Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bloomberg Markets Podcast. I'm Paul Sweeney, along
Speaker 1: with my co host of Bonnie Quinn. Every business day
Speaker 1: we bring you interviews from CEOs, market pros, and Bloomberg experts,
Speaker 1: along with essential market moving news. Find the Bloomberg Markets
Speaker 1: Podcast on Apple podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts,
Speaker 1: and on Bloomberg dot com. Well, it's been a head
Speaker 1: scratcher from the start. Firstly, imperative was to get workers
Speaker 1: to work from safe places, their homes preferably. Then it
Speaker 1: was clear this wouldn't be a short term phenomenon, so
Speaker 1: some workers wanted to swap out those homes for other homes,
Speaker 1: maybe even other states. But what do the companies do
Speaker 1: those that are still paying rent for those employees at
Speaker 1: work spaces. Well, Noah bu Hire is real estate reporter
Speaker 1: for Bloomberg News. He has the cover story of the
Speaker 1: new issue of Bloomberg Business Week magazine and it's called
Speaker 1: the Work from Home Boom is here to stay. Get
Speaker 1: ready for pay cuts. No, it's a great story. Talk
Speaker 1: to us about the decisions that companies are having to
Speaker 1: make now nine months into this pandemic, with no end
Speaker 1: in sight and the possibility of a very changing geographic workforce. Yeah,
Speaker 1: thanks for having me on. I I think it's a
Speaker 1: it's a really interesting question and and a lot of
Speaker 1: this has been evolving over the course of this year's
Speaker 1: Companies have have realized that UM workers, their employees can
Speaker 1: be quite productive at home. They're they're certainly drawbacks and
Speaker 1: I think we're starting to see that. So what companies
Speaker 1: are are are starting to do is come up with
Speaker 1: policies UM that imagine, you know, what the rules of
Speaker 1: the road are going to be when UM, when offices
Speaker 1: can be reopened safely? You know, do you have everyone
Speaker 1: come back UM every day of the week. Are they
Speaker 1: doing more hybrid schedules coming in a few days a week? UM?
Speaker 1: And to what extent do you allow workers who want
Speaker 1: to UM just to move somewhere in in entirely different UM.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's a small town, maybe it's closer to family,
Speaker 1: but somewhere that's not so close to the office. Well,
Speaker 1: there's this new little phrase that's coming in and something
Speaker 1: tells me that we're all going to be using it
Speaker 1: very soon, called localized compensation. What is that? Well, it's
Speaker 1: it's just it's an idea that's been around and been
Speaker 1: in practice for for a long time. I mean, companies,
Speaker 1: even the federal government paid different wages for the same
Speaker 1: work in different places. And and it's just a reality
Speaker 1: that the cost of labor and the cost of living
Speaker 1: very um widely across the US. And as a result,
Speaker 1: UM companies try and pay in accordance with local labor
Speaker 1: market conditions and with you know, something that would allow
Speaker 1: their workers, um, if they're you know, professional to live
Speaker 1: a sort of what we consider a professional lifestyle and
Speaker 1: fill in the blank city and um, you know, there's
Speaker 1: data out there, and companies use this data. But now
Speaker 1: they're having to think about, well, how do we um
Speaker 1: pay people who make these voluntary moves to places where
Speaker 1: we may not have an offer? Right, Because if some
Speaker 1: of what you're pay is based on is the city
Speaker 1: that your headquarters is in. You can imagine how companies
Speaker 1: would feel a little odd if if cuddenly you went
Speaker 1: to a place where the cost of living was half
Speaker 1: the price or what have you. There's gonna be a
Speaker 1: lot of litigation about this though, right. I mean, workers
Speaker 1: are going to make the case that there is them,
Speaker 1: whether they're in New York City or San Francisco or
Speaker 1: Montana you know, I think there are a lot of
Speaker 1: strong feelings about this. I don't know if there's going
Speaker 1: to be litigation per se. I mean, this is something
Speaker 1: that's been around for a while, and I think a
Speaker 1: lot of people who have made these moves, including some
Speaker 1: of the employees I interviewed from my story, get that
Speaker 1: if you're living in a place that's cheaper to live,
Speaker 1: it's there, um in a way to be paid less,
Speaker 1: and that in many cases um companies are still paying you,
Speaker 1: uh so that you can afford a similar lifestyle or
Speaker 1: even a better lifestyle in the place you've chosen to relocate.
Speaker 1: I mean, how much is a company entitled to know
Speaker 1: if you if you move back in to your parents,
Speaker 1: for example, and you're not paying any rent, you're not
Speaker 1: paying any utilities, or you're just giving your parents. I mean,
Speaker 1: is that something a company is entitled to take into account?
Speaker 1: Imagine say those parents who are in a city. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, look, I don't I don't think there's any
Speaker 1: evidence that that's how these policies are being rolled out
Speaker 1: in In fact, I mean that sounds like more of
Speaker 1: a temporary arrangement. And the company I've profiled, Red Finn
Speaker 1: you know, explicitly says that these temporary moves that are
Speaker 1: happening during the pandemic, those they're not adjusting pay for
Speaker 1: those people. They're They're talking about folks who are making
Speaker 1: a life decision to say, leave New York and moved
Speaker 1: to Rochester closer to where they have family, and they're
Speaker 1: settling down there. It's these are these are these are
Speaker 1: permanent moves. These are not um, you know, I'm trying
Speaker 1: to keep myself and my family safe during the pandemic.
Speaker 1: I'm going to leave this town. These are These are
Speaker 1: people who are making long term decisions. Yeah, it's going
Speaker 1: to be so interesting to see what human resource departments
Speaker 1: do after people are vaccinated. I mean, will they hold
Speaker 1: you know, recruitment events in all sorts of places and
Speaker 1: be quite happy to to take somebody on staff from
Speaker 1: a state that is nowhere near a headquarters or even
Speaker 1: an outpost. It will be interesting to see, Yeah, and
Speaker 1: I think that's what we're seeing. So yeah, yeah, it's
Speaker 1: it's fascinating. It gives the American labor force so much
Speaker 1: more choice and also makes makes the possibility for it
Speaker 1: to be more mobile, right, And that's been one of
Speaker 1: the problems for the American labor force. It's it's not
Speaker 1: as mobile as other labor forces, and you know, going
Speaker 1: across state lines and so on entails all sorts of
Speaker 1: other sort of tax rules and so on. So see
Speaker 1: how that all plays out. But no, I do want
Speaker 1: to ask you though, um banks. For example, you know,
Speaker 1: there are certain banks that are talking about increasing bonuses
Speaker 1: for some of their star staff this year. And it's
Speaker 1: not just the banks. So on the one hand, we're
Speaker 1: seeing them try to cut costs, maybe close headquarters, close
Speaker 1: some of their office buildings and so on. But they're
Speaker 1: not docking pay or reducing pay for their such star stuff,
Speaker 1: are they. No? I mean, look that that that seems
Speaker 1: to be the evidence that that our colleagues here Bloomberger
Speaker 1: are reporting um. But look what what my story is
Speaker 1: really about or is a long term shift and how
Speaker 1: companies are thinking about this and for all those star
Speaker 1: traders who maybe getting bigger bonuses. I think we're seeing
Speaker 1: some early indications that Wall Street firms are looking at
Speaker 1: what positions don't have to be in New York and
Speaker 1: what they can move to lower cost places, and and
Speaker 1: and frankly, some of some of their back office staff.
Speaker 1: Some of their staff might find that they can lead
Speaker 1: better lives if if they can live in you know,
Speaker 1: say Nashville or Dallas, than than having to live in
Speaker 1: the New York City metro area where costs are significantly higher. Right,
Speaker 1: and sometimes it takes almost as long to get into
Speaker 1: the city from the likes of Brooklyn. Just getting Noah,
Speaker 1: thank you. There is room for just a little levity
Speaker 1: here as well. Noah bue Hire, real estate reporter with
Speaker 1: Bloomberg News, has been doing a lot of research on
Speaker 1: this on the work from home boom and what it
Speaker 1: really means for the workforce of the future here in
Speaker 1: the United States, So do check out his story. It
Speaker 1: is the cover of the new issue of Bloomberg Business
Speaker 1: Week magazine, available now on newsstands and at Bloomberg dot com.
Speaker 1: And they're always great reads, great graphics, and a great
Speaker 1: pictorials associated with these cover stories, so this one is
Speaker 1: no different. I really are due to check it out.
Speaker 1: So that does it for this week for Bloomberg Markets
Speaker 1: ten to twelve show. Do stay tuned. Balance of Power
Speaker 1: is next and we'll bring you up to date on
Speaker 1: stimulus talks and what's going on in Washington. D c
Speaker 1: and as four markets. Right now, the SME five hundred
Speaker 1: is down more than half percent, so is the Dow
Speaker 1: Jones Industrial Average NAZAC is down, but not by as much,
Speaker 1: done by a quarter of a percent or so. We
Speaker 1: have the VIX at twenty three, the Dollar index just
Speaker 1: inching above ninety once again. And for those of your
Speaker 1: keeping track of Brexit, there's still a couple of days
Speaker 1: left for a potential deal Sunday night is it's if
Speaker 1: it wants to get ratified by all the twenty seven
Speaker 1: countries before the end of the year. Right now, the
Speaker 1: British pound has come off about three tenths of a
Speaker 1: percent versus the euro training at one ten. The Conference
Speaker 1: Board leading Index of Economic Indicators came in better than
Speaker 1: forecast in November at point six. Economists, we're looking forward
Speaker 1: to show a point five reading. Not only that, but
Speaker 1: the October data was revised better as well, the overall
Speaker 1: index coming in at positive point eight in October when
Speaker 1: the original reading was positive points seven. Let's bring in
Speaker 1: somebody who knows a lot about what's going on underneath
Speaker 1: the surface here, and that is Dana Peterson, chief economist
Speaker 1: for the Conference Board. Dana, what is actually leading the
Speaker 1: leading index. Sure absolutely when we look at the details here,
Speaker 1: there's been a surprisingly a lot of very positive contribution
Speaker 1: from jobless claims, which added two tenths of a percentage
Speaker 1: point to the overall six tenths increase UM. Also, I
Speaker 1: S M. New words continue to be strong, as well
Speaker 1: as contributions from building permits and stock prices. So some
Speaker 1: of these areas are not at all surprising. Uh. Certainly,
Speaker 1: we know that manufacturing uh uh new orders have been
Speaker 1: improving with improving trade globally, and also as many businesses,
Speaker 1: factories can affect social distancing. We also know that construction,
Speaker 1: residential construction has just been booming. It's on fire in
Speaker 1: the US, and so it makes absolute sense that permits
Speaker 1: have been um very positive contributors. And finally, when we
Speaker 1: look at stock prices, indeed, the text sector healthcare stocks
Speaker 1: UM also to a certain degree, financial stocks UM have
Speaker 1: been driving gained and so all those things are being
Speaker 1: reflected in the overall measure. So the leading index, you know,
Speaker 1: rebounded quite quickly and was extraordinarily positive. At one point
Speaker 1: it was you know, above two, as close to three,
Speaker 1: and now we're sort of coming back down to earth
Speaker 1: at what point will it start to concern you in
Speaker 1: terms of the reading for the leading in next I mean,
Speaker 1: we're already a little bit concerned by the fact that
Speaker 1: you know, with each even though each month shown a
Speaker 1: positive reading, it's smaller. And so that suggests that we did,
Speaker 1: uh see a deceleration and growth heading into the last
Speaker 1: quarter of this year, and that potentially the first quarter
Speaker 1: of next year we might see a soft patch. Um.
Speaker 1: Certainly we've also seen uh this behavior reflected you know,
Speaker 1: more retroactively, of course, but in the jobs data, as
Speaker 1: payroll gains have been smaller and smaller and the unemployment
Speaker 1: rate is falling at a more glacial paste. Um. So
Speaker 1: we are keeping watching this and you know, seeing whether
Speaker 1: or not there's going to be a second dip in
Speaker 1: our leading index and also our concurrent uh leading in
Speaker 1: concurrent measures of activity. Dana, what is the conference forwards
Speaker 1: current outlook for inflation next year? Yes, well, we have
Speaker 1: inflation rising a little bit, um but staying beneath you persent, uh,
Speaker 1: and really that's going to be a reflection of you know,
Speaker 1: basis effects from very weak inflation this year twenty but
Speaker 1: also a rotation of consumption. You know, a little less
Speaker 1: spending on goods, more spending on services, um, where you
Speaker 1: could see a little bit of inflation there um, But
Speaker 1: all on all pretty modest inflation outlook, so not too
Speaker 1: much concern there. There are some economist, I suppose, trying
Speaker 1: to sound an alarm on that. Dana, you also did
Speaker 1: a really phenomenal study into the impact of the pandemic
Speaker 1: on race and also the impact of the pandemic on women,
Speaker 1: and you found something very disconcerting when it comes to
Speaker 1: studying the female labor force. You're actually calling it a
Speaker 1: she session. Can you explain to us some of the
Speaker 1: key findings of that report. Sure. Absolutely. What we've seen
Speaker 1: is that, especially in the US, where we have the
Speaker 1: most complete data, very early on in the pandemic, women
Speaker 1: suffered much deeper job cuts than did men. I mean,
Speaker 1: it was horrific across the board, but it was much
Speaker 1: more cute for women. And a lot has a lot
Speaker 1: of that to do with the fact that women are
Speaker 1: working in many of those sectors that have been very
Speaker 1: negatively impacted by covid UM. But as we saw job
Speaker 1: gains pick up, um, we saw more women exiting the
Speaker 1: labor market, and we believe that's a function number a
Speaker 1: few things. Number one, the fact that you know, there's
Speaker 1: still this childcare crisis in the US that was there
Speaker 1: before the pandemic but has only gotten worse. Um. Many
Speaker 1: times women find themselves that they are tasked with caring
Speaker 1: for older adults. But also many kids are in and
Speaker 1: out of school physically, and so oftentimes the responsibility of
Speaker 1: educating children from home falls on mothers. And so we've
Speaker 1: seen a lot of women exiting the labor market. That's
Speaker 1: very apparent in the payrolls data. Um. Sorry, uh yeah,
Speaker 1: pyroll report, Friday Employment report that comes out where labor
Speaker 1: market participation among women has been falling. Yeah. And as
Speaker 1: you say, even if the job exists, in some cases,
Speaker 1: women have to leave it because they just have responsibilities
Speaker 1: that they can fulfill at home unless they're They're right, Dana,
Speaker 1: how much of this will turn out to be structural
Speaker 1: unemployment for women? Will the female libor force bounce back
Speaker 1: as quickly as as the male labor force. Well, our
Speaker 1: hope is that this will be a blip and that
Speaker 1: female labor force participation as well as male labor force
Speaker 1: participation will bounce back and return to pre coronavirus levels.
Speaker 1: But you know, certainly the longer people are out of
Speaker 1: the labor market, the more difficult it is for them
Speaker 1: to rejoin because of perceptions that you know, either their
Speaker 1: skills of actro feed or they're credit going to be behind.
Speaker 1: So it's going to be very important for employers to
Speaker 1: find ways to encourage flexibility in labor force, in labor
Speaker 1: market activity UM in terms of allowing people to work
Speaker 1: from home, potentially providing on site or near site childcare UM,
Speaker 1: and also reskilling their workers and training to make sure
Speaker 1: workers get back on track UM such that we don't
Speaker 1: have this these permanent losses in the labor market among
Speaker 1: women as well as among men. Dana, we're pretty out
Speaker 1: of time. But what's the GDP forecast from the conference board?
Speaker 1: For one, Yes, we're expecting growth at three point six
Speaker 1: percent next year. Okay, three point six percent not not
Speaker 1: negative girls at least, but we'll need a little bit
Speaker 1: more than that. De bounced back probably from where we're from. Dana,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for joining. That is Dana beats In,
Speaker 1: chief economist with the Conference for there this as the
Speaker 1: leading index comes in a little better than forecast, but
Speaker 1: as Dana said, slowing all the while. This is one
Speaker 1: of the stories that's extremely disconcerting and also filters out slowly,
Speaker 1: such that you don't really know exactly how big or
Speaker 1: important to story it is for a little bit after
Speaker 1: the original announcements. I'm talking about the hacks, the hacks
Speaker 1: that have been filtering out news wise in the middle
Speaker 1: of this week and even more yesterday. Let's bring in
Speaker 1: somebody who's up to date on what it all is
Speaker 1: and how concerned we should be. Car Tike me Rota
Speaker 1: covers security and particularly computer security, cybersecurity and the like
Speaker 1: for Bloomberg News. Cartike bring us up to date on
Speaker 1: exactly who was attacked and how many at hacks there were. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we are still figuring this out. It's been almost a
Speaker 1: week since. Um no, it's been ten days. And excuse me.
Speaker 1: The fire Eye breach was first prepared publicly, and since
Speaker 1: then it's just been a lot of questions and very
Speaker 1: few answers. What we do know is that a handful
Speaker 1: of federal agencies were targeted, including Commerce, Treasury, parts of
Speaker 1: d h um AND, as well as the Department of
Speaker 1: Energy and the Nuclear Administration. UH. These very sophisticated Russian
Speaker 1: attackers have been targeting UM critical infrastructure and entities that
Speaker 1: are of government interest. But exactly who has been targeted
Speaker 1: and the scope of the attack is still up in
Speaker 1: the air. There are, uh, you know, federal investigators, private
Speaker 1: investigators at Microsoft and other incident response companies that are
Speaker 1: you know, pulling apart pieces of this. The scope is massive.
Speaker 1: The company that was breached Older Winds. They provide I
Speaker 1: T solutions largely for the federal government, but also they're
Speaker 1: they're all over the place. They work with UM, but
Speaker 1: financial institutions, telecommunications companies, defense contractors. They're a third party
Speaker 1: that's part of the security supply chain. UM that was
Speaker 1: targeted and using a software update, UM malware was was
Speaker 1: inflicted upon up to eighteen thousand of their clients. Now
Speaker 1: that doesn't mean the eighteen thousand victims exist. These Russian
Speaker 1: attackers are very sophisticated, very meticulous and detailed in the
Speaker 1: way in which they're targeting their victims. So as of
Speaker 1: now we're hearing and there are potentially dozens, maybe up
Speaker 1: to hundreds of victims. So of those seventeen thousand, there
Speaker 1: are about UM forty two two maybe over a hundred
Speaker 1: victims so far, but UM, that number is going to
Speaker 1: go up as time passes. UM. It's it is a
Speaker 1: tedious task trying to figure out if you have been targeted.
Speaker 1: And that's what most companies, most agencies are doing right now. Amazing.
Speaker 1: And it's suspected Russian hackers. Now we don't know what
Speaker 1: they've got, how much of it they have, But assuming
Speaker 1: they have something, will they be able to interpret data,
Speaker 1: will they be able to extract useful information? Or is
Speaker 1: this just data that will be coming in, you know,
Speaker 1: in in megabytes to the Russians and they they'll find
Speaker 1: it difficult to actually do anything with this. Yeah, no,
Speaker 1: they know what they're doing. UM. We don't have evidence
Speaker 1: of acciltration yet, but it's it's obviously a cause for concern. UM.
Speaker 1: You know, when when any adversary has this level of
Speaker 1: unmitigated long term access, which goes back at least to March,
Speaker 1: if not further. UM, surely they will have gotten their
Speaker 1: hands on UM files and data that companies and governments
Speaker 1: of the United States would have preferred they not have
Speaker 1: their hands on. Now, exactly what they have and how
Speaker 1: it will be weaponized is uh still a question that
Speaker 1: we're all trying to answer. But you know, the presumption
Speaker 1: is that they knew what they were looking for, they
Speaker 1: likely got access to at least portions of it. And
Speaker 1: this is intelligence that will feed their UM operations, right. Uh.
Speaker 1: They're geopolitical status, you know, trying to assert Russia as
Speaker 1: a UM, you know, a power on par with with
Speaker 1: other UM economic superpowers, even as that country's economic prowess
Speaker 1: sort of dissipates. This is a tool and a mechanism
Speaker 1: to to show the world that they're still on the
Speaker 1: on the platform. And uh, you know, depending on what
Speaker 1: the intelligence tells them, they could use it for um
Speaker 1: uh for political purposes or otherwise cardigate in a sense,
Speaker 1: the damage has already done. What kind of authorities do
Speaker 1: to try to mitigate the damage or prevent weaponization, as
Speaker 1: you say, including President Trump. Yeah, so you know, companies
Speaker 1: that have been exposed have been directed by the Cybersecurity
Speaker 1: Infrastructure Security Agency to cut off UM any portion of
Speaker 1: their network that has UM the Solar Winds malware and
Speaker 1: and if they can uninstall it altogether. UM at this point, UM,
Speaker 1: so what happened is that when when the malware was
Speaker 1: installed in uh in devices, these uh, these victims had
Speaker 1: to figure out if they were actually then targeted UM
Speaker 1: with an attack, was that malware activated to spread through
Speaker 1: that network and infect it. And so that is what
Speaker 1: investigators are doing right now, and it's a tedious task
Speaker 1: because these attackers have cleaned up their footprints as best
Speaker 1: they can and are are. So it's a manual operation.
Speaker 1: In some cases, they're going through thousands of lines of
Speaker 1: code to see if anything's wrong. UM. The National Security
Speaker 1: Advisor Robert O'Brien cut short and overseas trip earlier this
Speaker 1: week to come back to Washington help manage the crisis.
Speaker 1: That's what the administration is doing right now is sort
Speaker 1: of an all hands on deck situation to figure out
Speaker 1: exactly the scope of the operator. Cartigue, it might be
Speaker 1: up to you to keep us all informed. So thank
Speaker 1: you for all of your work so far. Cartigue. Me
Speaker 1: Rota on the Russian linked solar winds hack do follow
Speaker 1: him all right? Well, we know that Maderna vaccine is
Speaker 1: one backing from FDA advisors that puts it on track
Speaker 1: to be the s con cleared in the US, perhaps
Speaker 1: even as soon as today. For more on this and
Speaker 1: as well the little hiccups that we've been seeing with
Speaker 1: the rollout of the vaccine small though they maybe let's
Speaker 1: bring in Laurences our Associate Professor of Emergency Mendicine, JOHNS
Speaker 1: Hopkins School of Medicine. So, doctor Saur, is there anything
Speaker 1: that you've seen in terms of the little hiccups that
Speaker 1: we that we've heard about, from discarding doses at modern
Speaker 1: after a filtration issue to the idea that you know
Speaker 1: fis are actually had more doses in its vials than
Speaker 1: previously known. Anything that gives you cause for concern. I
Speaker 1: think concern might not be the right word, but I
Speaker 1: think it just demonstrates that the these other elements of
Speaker 1: vaccine distribution are so critically important. Right. It's not just
Speaker 1: UM getting the science behind making the vaccine and testing
Speaker 1: the vaccine, evaluating the vaccines efpacy, but UM the supply chain,
Speaker 1: so ramping up dose production, making sure that the process
Speaker 1: to get it into the hands of vaccinators and before
Speaker 1: getting vaccinated works m making sure that people believe in
Speaker 1: the process and and trust the process enough to get
Speaker 1: the vaccine. All those things are showing how critically important
Speaker 1: they are, and these hiccups are um par for the course.
Speaker 1: In this very short ramp up of production. But I
Speaker 1: think it just demonstrates how careful we have to be
Speaker 1: in this process to make sure that we're using every precous,
Speaker 1: precious dose that crosses our hands. Do you have confidence
Speaker 1: in the distribution system as it is now? Yeah? I
Speaker 1: mean I think that we're seeing that the distribution system
Speaker 1: is working as well as could possibly be expected given
Speaker 1: the short turnaround. I think some of the feedback that
Speaker 1: we're hearing from FISER and the administration and the possibility
Speaker 1: that pure dirsors will go out shows that it's far
Speaker 1: from perfect, and UM, communication becomes critically important in these um,
Speaker 1: this really intricate distribution process. UM. I think seeing things
Speaker 1: like the potential for an extra dose or two in
Speaker 1: the FISER vials, hearing that some of the production delays,
Speaker 1: I think, UM, we we're seeing that actually there's a
Speaker 1: lot of eyes on on the process and that the
Speaker 1: kings are being worked out really quickly, which is great.
Speaker 1: So even though we're identifying challenges in the process, we're
Speaker 1: working through them, you know, in this like whole response
Speaker 1: that allows us to fix it and and and improve
Speaker 1: efficiency as quickly as possible. That's such a great point
Speaker 1: because everybody really has the same goal here on that
Speaker 1: the idea that there might be extra doses in the
Speaker 1: Fiser vials, is there anything that concerns you about that,
Speaker 1: because it seems to me that you know, if Fiser
Speaker 1: won't you officially say there's more than five, then are
Speaker 1: you at risk of getting just a little bit less
Speaker 1: than the dose that you need or just a little
Speaker 1: bit more than the dose that you need. It seems
Speaker 1: a little vague for me. Yeah, I understand that completely.
Speaker 1: I think you know these vials are they're doing that
Speaker 1: because they want to ensure that that there's no um
Speaker 1: undercutting of what they expected. Sans are right, So um,
Speaker 1: the idea that that there may be an extra dose
Speaker 1: or an extra dose and a half in these vials
Speaker 1: is not unreasonable given the scale that we're talking about
Speaker 1: and how quickly things are being partitioned and measured out
Speaker 1: the The I think the risk comes when you try
Speaker 1: to say like, oh, yes, you could get six, you
Speaker 1: could get potentially six and a half or seven. UM.
Speaker 1: But if you tell everyone there's five doses in this
Speaker 1: file and you should get five doses, you're not. You
Speaker 1: have less likely that people are going to get UM
Speaker 1: a smaller dose right. So, um, perhaps it will be
Speaker 1: surprised with an extra dose and you can vaccinate several
Speaker 1: hundred extra people over the course of the projection. UM,
Speaker 1: But you don't risk under underestimating or you don't risk
Speaker 1: overestimating who you can vaccinate, so you don't risk people
Speaker 1: getting left out. Is there a little bit of a
Speaker 1: danger though, if there is you know, a half doals
Speaker 1: left and somebody decides they'll combine that with a half
Speaker 1: doals from another vial, does that not sort of letting
Speaker 1: the risk of contamination and so on? Lauren, Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think we want to We don't want to see that
Speaker 1: so UM. I know many places have made the determination
Speaker 1: not to combine partial doses from multiple vials. So that
Speaker 1: might mean a little bit of wasting at the at
Speaker 1: the bottom of that bial um, but that's really a
Speaker 1: safety issue that I think it is the right decision
Speaker 1: to not combine partial doses. It gets into measurement challenges,
Speaker 1: it gets into contamination challenges, and it gets into like
Speaker 1: basic accounting challenges. So when you're thinking about who you
Speaker 1: vaccine and how you track them, UM, you want to
Speaker 1: be sure that you're not taking those those steps where
Speaker 1: error can enter because You'll also have to follow up
Speaker 1: all of these people with additional vaccinations for their booster shops,
Speaker 1: and so you want to make sure that you have
Speaker 1: the appropriate number of booster shops for the people that
Speaker 1: you've vaccinated initially as well. I mean, there's so many
Speaker 1: things that have to go right here, and having seen
Speaker 1: how the PPE distribution system worked, it doesn't inspire that
Speaker 1: much confidence. But I guess, I mean, is there any
Speaker 1: room for let's say criminality here? I mean, can can
Speaker 1: people managed to get away with the types of things
Speaker 1: that were getting away with when it came to PPE,
Speaker 1: selling selling stuff online illegally and so on. I think that, um,
Speaker 1: it's a slightly different environment. UM. I do I share
Speaker 1: the concern that there are potential for UM for bad actors.
Speaker 1: I think we always see that in emergencies because there's um,
Speaker 1: you know, when the regulations become relaxed, or when UM
Speaker 1: you know, there's a lot of misinformation and disinformation spreading.
Speaker 1: UM that's where these people and these activities flourish. I
Speaker 1: think there's a lot of eyes on this process, and
Speaker 1: there's so few places where you can actually get UM
Speaker 1: legitimate vaccine supply that it's much less likely that you
Speaker 1: will see this happen because somewhat a new company could
Speaker 1: pop up and say we're making an N and five.
Speaker 1: It's totally approved. You're good. You're not going to have
Speaker 1: a new company pop up and say we've reproduced the
Speaker 1: Visor vaccine. You're totally good. It's trying to take it
Speaker 1: so to about the number of eyes on all of
Speaker 1: this process. Lawrence, thank you so so much, as always
Speaker 1: as Lawrence Sauer, Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine at Johns
Speaker 1: Hopkins University. Thanks for listening to Bloomberg Markets podcast. You
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Speaker 1: Twitter at Bonnie Quinn, and I'm Paul Sweeney. I'm on
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