Speaker 1: Welcome to Prognosis. I'm Laura Carlson. It's day seventy nine
Speaker 1: since coronavirus was declared a global pandemic. Our main story
Speaker 1: experts are trying to understand whether the weather has an
Speaker 1: impact on the coronavirus. Specifically, will outbreaks recede as the
Speaker 1: northern hemisphere gets warmer. The answer may have more to
Speaker 1: do with sunlight than heat. But first, here's what happened today. Washington,
Speaker 1: d C is lifting its stay at home order starting today.
Speaker 1: That's scene by some as a win for President Donald Trump.
Speaker 1: Trump has been strongly urging states to start up their
Speaker 1: economies again, but d C, one of the worst hotspots
Speaker 1: in the nation, had been a holdout. The symbolic victory
Speaker 1: for Trump could be short lived if a resurgence of
Speaker 1: the virus in Washington turns into an equally potent symbol
Speaker 1: of the downside of Trump's go fast approach. Greece will
Speaker 1: reopen its borders on June fifteenth to visitors from China
Speaker 1: and twenty eight other countries. It's one of the first
Speaker 1: nations in Europe to try to revive its tourism sector.
Speaker 1: The list of countries from which travel is permitted is
Speaker 1: based on their epidemiological profile according to the Athens based
Speaker 1: Tourism Ministry, and does not include the US. Greece seemed
Speaker 1: to bring its coronavirus outbreak under control relatively quickly. Tourism
Speaker 1: in that country accounts for about a fifth of gross
Speaker 1: domestic product. And finally, Americans are just not spending money.
Speaker 1: US consumer spending plunged by the most on record in April.
Speaker 1: It's not surprising that between soaring unemployment and shuttered businesses,
Speaker 1: the pandemic has forced people to stop spending on everything
Speaker 1: but the most essential goods and services. Households spends fell
Speaker 1: almost fourteen percent from the previous month, the biggest drop
Speaker 1: since the Commerce Department started keeping records in nineteen fifty nine,
Speaker 1: and now our main story. For months now, scientists and
Speaker 1: politicians have wondered whether or not the coronavirus would diminish,
Speaker 1: if not disappear entirely over the summer as the weather
Speaker 1: heats up in the northern hemisphere and cools down in
Speaker 1: the southern part of the world. What will happen to
Speaker 1: the pandemic. Bloomberg Senior editor Jason Gale talked to one
Speaker 1: of America's most respected public health experts for his opinion,
Speaker 1: There's been a lot of talk about the potential for
Speaker 1: seasonal variation in the spread of the coronavirus. I recently
Speaker 1: caught up with someone who has studied the scientific data.
Speaker 1: I'm Harvey Finberg. I'm the president of the Gordon and
Speaker 1: Betty Moore Foundation, and I chair the National Academy's Committee
Speaker 1: on Emerging Infectious Diseases and twenty one Century Health Threats.
Speaker 1: Since graduating from Harvard Medical School in Harvey has devoted
Speaker 1: most of his academic career to health policy and medical
Speaker 1: decision making. The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicines
Speaker 1: Committee that Harvey chairs reviewed in April research on the
Speaker 1: virus's ability to persist under different climatic conditions. The findings
Speaker 1: were submitted in a report that went to the White House.
Speaker 1: I asked Harvey what the evidence suggests might happen with
Speaker 1: the changing seasons wild the virus diminish in the summer,
Speaker 1: just to make a comeback when things get colder. Many
Speaker 1: respiratory viruses, just by experience, have a seasonality component. When
Speaker 1: the weather is drier, cooler, more people indoors, they do
Speaker 1: a better job of transmitting from one person to another,
Speaker 1: so the incidents of infection tends to go up in
Speaker 1: the winter months when you're far from the equator. He
Speaker 1: points out that it's too early to know for sure
Speaker 1: when it comes to the coronavirus known as sas Covey too.
Speaker 1: More is known about two other coronaviruses, size or Severe
Speaker 1: Acute Respiratory syndrome and MERCE or Middle Eastern Respiratory syndrome.
Speaker 1: MIRS has experienced very little seasonality attends to being warm climates.
Speaker 1: These ours original outbreak occurred in areas near the equator
Speaker 1: like Singapore and Hong Kong, as well as in temperate
Speaker 1: climates uh such as Toronto in North America. In a
Speaker 1: laboratory setting, the coronavirus TAMS not to survive as long
Speaker 1: in warm, humid conditions. He does better in cool of
Speaker 1: dry temperatures, So there's some basis for thinking COVID may
Speaker 1: rebound when the weather gets cooler. And again, when people
Speaker 1: are indoors, they're probably touching the same surfaces even more
Speaker 1: regularly and more often. So the net of this is
Speaker 1: we can't be sure what's going to happen. We have
Speaker 1: seen outbreaks and even increases in areas like Singapore where
Speaker 1: they're on the equator virtually. But it is I think
Speaker 1: reasonable to expect that there's going to be some seasonal
Speaker 1: fluctuation to this coronavirus, like many respiratory viruses, and that
Speaker 1: may not be a good thing. If cases do drop
Speaker 1: over the summer, then is a risk of a false
Speaker 1: sense of security setting in which could set control if
Speaker 1: it's back when the seasons change again. If the summer
Speaker 1: months create conditions where the virus can continue to spread
Speaker 1: at a very low rate, in effect to stay below
Speaker 1: the radar, but to seed many more geographic areas even
Speaker 1: then are affected today, that's not a good recipe because
Speaker 1: that could mean in the fall and winter months we're
Speaker 1: going to see escalations in many different places happening at
Speaker 1: the same time. So we have to maintain our vigilance,
Speaker 1: certainly through the summer with this new and dangerous virus.
Speaker 1: Obvious says in the US at laced to scale up
Speaker 1: of diagnostic capability will be key. With luck will be
Speaker 1: in a much stronger position by the fall than we
Speaker 1: were this spring to have adequate testing as a part
Speaker 1: of the response, and without testing, without a unified struck true.
Speaker 1: Without the capacity to do to the contact tracing and
Speaker 1: follow up, there really was no way that this virus
Speaker 1: could be absolutely defeated. It's possible that the seasonal impact
Speaker 1: goes beyond just hate and humidity. Though here in Australia
Speaker 1: just over seven thousand COVID nineteen cases and one hundred
Speaker 1: debts have been reported so far, some countries in the
Speaker 1: Northern Hemisphere have reported many times that number in a
Speaker 1: single day. That striking difference might be explained at least
Speaker 1: partially by vitamin D, the best source of which comes
Speaker 1: from the sun's ultra violet radiation. A growing body of
Speaker 1: circumstantial evidence lengths low levels of vitamin D and patient's
Speaker 1: blood with worse outcomes from COVID nineteen. The pandemic emerged
Speaker 1: and started spreading in the Northern Hemisphere at the end
Speaker 1: of winter, when people's vitamin D levels are typically around
Speaker 1: their lowest for the year. Last month, scientists at Northwestern
Speaker 1: University in Boston found COVID patients with severe vitamin D
Speaker 1: deficiency were twice as likely to experience major complications. They
Speaker 1: think it has to do with a sluggish immune response
Speaker 1: that's more likely to result in a hyperinflammatory condition, sometimes
Speaker 1: referred to as a cytokine storm. A two thousand and
Speaker 1: seventeen meta analysis of twenty five random minds control trials
Speaker 1: show that vitamin D supplementation protected against acute respiratory tract infections.
Speaker 1: Harvey says it deserves further investigation. Uh it's one of
Speaker 1: a number where there's some reason from previous studies with
Speaker 1: other infections, from laboratory experience to think there could be
Speaker 1: some role that that particular agent could play in reducing
Speaker 1: the frequency of disease or the severity of disease, or both.
Speaker 1: If it did turn out that supplementation vitamin B could
Speaker 1: interrupt the severity or the occurrence of this disease, it
Speaker 1: would be tremendously valuable because that's a very safe agent
Speaker 1: widely available. It could be very useful, but like all
Speaker 1: of these others, it needs to be investigated and evaluated
Speaker 1: in a double blind, randomized controlled fashion. Last week, the
Speaker 1: Lancet Medical Journal reported that researches in London plan to
Speaker 1: begin a study to investigate how diet and lifestyle factors
Speaker 1: might influence transmission of the coronavirus, as well as the
Speaker 1: severity of COVID nineteen symptoms, speed of recovery, and any
Speaker 1: long term effects. They aim to recruit at least twelve
Speaker 1: thousand people and have some preliminary results by the summer.
Speaker 1: As one of the researchers commented, at best, vitamin D
Speaker 1: deficiency will only be one of many factors involved in
Speaker 1: determining the outcome of COVID nineteen, but at least it's
Speaker 1: a problem that could be corrected relatively safely and shapely.
Speaker 1: That was Jason Gale in Melbourne, and that's our show today.
Speaker 1: For coverage of the outbreak from one and twenty bureaus
Speaker 1: around the world, visit bloomberg dot com slash coronavirus and
Speaker 1: if you like the show, please leave us a review
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Speaker 1: The Prognosis Daily edition is produced by Topher foreheads Jordan Gospore,
Speaker 1: Magnus Hendrickson and me Laura Carlson. Today's main story was
Speaker 1: reported by Jason Gale. Original music by Leo Sidrin. Our
Speaker 1: editors are Francesco Levi and Rick Shine. Francesco Levi is
Speaker 1: Bloomberg's head of Podcasts. Thanks for listening,