WEBVTT - The Dangers of Pollution in a Pandemic 0:00:01.040 --> 0:00:05.880 Welcome to Prognosis. I'm Laura Carlson. It's day two and 0:00:05.960 --> 0:00:11.440 twenty three since coronavirus was declared a global pandemic. Today's 0:00:11.480 --> 0:00:18.320 main story Black people are disproportionately affected by coronavirus. One 0:00:18.360 --> 0:00:23.040 reason for that maybe that, particularly in the US, residents 0:00:23.079 --> 0:00:28.040 of black neighborhoods are statistically more likely to breathe bad air, 0:00:29.120 --> 0:00:32.960 and research is beginning to show a clear relationship between 0:00:32.960 --> 0:00:40.320 pollution and severe virus effects. But first, here's what happened 0:00:40.400 --> 0:00:49.560 in virus News today. Spain's case count could be three 0:00:49.560 --> 0:00:53.760 times higher than the official data shows. That's according to 0:00:53.840 --> 0:00:57.480 Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, who said that the total number 0:00:57.520 --> 0:01:01.320 of people who have contracted coronavirus in the tree likely 0:01:01.400 --> 0:01:06.280 exceeds three million. The much steeper figure is based on 0:01:06.440 --> 0:01:11.920 scerology tests, which measure the body's response to antibodies. Today, 0:01:11.959 --> 0:01:17.319 Sanchez urged citizens to restrict movement and social contact. At 0:01:17.319 --> 0:01:21.480 the same time, he indicated that curbs would not cause 0:01:21.680 --> 0:01:27.520 unnecessary damage to the Spanish economy. All around Europe, curfews 0:01:27.560 --> 0:01:31.000 are being put in place as daily infections hit records. 0:01:31.880 --> 0:01:36.199 In France alone, cases surged by forty one thousand, six 0:01:36.280 --> 0:01:41.720 hundred and twenty two just yesterday. Against that backdrop, authorities 0:01:41.720 --> 0:01:45.240 are expanding a curfew beyond Paris and other large cities, 0:01:45.520 --> 0:01:49.200 with some additional forty six million people told to stay 0:01:49.200 --> 0:01:53.480 at home at night. French Prime Minister Geen Castex called 0:01:53.480 --> 0:01:58.920 the situation grave. Finally, the US Food and Drug Administration 0:01:59.000 --> 0:02:05.360 approved the viral therapy remdesiviere from Gilead Sciences on Thursday. 0:02:05.640 --> 0:02:09.840 Remdesviere is the first drug to obtain formal clearance for 0:02:09.960 --> 0:02:15.800 treating the coronavirus. Regulators had granted an emergency use authorization 0:02:15.840 --> 0:02:19.160 for the drug earlier this year, and since then it 0:02:19.200 --> 0:02:24.040 has become a widely used therapy in hospitalized COVID nineteen patients. 0:02:25.080 --> 0:02:27.919 It was given to President Donald Trump this month when 0:02:27.960 --> 0:02:32.560 he was diagnosed with the virus. The approval will allow 0:02:32.720 --> 0:02:36.440 Guilliad to market the drug to doctors, nurses, and patients 0:02:37.000 --> 0:02:39.600 that could help solidify its position as a go to 0:02:39.760 --> 0:02:49.000 medicine for COVID nineteen patients. And now for today's main story, 0:02:50.240 --> 0:02:53.080 one zip code in Detroit is one of the most 0:02:53.120 --> 0:02:57.040 polluted in Michigan, and it may not be a coincidence 0:02:57.080 --> 0:03:00.359 that COVID deaths and severe cases in the area are 0:03:00.480 --> 0:03:04.680 also high. Researchers have begun to confirm that pollution can 0:03:04.720 --> 0:03:09.520 worsen the effects of the illness. Black Americans have an 0:03:09.600 --> 0:03:14.360 increased vulnerability to COVID. Many explanations have been floated for 0:03:14.400 --> 0:03:17.639 that Black people are more likely to have chronic illnesses 0:03:17.919 --> 0:03:21.160 such as diabetes and high blood pressure many work and 0:03:21.240 --> 0:03:27.280 frontline jobs. But as Cynthia Coon's reports, scientists are increasingly 0:03:27.360 --> 0:03:31.080 certain that bad air plays a role in the coronavirus course. 0:03:32.000 --> 0:03:35.520 I spoke to Cynthia about the relationship between high rates 0:03:35.520 --> 0:03:40.120 of COVID nineteen among the black population and the similarly 0:03:40.240 --> 0:03:49.800 high incidents of pollution in black neighborhoods. So, Cynthia, many 0:03:49.840 --> 0:03:53.360 towns and cities across the US have been hit hard 0:03:53.440 --> 0:04:00.200 by COVID. What makes Southwest Detroit's situation slightly unusual. What's 0:04:00.240 --> 0:04:04.280 going on in Southwest Detroit is decades and decades of 0:04:04.360 --> 0:04:09.040 exposure to pollution colliding with COVID at this moment in time. So, 0:04:09.120 --> 0:04:12.480 this is a community that's surrounded by industrial polluters. There 0:04:12.480 --> 0:04:15.320 are more than a dozen of them, uh surrounding a 0:04:15.440 --> 0:04:17.479 very small area. It's just a little more than two 0:04:17.520 --> 0:04:22.279 miles long. It's a residential community that is predominantly black, 0:04:22.680 --> 0:04:25.440 and they've been living with the effects of pollution and 0:04:25.480 --> 0:04:27.320 some of the health effects from when you talk to 0:04:27.400 --> 0:04:30.039 people and you hear about their health problems and the 0:04:30.160 --> 0:04:32.440 cancers that their family of experience, or the rates of 0:04:32.480 --> 0:04:35.800 asthma within the community, it's clear that they've had that 0:04:35.880 --> 0:04:38.880 pollution has taken a toll on their quality of their 0:04:38.880 --> 0:04:42.039 health for years. And then basically we took them, We 0:04:42.120 --> 0:04:44.800 took this moment in time to look at how COVID 0:04:45.200 --> 0:04:49.200 has impacted this community. You know, in the community or 0:04:49.560 --> 0:04:52.760 next to the community. What are some of the major 0:04:52.839 --> 0:04:57.919 industries or pollutants that are causing these problems. Well, it's 0:04:58.000 --> 0:05:03.159 actually who's who of industries that are surrounding this community. 0:05:03.240 --> 0:05:08.240 There's oil refinery, a scrap yard, a gypsum plant, oil 0:05:08.360 --> 0:05:14.240 storage facilities, metal shredding, wastewater treatment plants, power stations, steel plants, 0:05:14.279 --> 0:05:17.680 asphall plants. Things as basic as the trucks that go 0:05:17.760 --> 0:05:21.480 in and out can actually spew uh find black smoke 0:05:21.600 --> 0:05:24.640 and particles that is so dense that people have told 0:05:24.680 --> 0:05:27.120 me they have to pull over sometimes to avoid these 0:05:27.120 --> 0:05:29.360 trucks that because they might not be able to even see. 0:05:29.839 --> 0:05:32.720 And these are streets where you see these industrial plants 0:05:32.720 --> 0:05:34.480 and then you look to the left and there's a house. 0:05:35.080 --> 0:05:39.640 And some of these schools have industrial plants across the 0:05:39.720 --> 0:05:42.400 street the way schools would normally have a park across 0:05:42.400 --> 0:05:44.120 the street, or you would have suspect it would be 0:05:44.120 --> 0:05:47.600 in a residential neighborhood. So it's pretty unbelievable the collision 0:05:47.720 --> 0:05:52.160 of these industrial polluters and the community how close they 0:05:52.160 --> 0:05:55.479 all live. You know, you've mentioned a whole bunch of 0:05:55.480 --> 0:05:59.240 these already, but even prior to COVID nineteen, maybe you 0:05:59.279 --> 0:06:03.760 could just sketch briefly some of these very serious health 0:06:03.800 --> 0:06:06.520 tolls as a result of living next to these heavy 0:06:06.520 --> 0:06:09.479 pollutants and industries. Yeah, I've heard about a lot of 0:06:09.480 --> 0:06:12.080 different cancers, a lot of different cancer stories, a lot 0:06:12.120 --> 0:06:15.080 of asthma issues. It's very interesting with asthma too. We 0:06:15.120 --> 0:06:18.120 took a look at the rate of hospitalization from asthma, 0:06:18.160 --> 0:06:20.719 for example, because you think of asthma's maybe you know 0:06:20.760 --> 0:06:23.360 and inhaler and needing to use it from time to time, 0:06:23.360 --> 0:06:26.239 but when you think about severe asthma and hospitalizations, people 0:06:26.240 --> 0:06:29.280 in this community are hospitalized at a much higher rate 0:06:29.279 --> 0:06:32.400 than Michigan, and I believe it was five times the 0:06:32.480 --> 0:06:36.000 rate of Americans as a whole, so severe cases of 0:06:36.040 --> 0:06:38.800 things like asthma. So it's it's really it's it's it's 0:06:38.800 --> 0:06:42.119 hard to give a whole list of health problems because 0:06:42.120 --> 0:06:44.240 there's just so many different ones that I've come up 0:06:44.279 --> 0:06:47.520 in my reporting, but it's it's really quite clear that, 0:06:48.320 --> 0:06:51.479 especially with asthma, that the hospitalization rates show that people 0:06:51.480 --> 0:06:57.640 are really struggling to breathe here during with the onset 0:06:57.640 --> 0:07:01.640 of COVID nineteen and the effects and symptoms of COVID 0:07:01.720 --> 0:07:05.880 nineteen obviously very seriously in some cases affecting the lungs, 0:07:05.920 --> 0:07:09.840 that there would be a very costly knock on effect 0:07:09.880 --> 0:07:13.280 of some of these pre existing health conditions if someone 0:07:13.520 --> 0:07:17.200 from this community were to contract COVID nineteen. I was 0:07:17.240 --> 0:07:20.560 just wondering what your research showed you about how this 0:07:20.600 --> 0:07:26.920 community was weathering COVID nineteen given these pre existing health tools. 0:07:26.960 --> 0:07:29.840 So this has been a lot through my anecdotal reporting 0:07:29.880 --> 0:07:34.280 talking to people about um the number of say family 0:07:34.280 --> 0:07:36.680 members or community members they know who have gotten sick 0:07:36.960 --> 0:07:39.600 or who have passed away from COVID. But what I 0:07:39.640 --> 0:07:41.920 found really interesting was the number of people who had 0:07:41.960 --> 0:07:46.880 these quite severe cases and that progressed to pneumonia, that 0:07:46.920 --> 0:07:50.280 progressed to requiring a ventilator. UM. I spoke to a 0:07:50.320 --> 0:07:53.320 woman months after she'd been diagnosed and hospitalized, and she 0:07:53.360 --> 0:07:55.320 was still struggling to catch her breath, and she was 0:07:55.360 --> 0:07:57.360 telling me she used to walk five miles a day 0:07:58.040 --> 0:07:59.960 and now she never plots some walk that's more than 0:08:00.000 --> 0:08:02.360 a half mile because she's quite nervous about, you know, 0:08:02.440 --> 0:08:04.560 not being able to catch her breath and being too 0:08:04.560 --> 0:08:07.600 far from home. So you can see that what's going 0:08:07.640 --> 0:08:09.960 on here from the people I've spoken to her, that 0:08:10.040 --> 0:08:13.480 some of these cases are just they're pretty severe. It's 0:08:13.520 --> 0:08:15.560 not the same story as you hear about kind of 0:08:15.600 --> 0:08:19.440 this mild illness that you you know, you can recover 0:08:19.560 --> 0:08:22.320 from in a couple of weeks. I mean, obviously, COVID 0:08:22.480 --> 0:08:25.560 is something we're still coming to an understanding about, by 0:08:25.600 --> 0:08:28.400 and large, So there's a lot for us to learn here. 0:08:28.480 --> 0:08:30.280 And this was the early days of the pandemic, so 0:08:30.320 --> 0:08:33.640 people weren't necessarily getting treatments that might be available today 0:08:33.720 --> 0:08:35.520 or even tested. I talk to people who've been turned 0:08:35.520 --> 0:08:37.839 away from the hospital. They knew they were exposed to COVID, 0:08:37.840 --> 0:08:39.920 but they're just they were they weren't being tested and 0:08:39.920 --> 0:08:41.760 there was such a shortage of everything at that point 0:08:41.800 --> 0:08:44.080 in March and April. But I think the thing is 0:08:44.160 --> 0:08:47.200 we have to we also should pay attention to the 0:08:47.240 --> 0:08:50.240 severity of COVID because this might not be a story 0:08:50.280 --> 0:08:53.480 about higher death rate. It might be a story about 0:08:53.520 --> 0:08:56.760 more severe cases, because these are people whose lungs may 0:08:56.760 --> 0:08:59.760 be compromised from decades of breathing bad air. And so 0:08:59.800 --> 0:09:03.000 that it's a line of research that I think scientists 0:09:03.000 --> 0:09:05.960 need to explore. And um, you know, there's a small 0:09:06.000 --> 0:09:08.440 group of scientists doing the work. There is some research emerging, 0:09:08.480 --> 0:09:10.920 and that's really exciting. But I think there's a lot 0:09:10.960 --> 0:09:12.960 more to go here, because this isn't just a story 0:09:12.960 --> 0:09:15.880 about Southwest Detroit. There are plenty of parts of the 0:09:15.920 --> 0:09:18.280 US and the rest of the world that have this 0:09:18.600 --> 0:09:21.000 that their reality is that there people are exposed to 0:09:21.000 --> 0:09:25.440 disproportionate amounts of pollution and and I'd love to dig 0:09:25.440 --> 0:09:29.480 further on that of where elsewhere has there been any 0:09:29.520 --> 0:09:33.280 research done or any link found between say, the presence 0:09:33.320 --> 0:09:36.920 of heavy industry and these higher or more serious cases 0:09:36.960 --> 0:09:41.319 of COVID nineteen apart from southwest Detroit. So one interesting 0:09:41.360 --> 0:09:44.800 study out of Europe took a look. This scientist um 0:09:44.960 --> 0:09:47.240 A research scientists took a look. He guys are thinking 0:09:47.240 --> 0:09:49.600 about what different areas that were hard hit by COVID 0:09:49.600 --> 0:09:53.000 in the beginning had in common. His research showed that 0:09:53.080 --> 0:09:56.640 seventy of the deaths and he picked France, Germany, Italy, 0:09:56.679 --> 0:09:59.360 and Spain were in the more polluted parts of this 0:09:59.480 --> 0:10:02.760 country and so and one point five percent of the 0:10:02.840 --> 0:10:06.040 deaths were in the least polluted parts. So he took 0:10:06.080 --> 0:10:10.120 Europe and said, look, the least polluted parts were also 0:10:10.679 --> 0:10:13.800 where people fared better with COVID, using death number of 0:10:13.840 --> 0:10:17.960 deaths as this way of measuring that. Another researcher did 0:10:18.000 --> 0:10:23.080 work out of Harvard looking at long term exposure to 0:10:23.400 --> 0:10:28.520 pollution and what she showed was that even modest increases 0:10:29.040 --> 0:10:32.559 lead to large increases in the death rate. So that 0:10:32.600 --> 0:10:36.280 was interesting just linking together this idea that even having 0:10:36.320 --> 0:10:41.480 a little more pollution exposure or modest amount more does 0:10:41.559 --> 0:10:45.800 have a bigger implication for mortality. So those are some 0:10:45.840 --> 0:10:48.000 studies early on, but there's there's a bit of work 0:10:48.000 --> 0:10:50.800 going on right now. These were the very early research 0:10:50.880 --> 0:10:54.160 projects that were getting done and published or these these 0:10:54.559 --> 0:10:56.960 researchers were putting them out very early on and they 0:10:57.040 --> 0:11:01.200 kind of created a stir and as especially the Harvard study, 0:11:01.240 --> 0:11:04.440 they published it without before doing peer review, and her 0:11:04.480 --> 0:11:06.000 thinking was, let me get this out into the world. 0:11:06.040 --> 0:11:09.160 This is really important, and so it was interesting to 0:11:09.200 --> 0:11:11.200 see the way the world reacted. I think there was 0:11:11.280 --> 0:11:14.400 some positive momentum from that. She was invited to speak 0:11:14.440 --> 0:11:17.359 to Congress and she did an event with Corey Booker 0:11:17.400 --> 0:11:20.880 and a minister from Cancer ALI in Louisiana to talk 0:11:20.920 --> 0:11:23.880 about these issues. So she got some quite a bit 0:11:23.880 --> 0:11:26.080 of kind of attention for it, but she said she 0:11:26.160 --> 0:11:28.959 also faced some people who you know, had points of 0:11:29.040 --> 0:11:31.600 view on this, and so that's part of the process. 0:11:31.679 --> 0:11:34.520 And so, I it's interesting to see but this research, 0:11:35.360 --> 0:11:38.240 these researchers put this research out quite early because they 0:11:38.280 --> 0:11:40.880 really wanted this message to get out into the world. 0:11:42.720 --> 0:11:46.680 And finally zooming back to Southwest Detroit, you mentioned that 0:11:46.720 --> 0:11:50.360 it was a predominantly black community, and research has shown 0:11:50.360 --> 0:11:55.800 throughout this pandemic that many racialized communities, particularly black communities, 0:11:55.840 --> 0:11:59.679 have suffered higher case rates more serious complications from COVID 0:11:59.760 --> 0:12:04.000 ninth teen. How do you think this factors into what 0:12:04.120 --> 0:12:08.080 you saw in Southwest Detroit? What what is that role there? 0:12:09.200 --> 0:12:12.600 You're taking a community that's already dealing with a disproportionate 0:12:12.640 --> 0:12:18.200 amount of pollution, a predominantly black community, and continuing to 0:12:18.280 --> 0:12:22.440 pile on potential more sources of pollution. I mean, this 0:12:22.520 --> 0:12:26.640 community also came to be partly due to the way 0:12:26.920 --> 0:12:30.040 redlining laid out The city of Detroit and where black 0:12:30.040 --> 0:12:34.120 people ended up living is much older history, but it's 0:12:34.160 --> 0:12:37.760 still plays into some of the ways that this community 0:12:37.840 --> 0:12:40.920 was formed. And then the things that started to happen 0:12:41.000 --> 0:12:43.560 with industry. Industry has been there for a long time, 0:12:43.600 --> 0:12:46.520 but continuing to pollute and pulling it off. I think 0:12:46.920 --> 0:12:49.840 some of these lawsuits are really challenging that having happened 0:12:49.960 --> 0:12:53.240 just by accident and maybe being part of this whole 0:12:53.240 --> 0:12:56.640 systemic racism story that is, you know, really coming to 0:12:56.679 --> 0:12:59.000 the forefront in America this year with the Black Lives 0:12:59.040 --> 0:13:01.800 Movement that we need to really consider the way our 0:13:01.840 --> 0:13:07.360 institutions are continuing to disadvantage people of color in this 0:13:07.480 --> 0:13:16.400 country in very subtle and overt ways. That was Cynthia 0:13:16.480 --> 0:13:19.720 Coons and that's it for our show today. For coverage 0:13:19.760 --> 0:13:22.000 of the outbreak from one D and twenty beraus around 0:13:22.040 --> 0:13:27.080 the world. Visit bloomberg dot com slash coronavirus and if 0:13:27.120 --> 0:13:29.319 you like the show, please leave us a review and 0:13:29.400 --> 0:13:33.160 a rating on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. It's the best 0:13:33.240 --> 0:13:37.320 way to help more listeners find our global reporting. The 0:13:37.360 --> 0:13:41.760 Prognosis Alia edition is produced by Tophor foreheads Jordan Gospore, 0:13:42.160 --> 0:13:47.000 Magnus Henrickson, and me Laura Carlson. Today's main story was 0:13:47.040 --> 0:13:51.800 reported by Cynthia Coon's original music by Leo Sidrin. Our 0:13:52.000 --> 0:13:56.320 editors are Rick Shine and Francesca Levi. Francesca Levi is 0:13:56.360 --> 0:14:07.040 Bloomberg's head of podcasts. Thanks for listening, Land and