Speaker 1: Welcome to Prognosis. I'm Laura Carlson. It's day one four
Speaker 1: since coronavirus was declared a global pandemic. Our main story.
Speaker 1: It's now clear that the virus isn't going away anytime soon,
Speaker 1: and we shouldn't hang our hopes on a quick vaccine.
Speaker 1: Today we look at what it means to learn to
Speaker 1: live with a pandemic. But first, here's what happened in
Speaker 1: virus news today. We're starting to get an answer to
Speaker 1: the question of whether warm weather could curb the virus,
Speaker 1: and it's not the one we'd like. Anthony Fauci, the
Speaker 1: country's top infectious disease expert, told Bloomberg the IRUs isn't
Speaker 1: taking summer off. That's clear from its persistent spread in
Speaker 1: US Sun Belt states like Florida, Texas, and Arizona. Dr
Speaker 1: Fauci said it doesn't look like there's any significant impact
Speaker 1: right now from the weather. Looking past this summer, a
Speaker 1: new study will make good fodder for the debate about
Speaker 1: whether to send kids back to school in the fall.
Speaker 1: It looks like school kids don't spread the virus to
Speaker 1: classmates and teachers, at least according to a study at
Speaker 1: the French Institute pasture. The study found that children appear
Speaker 1: to show fewer tell tale symptoms than adults and be
Speaker 1: less contagious. That could provide justification to some for reopening schools.
Speaker 1: Tennis player Novak Djokovic tested positive for COVID nineteen, two
Speaker 1: days after his exhibition tour in the Balkans was cut short.
Speaker 1: The Adria tour was cut short after several other participants
Speaker 1: tested positive. Djokovic's public relation team emailed a statement today
Speaker 1: confirming that he also had the disease. Djokovic said in
Speaker 1: a statement that he was extremely sorry for each individual
Speaker 1: case of infection. He and the event had been criticized
Speaker 1: for embracing few virus restrictions and for holding parties in Belgrade,
Speaker 1: and now for today's main story. More than six months
Speaker 1: into a shape shifting pandemic that's killed more than four
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty four thousand people worldwide, it's clear the
Speaker 1: virus is winning. Most experts believe an effective vaccine won't
Speaker 1: be ready until well into one So how do we
Speaker 1: adjust our thinking from beating the virus to coexisting with it?
Speaker 1: I spoke with Michelle fa Cortez about the next phase
Speaker 1: of the virus and what public health professionals say we
Speaker 1: have to do to survive it. Now that we do
Speaker 1: have a little bit more information, both for the US
Speaker 1: and globally, what are the takeaways. What do we know,
Speaker 1: What does the next six months look like? What don't
Speaker 1: we know? At this point? The virus is still winning,
Speaker 1: The virus still still spreading widely in areas where we
Speaker 1: had had some success against it. It's coming back in
Speaker 1: when we look at places like Beijing and in different
Speaker 1: parts of Asia, we're seeing new rising cases. But the
Speaker 1: bottom line is we have learned a lot about it
Speaker 1: and the next six months are going to be critical.
Speaker 1: The virus only has one job, and that's for it
Speaker 1: to spread from person to person. We have to take
Speaker 1: care of everything. We have to figure out how the
Speaker 1: virus works, where it came from, how we can treat it,
Speaker 1: how we can prevent it, and what does that look
Speaker 1: like on the ground. As far as you know, some
Speaker 1: states are opening up, some states are thinking about actually
Speaker 1: imposing new restrictions. What have we learned in terms of
Speaker 1: how these lockdowns work, Are they successful or what are
Speaker 1: some of the other elements that have been adopted or
Speaker 1: should be adopted that have been shown to be successful
Speaker 1: against the virus. There are a lot of things that
Speaker 1: we've learned where we've had success, and it's interesting because
Speaker 1: we know what we should be doing, we just don't
Speaker 1: know exactly how we should be doing it. So the
Speaker 1: ability to shut the virus down through things like wearing
Speaker 1: masks and social distancing and staying inside actually worked phenomenally well,
Speaker 1: perhaps to our detriment, because in a lot of places
Speaker 1: in the country, people are saying, I haven't been infected,
Speaker 1: no one in my family has been infected. I don't
Speaker 1: even know anyone who has been affected, and so it's
Speaker 1: very hard for people to follow some of these rules
Speaker 1: when they don't see any practical implications for themselves. But
Speaker 1: the bottom line is is that the reason why you
Speaker 1: don't see anything is because it did work. The concern
Speaker 1: with public health officials is that we're not even out
Speaker 1: of this first wave yet. They're concerned that these rising
Speaker 1: cases we have, especially in the South and in the
Speaker 1: West and in other places around the world, that we're
Speaker 1: going to get to a second peak within this first wave,
Speaker 1: and then eventually, maybe by the end of the summer,
Speaker 1: we're going to start seeing it dropped down. The concern
Speaker 1: is is that in the fall and in the winter
Speaker 1: we're going to see another surge, a second wave again
Speaker 1: that could be worse than the first one. Even with
Speaker 1: all this experience that we have gained over the last
Speaker 1: few months, what are some still lingering uncertainties that we
Speaker 1: have about the virus and how to combat it. There's
Speaker 1: still so many uncertainties here. The biggest one is how
Speaker 1: long is any type of immunity gonna last? And that
Speaker 1: means if you survived a coronavirus infection, how long are
Speaker 1: you protected against getting it again. Certainly everyone's hoping for
Speaker 1: the rest of your life, but existing coronavirus is sometimes
Speaker 1: only offer three to five years of protection, and there's
Speaker 1: some evidence that there are people who don't produce any
Speaker 1: neutralizing antibodies, so they could be theoretically at risk from
Speaker 1: getting it again immediately. Because the virus is so new,
Speaker 1: we don't have really good ideas about that, so that's
Speaker 1: a massive amount of uncertainty. The other big uncertainty is
Speaker 1: with the virus itself. Public health officials don't like to
Speaker 1: talk about it much, but in truth, viruses mutate, and
Speaker 1: we have no idea how or where this virus is
Speaker 1: going to mutate. It could be good news. We saw
Speaker 1: with Stars it mutated and it became less deadly, so
Speaker 1: we can all hope for that. But it could also
Speaker 1: mutate and become even more deadly or easier spreading among
Speaker 1: the population. So no one wants to bank on on
Speaker 1: that either direction. So we could have better results as
Speaker 1: a result of the virus moving, we could have worse
Speaker 1: results as a result of the virus mutating. And for now,
Speaker 1: they're just keeping on keeping on. And I was wondering,
Speaker 1: maybe if you could just sketch how maybe the next
Speaker 1: six months or even a year might go in that
Speaker 1: we're not necessarily done with coronavirus, but that we might
Speaker 1: maybe be facing a say rubber band effect of loosening
Speaker 1: and then tightening restrictions. The immediate impact that things that
Speaker 1: are going to be happening over the next month or
Speaker 1: two is actually a time when we should be seeing
Speaker 1: cases decline. This is a respiratory infection. Everyone believes that
Speaker 1: it will be like every other respiratory infection in that
Speaker 1: it's cyclical and seasonal, so it should be decreasing in
Speaker 1: the summer months in the North and Hemisphere. Every other
Speaker 1: virus works like this in a normal situation. That's how
Speaker 1: viruses work, and so it should be declining. But we
Speaker 1: saw it with swine flew and with other viruses. When
Speaker 1: something is brand new and everyone is vulnerable. If you
Speaker 1: have people really close together, the virus's job is just
Speaker 1: to spread from one vulnerable person to the other person,
Speaker 1: and it does that very efficiently. That seasonal experience doesn't
Speaker 1: come through as strong in a situation where the entire
Speaker 1: world is exposed, so they're they're still expecting to have
Speaker 1: a drop in the summer months. So they're thinking that
Speaker 1: because people are not social distancing right now, because there
Speaker 1: is so much proximity to each other, that we're seeing
Speaker 1: an increase right now, but in in July and August,
Speaker 1: they really do expect the numbers to come down. That's
Speaker 1: both a welcome change that's also a fear because if
Speaker 1: everybody starts getting back together, then when fall and winter
Speaker 1: come along, we're going to start having influenza season as well.
Speaker 1: And we've seen from previous outbreaks that the second wave
Speaker 1: is worse than the first wave. The first wave just
Speaker 1: primed everybody for this virus. The second wave could be
Speaker 1: even much stronger, and even though nobody wants to hear it.
Speaker 1: There are definitely some people out there who are talking
Speaker 1: about how we're going to shut down a second time. So,
Speaker 1: you know, we're still looking at a dramatic rise in
Speaker 1: case counts. We're still looking at, you know, having this
Speaker 1: virus with us for months, if not years. Is there
Speaker 1: is there any kind of lights um on the horizon?
Speaker 1: Is there any good news that we can point to
Speaker 1: right now? Absolutely, we have learned so much about this virus,
Speaker 1: information that we can actually use on a day to
Speaker 1: day basis to make things better. So we do have
Speaker 1: a medicine that helps people who are hospitalized rem deservie
Speaker 1: and that helps people get out of the hospital more quickly,
Speaker 1: and hopefully it will improve mortality rates. It will help
Speaker 1: people avoid dying from this. That's still to come, but
Speaker 1: the numbers look like they're moving in the right direction
Speaker 1: and that's a psychological relief as well. Some of the
Speaker 1: concern with coronavirus is there was no way to treat it,
Speaker 1: and so it's just terrifying to think that you're dealing
Speaker 1: with something that is untreatable. Now we have a treatment.
Speaker 1: We also know that deck's a method zone, which is
Speaker 1: a steroid also does actually improve mortality rates. So we
Speaker 1: have two treatments that have been scientifically proven to be helpful.
Speaker 1: There has been enormous progress when it comes to a vaccine.
Speaker 1: There are ten different vaccine products that are in human
Speaker 1: clinical trials now. The pace of this work is breathtaking.
Speaker 1: The most quickly they have ever developed a vaccine before
Speaker 1: is four years. They're looking at twelve to eighteen months
Speaker 1: this time around. I'm still on the fence about whether
Speaker 1: they're going to get there in twelve to eighteen months,
Speaker 1: but they're definitely going to get there. If it can
Speaker 1: be gotten, they will get there at some point for coronavirus.
Speaker 1: So the fact that we're looking at potentially a second wave,
Speaker 1: hopefully by the time that comes around, we will have
Speaker 1: a vaccine that will offer some protection. Not only that,
Speaker 1: we have a better ppe situation where people can use masks.
Speaker 1: Doctors and nurses have enough gowns and face masks and
Speaker 1: shields to protect them when people are coming in. They
Speaker 1: know how to separate people with coronavirus from those who
Speaker 1: don't have it, how quickly to start medications, how quickly
Speaker 1: to start ventilation. So our ability to treat people who
Speaker 1: have this is better. Our ability to stop ourselves and
Speaker 1: protect ourselves from getting it to begin with is better
Speaker 1: and on ourselves. Everyone gets to make that decision on
Speaker 1: their own, and the long term potential to actually shut
Speaker 1: it down entirely is there. They're working on it, so
Speaker 1: there is hope, so there's there's reasons for shall we say,
Speaker 1: cautious optimism for the future, excellent way of putting it. Yes,
Speaker 1: cautious optimism is a good way to say it. With skepticism.
Speaker 1: Protect yourself, but don't be completely negative about where this
Speaker 1: virus is headed. That was Michelle Fake Cortez and that's
Speaker 1: our show today. For coverage of the outbreak from one
Speaker 1: and twenty bureaus around the world, visit Bloomberg dot com
Speaker 1: slash coronavirus and if you like the show, please leave
Speaker 1: us a review and a rating on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
Speaker 1: It's the best way to help more listeners find our
Speaker 1: global reporting. The Prognosis Daily edition is produced by Topha Foreheads,
Speaker 1: Jordan Gospure, Magnus Hendrickson and me Laura Carlson. Today's main
Speaker 1: story was reported by Michelle Fake Cortez. Original music by
Speaker 1: Leo Citrin. Our editors are Rick Shine and Francesca Levi.
Speaker 1: Francesco Levi is Bloomberg's head of podcasts. Thanks for listening.