Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2: Earlier this year, Bloomberg data reporter Jinshawn Honk got hung
Speaker 2: up on this question. It was something she kept noticing
Speaker 2: at work, at home, everywhere she went. She couldn't shake it.
Speaker 1: Why does it seem like everyone everywhere like seems to
Speaker 1: be getting sick all the time.
Speaker 2: Jinshahn's colleagues in Hong Kong and their family members all
Speaker 2: seemed to be getting sick. Jinshawn kept catching things too.
Speaker 2: Everybody was talking about it.
Speaker 3: I'm a person that rarely gets sick. I had pink eye,
Speaker 3: my broat was swollen. I couldn't breathe through my nose.
Speaker 3: It was the worst two months of my life.
Speaker 2: Here at the Big Take, we've been hearing similar laments
Speaker 2: from our family and friends all year.
Speaker 3: My husband had COVID in September, my daughter and I
Speaker 3: had stepped throat in October, RSV.
Speaker 2: In November, it seemed like everybody had their own sickness story.
Speaker 2: I had pneumonia.
Speaker 1: It turns out I went to urging care twice.
Speaker 2: It probably took a little about three weeks before I
Speaker 2: started feeling human again.
Speaker 3: In March, I had shingles at the age of twenty nine.
Speaker 1: At first I thought it was allergies, but now I
Speaker 1: think I'm sick. My nose is running uncontrollably, and I
Speaker 1: feel achy and tired.
Speaker 2: Back in Hong Kong, jinchn was hearing similar things. But
Speaker 2: talk is cheap, and Jinchon is a data reporter, so
Speaker 2: when she has a question, she doesn't just wonder about it,
Speaker 2: she starts collecting data.
Speaker 1: We decided to look into this and find out whether
Speaker 1: it's just a perception issue or is there something really
Speaker 1: going on that we should figure out for the public.
Speaker 2: It was a mystery, so Jinchon and her team went
Speaker 2: into detective mode, working with disease forecasters to gather case counts,
Speaker 2: calling up doctors, combing through re search from all over
Speaker 2: the world, and what they found was truly eye opening.
Speaker 2: Today on the show, Grab your hand Sanitizer and your
Speaker 2: n ninety five's for a data detective story, we joined
Speaker 2: Jinshan as she scours the research for clues, culprits, correlations,
Speaker 2: and causations as she takes on the case of why
Speaker 2: everybody seems to be getting sick all the time. This
Speaker 2: is the big take from Bloomberg News I'm Sarah Holder.
Speaker 2: Tracking how sickness spreads is a massive data undertaking, and
Speaker 2: to begin to understand how often it's spreading post COVID,
Speaker 2: Bloomberg's Jinshawn Hang first had to narrow down a list
Speaker 2: of illnesses to look at, so she enlisted the help
Speaker 2: of a London based firm that forecast diseases worldwide called
Speaker 2: air Affinity, and the help of her colleague Buma Shrivastava. Together,
Speaker 2: we analyzed data from sixty public health agencies and organizations
Speaker 2: like the WHO and UNSUFF and came up with a
Speaker 2: grim list.
Speaker 1: We were able to identify at least thirteen communicable diseases
Speaker 1: that are surging in parts of the world that's above
Speaker 1: pre pandemic waves and in some cases it surpassed the
Speaker 1: pre pandemic peak by a significant margin.
Speaker 2: These diseases included cholera, measles, tuberculosis, RSV, denay, and the flu.
Speaker 2: But Jinjohn also wanted to know where these diseases were spiking.
Speaker 1: So before the pandemic we were able to find out
Speaker 1: the peak of every disease in every country between twenty
Speaker 1: seventeen to twenty nineteen, and after COVID we have twenty
Speaker 1: twenty two to twenty twenty four, also three year and
Speaker 1: we find out a peak and compare the two whenever
Speaker 1: we see a spike. Then we market on a map,
Speaker 1: and with that we were able to identify regions where
Speaker 1: certain diseases are surging more profoundly.
Speaker 2: Now, this data wasn't completely exhaustive, but it did show
Speaker 2: some notable trends. All thirteen of the diseases they tracked
Speaker 2: had surged above post pandemic levels somewhere.
Speaker 1: It may not be higher in every country, but then
Speaker 1: we do see every one of them seem to be
Speaker 1: showing up in a variety of geographies at higher levels. So,
Speaker 1: for example, den gey is making a very strong resurgence
Speaker 1: in Americas. We also have likenisos like spreading to about
Speaker 1: twenty states in the US and other countries in Europe.
Speaker 1: And we are also seeing tuberculesis is like really making
Speaker 1: a lot of spikes in the developing world. And with that,
Speaker 1: everyday common diseases like cold and flu and RSV are
Speaker 1: also reported about pre pandemic levels.
Speaker 2: Some of the surges are especially dramatic, and more than
Speaker 2: forty places at least one of these diseases has seen
Speaker 2: case counts leap tenfold or more from their pre pandemic baselines.
Speaker 2: Influenza was up forty percent in the US during the
Speaker 2: last two flu seasons compared to pre COVID levels. Besides
Speaker 2: the health impacts and the strains to the medical system
Speaker 2: this can create, there are also other economic impacts. All
Speaker 2: those sick days are starting to add up.
Speaker 1: We were looking through workplace research reports from places like
Speaker 1: UK and the US, and there is more absenteesan with that,
Speaker 1: we are seeing people reporting more sick days or taking
Speaker 1: longer sick leaves from work. Maybe in the pre COVID years,
Speaker 1: when you were a little sick, you'll still go out
Speaker 1: and have a drink. It's like, Ah, I'm sick, but
Speaker 1: I'm not sick to a degree that I cannot function.
Speaker 1: I'll still go to work. But now I think we
Speaker 1: are also more aware that, oh I feel a bit
Speaker 1: sick today, maybe I shouldn't go to work.
Speaker 2: That's one helpful lesson to come out of COVID. That's
Speaker 2: staying home when you're sick curb infections. But illnesses are
Speaker 2: spiking anyway, and that's concerning, especially because Ginean reminded me
Speaker 2: the COVID nineteen pandemic was unprecedented, and so is our
Speaker 2: post pandemic reality.
Speaker 1: According to who's chief scientist Jeremy Farral, we are really
Speaker 1: in a new place because the last devastating major pandemic
Speaker 1: we had was in nineteen eighteen, which was so called
Speaker 1: the Spanish Flu, and back then we were not having
Speaker 1: as many vaccinations, diagnosis, or even treatment like at that time.
Speaker 1: It was really a different stage. So what we are
Speaker 1: facing right now is really an unparallel situation that scientists
Speaker 1: are raising to understand.
Speaker 2: Even though it was a massive data lift, Jinshan says
Speaker 2: that figuring out that we were all getting sick more
Speaker 2: often was actually the easy part coming up after the break,
Speaker 2: unraveling the mystery of what's causing this spike in global illness.
Speaker 2: If you think about this story as a big global
Speaker 2: health mystery at this point, Bloomberg's Jinshawn Hank has identified
Speaker 2: the say victims those of us who are getting sick
Speaker 2: more often all around the world. But who or what
Speaker 2: in this case is the culprit what's making everyone sick
Speaker 2: in this post pandemic era. Well, Jinhawn told us there
Speaker 2: are a few major theories floating around. I asked her
Speaker 2: to introduce some of the prime suspects. So first, there's
Speaker 2: this idea that we all lost our immunity because we
Speaker 2: stayed home during the pandemic, there were quarantines, we weren't
Speaker 2: being exposed to as many diseases. How much of that
Speaker 2: is at play here?
Speaker 1: That theory, which was at one point very leading theory
Speaker 1: during the pandemic, is that it's called immunity debt, where
Speaker 1: people became more susceptible to various infectious respiratory diseases because
Speaker 1: they were not exposed to the pathogen during the lockdown years.
Speaker 1: But that's still quite controversial among scientists that we talked to.
Speaker 1: Some of them think there's not enough data yet to
Speaker 1: prove it, and some other thing. Even if they make resurgence,
Speaker 1: they are not supposed to be the size of the
Speaker 1: spikes that we actually see today.
Speaker 2: Well, this immunity debt theory is contested. Experts told Jinshn
Speaker 2: that lockdowns could have contributed to the current spikes in
Speaker 2: a different way. Babies who avoided catching respiratory diseases during
Speaker 2: COVID quarantines and school closures maybe getting exposed and sick
Speaker 2: for the first time as toddlers.
Speaker 1: It's more like a delayed education to their immune system.
Speaker 2: Delayed education. In other words, in the years since lockdowns ended,
Speaker 2: more kids might now be getting sick all At the
Speaker 2: same time, these kinds of COVID related delays are also
Speaker 2: showing up in some countries mortality rates.
Speaker 1: Some countries that used to control COVID very well during
Speaker 1: the pandemic years seem to have higher or couse mortality
Speaker 1: rates right now. So one theory they presented was that
Speaker 1: because those countries were able to keep frail elderly people
Speaker 1: live longer and keep them away from regularly circulating disease
Speaker 1: that are usually common in the communities, so with that
Speaker 1: they are now facing a higher death burden.
Speaker 2: Another mystery doctors and scientists are trying to investigate is
Speaker 2: the effect of COVID infections on people's longer term health.
Speaker 2: Did you look into long COVID. Has COVID itself made
Speaker 2: people more duptible to other illnesses?
Speaker 1: Yeah, that is also a very heated topic that scientists
Speaker 1: are looking into because COVID definitely has changes on some
Speaker 1: people that's much more than the general public, But that's
Speaker 1: still like relatively a smaller population compared to the general
Speaker 1: public in terms of everybody. I think there's no proof
Speaker 1: at this point, according to our interviews, that we are
Speaker 1: becoming much weaker than before.
Speaker 2: Our next suspect in the rise of illness across the
Speaker 2: world the anti vaccine movement.
Speaker 1: For example, One thing that went very rampant during COVID
Speaker 1: was the misinformation the social media and how the information
Speaker 1: got spread to many many people, and the mistrust of
Speaker 1: vaccination seems to continue.
Speaker 2: Vaccine hesitancy and misinformation, along with supply chain issues, have
Speaker 2: led to a steep drop in childhood vaccination rate in Europe.
Speaker 2: Musle's case suspect thirtyfold last year after a few years
Speaker 2: where nearly two million infants missed their shots. And it's
Speaker 2: not just Musles vaccines.
Speaker 1: Basic vaccinations for children such as DTP had declined and
Speaker 1: that's resulting in a lot of the surges right now.
Speaker 2: Meanwhile, COVID exacerbated other issues that can keep people sick.
Speaker 1: There's also the social inequality caused indirectly by COVID policies,
Speaker 1: So there are increasingly poorer communities living in crowded environments
Speaker 1: and that prompts and potentially fuel disease circulating in the areas.
Speaker 2: So those are all the culprits that are potentially related
Speaker 2: to the pandemic and its aftermath. But as any mystery
Speaker 2: fan knows, oftentimes the real villain is completely unrelated to
Speaker 2: the obvious suspect. So I asked Jinshan, were there any
Speaker 2: other plot twists or culprits on r related to the pandemic.
Speaker 1: When we talked about climate change, we tend to think
Speaker 1: about economic losses or risks to different kinds of countries
Speaker 1: and people. But like in terms of diseases, now we
Speaker 1: are seeing it playing out in multiple aspects, with more flooding,
Speaker 1: with more extreme weather, with more warm weather. We are seeing,
Speaker 1: for example, like den Gay, which relies on mosquitoes to
Speaker 1: spread the disease, it's getting to more places because mosquitoes
Speaker 1: were able to survive in previously colder environments.
Speaker 2: So turn, out of everything that we've talked about, what
Speaker 2: did the experts tell you is the most likely reason
Speaker 2: why sicknesses are surging?
Speaker 1: They tell us it's a perfect storm, and it is.
Speaker 2: A puzzle a perfect storm. What they mean is there's
Speaker 2: not just one bad guy here. There's the disruption to
Speaker 2: our immune systems, a rise in global poverty, climate change,
Speaker 2: and a dip in childhood vaccination rates. It's that last one, vaccines,
Speaker 2: that many scientists and health researchers agreed is most compelling.
Speaker 2: In the meantime, I asked Jinshawn, what can we do
Speaker 2: to stay healthier? I've been sick, You've been sick. Nobody
Speaker 2: likes being sick. How can people at home buck the
Speaker 2: global trend and stop getting sick all the time?
Speaker 1: That's something I think people have been trying to find
Speaker 1: a balance with. Do we need to continue a lot
Speaker 1: of the measures that we started with COVID, for example,
Speaker 1: wearing masks on public transport and buses when you feel unwell.
Speaker 1: The answer from some experts that we talked to is
Speaker 1: probably yes, because there's kind of a public fear for
Speaker 1: doing those measures again because they make them look weird. Like,
Speaker 1: you know, COVID is over, Why are you still wearing masks?
Speaker 2: But actually, right, you're living in the past.
Speaker 1: Yeah, are you living the pause? What are you afraid of?
Speaker 1: But if you really feel sick, that might help to
Speaker 1: spare your colleague from this particular disease that you are
Speaker 1: going through.
Speaker 2: So, after months of research and data collection and creating
Speaker 2: her map. Jinhan did not end up being able to
Speaker 2: name any one offender. There was no Kernel Mustard in
Speaker 2: the library with the candle to really hammer home the metaphor.
Speaker 2: He likely had some accomplices. The culprits seem to include
Speaker 2: all of us have slightly wonky immune systems after being
Speaker 2: isolated and inside for a long time, though that might
Speaker 2: be a little bit of a red herring. There's the
Speaker 2: effects of the COVID virus itself, fewer people are getting vaccines,
Speaker 2: and climate change the wild card that's causing disease spreading
Speaker 2: agents like mosquitoes to move to different places. But my
Speaker 2: main takeaway from Jinshan's research is that even as we
Speaker 2: try to move our minds away from the day of
Speaker 2: COVID in a lot of ways, our bodies have not
Speaker 2: moved on, at least not yet. This is the big
Speaker 2: take from Bloomberg News. I'm Sarah Holder. This episode was
Speaker 2: produced by Adriana Tapia. It was edited by Stacy Vanicksmith
Speaker 2: and Rachel Chang. It was mixed by Veronica Rodriguez. It
Speaker 2: was fact checked by Thomas lu Special thanks to Arafat
Speaker 2: Jolasho Perry. Our senior producers are Kim Gettelson and Naomi Shaven.
Speaker 2: Our senior editor is Elizabeth Ponso. Nicole beemsterbor is Our
Speaker 2: executive producer. Sage Bauman is Head of podcasts. Thanks so
Speaker 2: much for listening. Please follow and review The Big Take
Speaker 2: wherever you get your podcasts. It helps new listeners find
Speaker 2: the show. We'll be back next week.