijing Bureau chief Sharon Chen went to Wuhan recently 0:03:04.160 --> 0:03:07.120 to see what it looks like to emerge from lockdown. 0:03:07.880 --> 0:03:11.040 She found a world that still feels far from normal 0:03:11.680 --> 0:03:15.600 and a population that's keenly aware of both the threat 0:03:15.639 --> 0:03:21.040 of disease and the watchful eye of China's powerful surveillance state. 0:03:22.160 --> 0:03:26.520 Bloomberg Senior Executive editor for Economics, Stephanie Flanders, spoke to 0:03:26.560 --> 0:03:30.600 Sharon for the Stephanomics podcast. Here's some of their conversation. 0:03:32.240 --> 0:03:36.560 We went to Wuhan on April four, just before the 0:03:36.680 --> 0:03:40.040 quarantine was lifted on April eight. The idea was to 0:03:40.080 --> 0:03:42.880 go there and see, you know, how does the city 0:03:43.160 --> 0:03:46.560 of more than ten million people emerged from lockdown and 0:03:46.960 --> 0:03:49.760 it's the first city in the world that went through it. 0:03:50.000 --> 0:03:54.760 And throughout this whole process, this virus outbreak, Wuhan has 0:03:54.840 --> 0:03:56.760 kind of been ahead of the curve. Did have been 0:03:56.800 --> 0:03:58.440 the first city to deal with it, and then now 0:03:58.480 --> 0:04:00.200 the first city to be lockdown and then for a 0:04:00.280 --> 0:04:02.880 city to try to get back to normal. Every thought 0:04:02.880 --> 0:04:05.480 that going there would maybe give us some clues about 0:04:05.720 --> 0:04:09.160 what kinds of things would happen when other big cities 0:04:09.200 --> 0:04:12.080 try to emerge from lockdown. Yeah, so that was the 0:04:12.120 --> 0:04:14.880 idea behind the trip. And now that I'm back in Beijing, 0:04:15.280 --> 0:04:17.719 I've been quarantined in my apartment for fourteen days and 0:04:17.800 --> 0:04:21.000 I can't leave. You were actually and you were just saying, 0:04:21.080 --> 0:04:22.880 I want to hear Himut what what Wihan? But you 0:04:22.920 --> 0:04:27.080 should you have an alarm on your door. But to 0:04:27.200 --> 0:04:31.000 prevent you from from leaving, they put an alarm on 0:04:31.040 --> 0:04:35.520 my door that alerts my kind of my property management 0:04:35.520 --> 0:04:38.800 building a building management whenever I opened the door, and 0:04:38.839 --> 0:04:40.960 I'm only allowed to open the door to put the 0:04:41.000 --> 0:04:44.560 trash outside and to pick up food that's delivered or 0:04:44.560 --> 0:04:47.320 any items I have delivered. I have to report my 0:04:47.320 --> 0:04:51.120 temperature to three different recheck groups every day, twice a day. 0:04:51.279 --> 0:04:53.599 Beijing is just on high alert. It's kind of more 0:04:53.640 --> 0:04:57.880 paranoid than any other city in China. On Whan, what 0:04:57.880 --> 0:05:03.440 what struck you most immediately about the experience there, because, 0:05:03.480 --> 0:05:07.480 as you say, we do look to Wuhan as an 0:05:07.520 --> 0:05:11.120 extreme example of the impact of the virus, but also 0:05:11.279 --> 0:05:14.839 a place that was quite far ahead of everywhere else. Yeah, 0:05:14.920 --> 0:05:17.200 I mean, I think my biggest takeaway is that it 0:05:17.240 --> 0:05:21.320 was really kind of a two speed recovery or like 0:05:21.520 --> 0:05:24.080 coming back to normal. So you had the resumption of 0:05:24.080 --> 0:05:29.480 work and that was really apparent and really immediate, especially 0:05:29.480 --> 0:05:32.119 because it was something that the government was pushing. So 0:05:32.480 --> 0:05:35.120 the day we arrived there were there was hardly any traffic, 0:05:35.240 --> 0:05:37.279 and by the time we were leaving ten days later, 0:05:37.320 --> 0:05:40.080 we were getting stuck in traffic constantly at rush hour 0:05:40.480 --> 0:05:42.640 because people were going to work. You know, factories were 0:05:42.640 --> 0:05:46.480 working at full production capacity. They were working through the weekends, 0:05:46.839 --> 0:05:48.800 they worked through the long holiday that we were there 0:05:48.839 --> 0:05:51.760 to make up for all the last time. But in 0:05:51.880 --> 0:05:54.240 terms of consumption, you know, the shopping malls were open, 0:05:54.320 --> 0:05:57.200 the restaurants were open, but they were basically empty. No 0:05:57.240 --> 0:05:59.760 one was eating out. Even the few people that we 0:06:00.240 --> 0:06:02.760 to in the mall said that they don't think that 0:06:02.800 --> 0:06:04.720 they would go out like they used to before just 0:06:04.800 --> 0:06:07.120 for fun um, you know, they would really only go 0:06:07.160 --> 0:06:12.000 out for essential activities. People will still scared, I think, 0:06:12.560 --> 0:06:15.719 both of the virus, even though there are officially no 0:06:15.839 --> 0:06:20.000 cases in Mohan. Now, um they're they're both scared of 0:06:20.080 --> 0:06:22.719 the virus. It's kind of I think a psychological hangover 0:06:22.839 --> 0:06:25.200 after being told for weeks and weeks that it's very 0:06:25.279 --> 0:06:27.560 dangerous outside and you can't go outside and it's dangerous 0:06:27.680 --> 0:06:30.680 interact with people. But they were also scared of being 0:06:30.760 --> 0:06:34.760 quarantined again because in Mohan they have this health code system, 0:06:34.839 --> 0:06:39.039 so you're either green, yellow, or red, and even going 0:06:39.200 --> 0:06:42.720 into a shopping mall where later someone else is either 0:06:42.800 --> 0:06:45.719 suspected or confirmed of having the virus will turn your 0:06:45.800 --> 0:06:48.960 code yellow and then you can get quarantined again, and 0:06:49.000 --> 0:06:51.400 your housing compound can refuse to let you leave the 0:06:51.440 --> 0:06:54.800 housing compound. So there's kind of like this high level 0:06:54.800 --> 0:06:57.560 of paranoia about both those things, both the virus and 0:06:57.720 --> 0:07:01.080 about being locked up again. So I mean, I think 0:07:01.360 --> 0:07:05.440 consumer habits and just social habits really have changed, and 0:07:05.480 --> 0:07:08.039 there was kind of this divergence between going to work 0:07:08.200 --> 0:07:11.640 and going out for fun. Now that's fascinating, and I 0:07:11.680 --> 0:07:13.520 think and we are seeing that when we're looking at 0:07:13.520 --> 0:07:15.600 the sort of high frequency economist are now looking at 0:07:15.600 --> 0:07:20.200 the high frequency data in Beijing and other cities, and 0:07:20.280 --> 0:07:22.200 you can see this real there's a sort of bat 0:07:22.240 --> 0:07:24.120 as you say, there's the kind of supply side and 0:07:24.160 --> 0:07:28.360 the demand side. The supply side shock as we used 0:07:28.400 --> 0:07:31.120 to talk about it has gone because people are more 0:07:31.200 --> 0:07:35.200 or less back to work, But anything that's to do 0:07:35.360 --> 0:07:40.360 with spending and consumer activity, particularly at the weekends, is 0:07:40.400 --> 0:07:46.160 just still way below where it was. And that's obviously 0:07:46.200 --> 0:07:51.760 concerning for economists thinking about how steep the recovery is. 0:07:51.960 --> 0:07:54.119 When you look at Wuhan and then you read people 0:07:54.160 --> 0:07:57.200 still talking about that v shaped recovery that we turn 0:07:57.240 --> 0:08:00.640 everything back on again, do you think that is is 0:08:00.720 --> 0:08:03.520 quite far off the map. Yeah, I mean I think 0:08:03.560 --> 0:08:06.600 if you listen to you know, like US President Donald 0:08:06.640 --> 0:08:09.200 Trump saying when we lift the lockdowns, everything's going to 0:08:09.280 --> 0:08:13.440 go back to normal, it just seems so far removed 0:08:13.480 --> 0:08:16.720 from what's happening in Buhan. You know, just because people 0:08:16.760 --> 0:08:19.720 have the freedom to go outside doesn't mean that they 0:08:19.760 --> 0:08:22.320 want to the idea of people sitting in a crowded 0:08:22.360 --> 0:08:25.520 restaurant or going to watch a movie in a theater 0:08:25.760 --> 0:08:28.440 or going to a concert. I mean, like, I don't 0:08:28.440 --> 0:08:30.920 think anyone in Mohan would even consider that within the 0:08:30.960 --> 0:08:34.360 realm of possibility. Being at home for so long, I 0:08:34.400 --> 0:08:38.040 think it's really changed people in the long term, Like 0:08:38.120 --> 0:08:41.400 people are just more used to um eating at home, 0:08:41.960 --> 0:08:45.120 used to cooking at home, not really going out getting 0:08:45.120 --> 0:08:49.400 food delivered. We also interviewed a restaurant owner. He of 0:08:49.559 --> 0:08:52.480 his ten restaurants, none of them have reopened. The original 0:08:52.520 --> 0:08:56.160 plan was for him to reopen three, and then when 0:08:56.160 --> 0:08:59.199 he realized that nobody's going out anyway, he decided he 0:08:59.240 --> 0:09:01.400 was just going to real and one, and eventually he 0:09:01.480 --> 0:09:06.199 reopened none of them. And he said, you know, people now, 0:09:06.240 --> 0:09:07.920 they don't go out for lunch on their lunch hour. 0:09:08.040 --> 0:09:11.040 Everyone's bringing lunch to the office, that bringing home cooked food. 0:09:11.360 --> 0:09:13.160 So all these little things that are really going to 0:09:13.240 --> 0:09:18.640 impact businesses like his, especially small businesses, I think, and 0:09:18.679 --> 0:09:20.959 I think it goes to that point of the permanence 0:09:21.000 --> 0:09:23.040 of some of these costs. We know, as you said, 0:09:23.040 --> 0:09:26.680 the manufacturers are quickly doing the orders that got put 0:09:26.720 --> 0:09:29.160 on hold, and you could imagine that they might get 0:09:29.200 --> 0:09:32.280 back eighty or ninety percent of what they would have had. 0:09:32.320 --> 0:09:34.680 You know, they'll grow much faster now in a classic 0:09:34.720 --> 0:09:37.079 kind of recovery where and catch up that lost ground. 0:09:37.800 --> 0:09:41.920 But in the service sector and spending on things like restaurants, 0:09:42.000 --> 0:09:43.920 we just we know that we're not going to be 0:09:44.120 --> 0:09:47.199 eating twice as many restaurant meals in the second half 0:09:47.240 --> 0:09:48.880 of the year. But what you're telling me is that 0:09:48.920 --> 0:09:52.480 we may not even be eating half the level of 0:09:52.480 --> 0:09:55.320 our normal level. That could really have an impact on 0:09:55.360 --> 0:09:58.040 the pace of the recovery. Well, Sharon, so how long 0:09:58.080 --> 0:10:00.640 have you got before that bell goes off your our door? 0:10:00.880 --> 0:10:02.680 When do you when do you get to see the sun? 0:10:02.679 --> 0:10:06.400 She field the sunshine again. So I have seven days 0:10:06.440 --> 0:10:10.679 to go, but Beijing has just said that my district 0:10:10.760 --> 0:10:13.480 is a high risk area because they discovered a cluster. 0:10:14.320 --> 0:10:17.959 A student from the US came back and tested positive 0:10:18.000 --> 0:10:20.840 for the virus two days after he completed his fourteen 0:10:20.880 --> 0:10:23.800 day quarantine. So there's been some rumors that they could 0:10:23.800 --> 0:10:25.880 extend it to twenty one days, but so far that 0:10:25.920 --> 0:10:28.280 hasn't happened. So fingers crossed that I get out in 0:10:28.320 --> 0:10:32.680 a week. Good luck, fingers crossed, And thanks so much 0:10:32.720 --> 0:10:40.960 for all the reporting you're doing. Thank you. That was 0:10:41.000 --> 0:10:45.600 Stephanie Flanders in conversation with Sharon Chen. For more on 0:10:45.600 --> 0:10:48.280 what it will take for China and the world to 0:10:48.360 --> 0:10:52.199 return to normal, listen to the new episode of Stephanomics 0:10:52.200 --> 0:10:56.280 out today, and that's it for our show. For more 0:10:56.280 --> 0:10:59.160 on the coronavirus crisis from a hundred and twenty bureaus 0:10:59.200 --> 0:11:06.080 around the world, visit Bloomberg Dot com slash Coronavirus and please, 0:11:06.520 --> 0:11:09.440 if you appreciate the show, please leave us a review 0:11:09.480 --> 0:11:13.040 in a rating on Apple Podcasts for Spotify, It's the 0:11:13.080 --> 0:11:16.280 best way to help more listeners find our global reporting. 0:11:17.760 --> 0:11:21.320 The Prognosis Daily edition is hosted by Me Laura Carlson. 0:11:22.040 --> 0:11:25.559 The show was produced by Me Tophor foreheads Jordan Gospoure 0:11:25.960 --> 0:11:30.720 and Magnus Hendrickson. Today's main story was reported by Sharon 0:11:30.840 --> 0:11:36.880 chet Original music by Leo Sidrin. Our editors are Francesca 0:11:37.000 --> 0:11:42.120 Levi and Rick Shine. Francesca Levi is Bloomberg's head of podcasts. 0:11:42.600 --> 0:11:43.480 Thanks for listening.