Speaker 1: Welcome to Prognosis. I'm Laura Carlson. It's day thirty since
Speaker 1: coronavirus was declared a global pandemic. Our main story scientists
Speaker 1: need to find out where the novel coronavirus is spreading
Speaker 1: in order to have any hope of containing it. So far,
Speaker 1: a lot of the strategies to detect community spread have
Speaker 1: focused on widespread testing, but a group of environmental scientists
Speaker 1: has discovered another potentially effective way to trace the virus
Speaker 1: by hunting in sewers. But first, here's what happened today.
Speaker 1: A message about the virus is emerging from many corners
Speaker 1: of the world social distancing works. Some countries are showing
Speaker 1: early signs of flattening the curve, keeping infections from rising
Speaker 1: to a sharp peak. That has encouraged some European countries
Speaker 1: and the White House to start making plans to reopen
Speaker 1: the economy. But health officials are clear, if we're seeing
Speaker 1: fewer infections than we thought, it's because of lockdown measures,
Speaker 1: and it's still too early to let our guard down.
Speaker 1: In the US, top infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci predicted
Speaker 1: the country will see half the number of deaths than
Speaker 1: some of the most dire predictions had shown. That's still
Speaker 1: a staggering sixty thousand deaths just over a week ago,
Speaker 1: though the White House had suggested as many as two
Speaker 1: hundred and forty thousand could die as a result of
Speaker 1: the outbreak. In another sign there might be light at
Speaker 1: the end of the tunnel, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo
Speaker 1: said Thursday that there had only been two hundred new
Speaker 1: hospitalizations over twenty four hours. That number had been as
Speaker 1: high as fourteen hun tread just a week ago. Likewise,
Speaker 1: the rate of new intensive care admissions and intubations where
Speaker 1: patients are put on a ventilator, also plummeted. Meanwhile, the
Speaker 1: outbreak continues to take its grim toll on the economy.
Speaker 1: Six point six million people applied for unemployment benefits last week.
Speaker 1: It's the third straight week of jobless claims hitting previously
Speaker 1: unthinkable levels. To ease some of the economic pain, the
Speaker 1: Federal Reserve took another series of sweeping steps to pump
Speaker 1: up to two point three trillion dollars into the economy.
Speaker 1: Some of that aid comes in the form of programs
Speaker 1: for small and mid sized businesses, as well as state
Speaker 1: and local governments. The FED also took the unprecedented step
Speaker 1: of pledging to buy up low grade and risky debt.
Speaker 1: Now for today's May story, there's overwhelming demand to test
Speaker 1: people for the coronavirus. That's not just so we can
Speaker 1: treat the sick. Scientists are desperate for a way to
Speaker 1: detect the virus early, since we now know that the
Speaker 1: novel coronavirus can be spread by people well before they
Speaker 1: show symptoms. The earlier we can locate the virus and communities,
Speaker 1: the better our chances for containing the pandemic. Amid all
Speaker 1: of this, environmental scientists may have discovered a way to
Speaker 1: tell where the virus is spreading, and it's right beneath
Speaker 1: their feet. Jason Gale looks at how Dutch researchers found
Speaker 1: an early warning sign of the novel coronavirus in sewage.
Speaker 1: It turns out sewers carry a vat reservoir of information
Speaker 1: on human health and behavior and potentially coronavirus. Here's Jason, Well,
Speaker 1: we think of COVID nineteen. It's pneumonia we worry most about,
Speaker 1: but the coronavirus that causes it can also attack the
Speaker 1: gastro intestinal tracts and lead to diarrhea. It's why the
Speaker 1: virus is often found in fegal matter and on rectal
Speaker 1: swabs of infected people. It's also why in the Netherlands,
Speaker 1: scientists went looking for the virus in sewage. They collected
Speaker 1: samples from wastewater treatment plants in seven cities and an
Speaker 1: airport in early February, a few weeks before the country's
Speaker 1: first COVID nineteen case. It's an unusual surveillance strategy, but
Speaker 1: a similar approach has been used to track poliovirus for years,
Speaker 1: and it turned out to be a smart move for
Speaker 1: Dutch researchers. Traces of the coronavirus were found in the
Speaker 1: sewage of a city called Amosport, about thirty two miles
Speaker 1: southeast of Amsterdam. Importantly, the detection occurred almost a week
Speaker 1: before the city reported its first COVID nineteen patient. That
Speaker 1: finding gave doctors advanced warning that the pandemic causing disease
Speaker 1: was circulating and that they should be on the lookout
Speaker 1: for possible cases among patients. Coronavirus is often excreted by
Speaker 1: an infected person from their coughs, sneezes, and breath, as
Speaker 1: well as their stool. Days before they're sick enough to
Speaker 1: see a doctor, and many people, especially younger than fifty,
Speaker 1: aren't all that sick even when they're transmitting the virus
Speaker 1: to others. It's why the COVID nineteen pandemic has been
Speaker 1: so hard to stop. So Professor Gertian Maidemar and colleagues
Speaker 1: at the KWR Water Research Institute in the Netherlands started
Speaker 1: their sewage surveillance experiment. The first response to the virus
Speaker 1: was trying to to find cases and to to quarantine,
Speaker 1: to to to isolate them, and to try and isolate
Speaker 1: the virus and advirus transmission in people that are having
Speaker 1: only mild symptoms. This one is much more difficult to control.
Speaker 1: So but yeah, then sewich evaliance can add to m
Speaker 1: to the picture that we get off this virus circulation
Speaker 1: and could also be an early warning. Go chan is
Speaker 1: the Water Institute's principal micro biologist. He's been studying wastewater
Speaker 1: for thirty years. I knew that detecting the coronavirus and
Speaker 1: sewage could augment conventional disease surveillance that public health officials do,
Speaker 1: but there were no guarantees of actually finding it. G
Speaker 1: Chon says sewers aren't exactly a friendly environment for some viruses,
Speaker 1: and there was a chance that coronavirus would be so
Speaker 1: degraded by the time it got to treatment plants that
Speaker 1: its genetic material couldn't be detected. Fortunately, that wasn't the case,
Speaker 1: and it's inspired other research groups. Last Friday, a report
Speaker 1: in the journal Nature said that more than a dozen
Speaker 1: research groups worldwide have started analyze ways what for the
Speaker 1: new coronavirus. It may help gauge the total number of
Speaker 1: infections in a community. There's a huge interest and many
Speaker 1: groups around the world are working more. It's starting to
Speaker 1: work on it, have reached out to us, have started initiatives.
Speaker 1: So it's a it's super interesting to see that there's
Speaker 1: so much interested for this developed so will I'm sure
Speaker 1: that will get to a point where we see that
Speaker 1: sewage eveillance is is practiced. Gown says. The next steps
Speaker 1: are to confirm the testing approaches, expand the number of
Speaker 1: testing sites, and to compare the wastewater data with the
Speaker 1: clinical information gathered from results of testing patient nose and
Speaker 1: throat swaps, so that you can for instant see whether
Speaker 1: trends in virus concentrations and occurrence in stew which match
Speaker 1: trends that you see in the in the population. And
Speaker 1: after the epidemic subsides again, we may use it as
Speaker 1: a tool to monitor if the virus re emerges or
Speaker 1: if it's in It could also help in countries with
Speaker 1: more limited resources as a as a tool to to
Speaker 1: do surveillance in the of the virus circulation in the population.
Speaker 1: But what about the next pandemic. I think this is
Speaker 1: going to be part of the of the future. Door.
Speaker 1: Jose Antonio Baslomba as a researcher in the Department of
Speaker 1: Environmental Chemistry and Technology with the Norwegian Institute of Water Research.
Speaker 1: He's been doing sewage based epidemiology for more than eight
Speaker 1: years and envisages a future when individuals might be using
Speaker 1: their smartphones and other personal devices to monitor their bodily
Speaker 1: waste for signs of infection and disease, and then this
Speaker 1: information may be connected to your country platform just to
Speaker 1: to monitor spikes of viruses or pandemics or something like that.
Speaker 1: I think this is going to accelerate. Maybe I don't know.
Speaker 1: We will fly like three or four or five years
Speaker 1: just in a couple of months, which is good for us.
Speaker 1: As the COVID nineteen pandemic continues to spread, ratchening up
Speaker 1: the tragic loss of life and economic devastation. Some signs
Speaker 1: of hope are emerging science and technology might enable humanity
Speaker 1: to be better prepared for other emerging pathogens and perhaps
Speaker 1: even snap out potential contagions before they even begin. That
Speaker 1: was Jason Gale reporting from Melbourne, and that's it for
Speaker 1: the Prognosis Daily Edition. For more on the pandemic from
Speaker 1: our bureaus around the world, visit Bloomberg dot com, slash
Speaker 1: Coronavirus and One Small favor. If you like what we're doing,
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Speaker 1: more listeners find our global reporting. The Prognosis Daily Edition
Speaker 1: is hosted by me Laura Carlson. The show is produced
Speaker 1: by Me Tophor foreheads Jordan Gaspoure and Magnus Hendrickson. Today's
Speaker 1: main story was reported by Jason Gale. Original music by
Speaker 1: Leo sedri Our editors are Francesco Levi and Rick Shine.
Speaker 1: Francesco Levi is Bloomberg's head of Podcasts. Thanks for listening.