Speaker 1: It's Monday, June. I'm oscar A Mirrors from the Daily
Speaker 1: Dive podcast in Los Angeles, and this is reopening America.
Speaker 1: We have shifted into a new phase in the coronavirus pandemic.
Speaker 1: We're social distancing, washing our hands, wearing face masks, and
Speaker 1: we're reopening the country. I'll still give you updates on
Speaker 1: any new information about the virus and vaccine development, but
Speaker 1: I'll also be focusing on how we're reopening America. Going
Speaker 1: through the coronavirus pandemic has been a learning process for
Speaker 1: both people and governments and how the virus infects someone.
Speaker 1: But there's finally a growing consensus on how you catch
Speaker 1: COVID nineteen. Getting sick from touching surfaces or quick encounters
Speaker 1: is less of a worry than close up person of
Speaker 1: person interactions for extended periods of time. It's crucial to
Speaker 1: understand how the virus has transmitted because it informs governments
Speaker 1: on the proper ways to reopen economies. We should still
Speaker 1: be worried about things like concerts and bars. We need
Speaker 1: to improve ventilation and buildings, and we need to continue
Speaker 1: to wear those face masks. Betsy McKay, Senior writer at
Speaker 1: The Wall Street Journal joins us for more on how
Speaker 1: you catch COVID nineteen. Thanks for joining us, Betsy, thanks
Speaker 1: for having me right now. We're finally getting to a
Speaker 1: consensus about how people actually catch COVID nineteen. When we
Speaker 1: first started, there was a lot of concern about surfaces.
Speaker 1: Don't touch things that might be have come in contact
Speaker 1: with somebody else that might have had it. We're starting
Speaker 1: to learn that that's a little less worried about that.
Speaker 1: And the big worry now is these up close person
Speaker 1: of person interactions for extended periods of time. This is
Speaker 1: really where they're finding that the transmission is happening. Betsy,
Speaker 1: tell us a little bit more about this. Yeah, No,
Speaker 1: you're absolutely right. When this pandemic first started, I think
Speaker 1: we all thought, gee, everything's at risk. I can get
Speaker 1: it anywhere surfaces just breathing the air around me. Now
Speaker 1: it really does seem like it is, as you said,
Speaker 1: close up person to person interactions, and that can be
Speaker 1: a lot of things. You know, um, so crowded events
Speaker 1: where you have a lot of people. You may have
Speaker 1: heard the term super spreader event, and and that happens
Speaker 1: when there's one infective person. You know, really confined space,
Speaker 1: maybe talking loudly, and the air the room is poorly ventilated.
Speaker 1: So these types of things. You know, there's a famous
Speaker 1: study now, a famous event a church choir rehearsal, where
Speaker 1: percent of the people who were there actually got infected
Speaker 1: just from one person being infected, and that scientists believe
Speaker 1: is because of all the singing. When you sing, you project.
Speaker 1: So as we start to learn more about this, it
Speaker 1: starts to help policymakers figure out okay, what's okay and
Speaker 1: what's not okay going forward. Yeah, and just a little
Speaker 1: bit more on that church example that you were talking about,
Speaker 1: because it's important. All told, fifty three of the sixty
Speaker 1: one attendees at that practice got infected. But it was
Speaker 1: a two and a half hour practice. The members of
Speaker 1: the choir changed places four times, and as you mentioned,
Speaker 1: they were tightly packed in their confined space. They were
Speaker 1: mostly all they're so all they were doing was just
Speaker 1: kind of playing this musical chairs with each other, continuously
Speaker 1: spreading that in that one confined space. These are the
Speaker 1: things that we're worried about. And you mentioned how learning
Speaker 1: this informs governments on how to reopen. That's why things
Speaker 1: like concerts going to a bar, even going to the
Speaker 1: gym can be a really problematic area. Right. Some people
Speaker 1: ask where the lockdowns necessary, because we have to lockdown
Speaker 1: absolutely everything, And the people I've talked to have said,
Speaker 1: look pretty much yes, for two reasons. One, they didn't
Speaker 1: know where the dangers were and there was no way
Speaker 1: to know it at that point. You know, the virus
Speaker 1: from only five and anths months old or it's only
Speaker 1: been spreading five and a half one. The second thing is, um,
Speaker 1: you just don't know where the next danger is going
Speaker 1: to come when you've got so many people, for example
Speaker 1: in New York City who are infective. But now you know, now,
Speaker 1: while you've got outbreaks all over the country, and it's
Speaker 1: certainly a huge concern, it's a little less, little less intense.
Speaker 1: So this will be help going forward, um figuring out
Speaker 1: you know, what stores should do to reopen or what
Speaker 1: you know, but not bars for example. Yeah, and especially
Speaker 1: you know a bar very cramped, it's kind of loud
Speaker 1: in there, so what are you going to be doing
Speaker 1: talking very loudly? And that's gonna you know, enhance the
Speaker 1: viral particles that are going to be out in the air.
Speaker 1: There are two large recent studies that showed that the
Speaker 1: wide scale lockdowns and stay at home orders did prevent
Speaker 1: millions of infections and debths around the world. Just as
Speaker 1: you were saying, tell me a little bit about the
Speaker 1: attack rate with which this spreads. And then this kind
Speaker 1: of you know people have heard like the rule. There's
Speaker 1: this kind of ten eighty rule where the it's an
Speaker 1: estimated that ten percent of people with COVID nineteen are
Speaker 1: responsible for about eight of transmissions. So there is this
Speaker 1: thing called the attack rate, which is the percentage of
Speaker 1: people who were infected at a given place or time.
Speaker 1: For examp people at this this church choir rehearsal, which
Speaker 1: we should say took place in March, when people knew
Speaker 1: very little about this virus. So it wasn't you know,
Speaker 1: people didn't understand their risk when they were coming to
Speaker 1: this thing. So it's that of the attendees were infected.
Speaker 1: So so the attack rate um can be very high
Speaker 1: in these in these crowded types of events. Also in homes,
Speaker 1: particularly where you have multi generation multiple generations living many
Speaker 1: people in a small home, or just other places where
Speaker 1: people people come together um in you know, have extended
Speaker 1: exposure to each other in tight quarters or a place
Speaker 1: that's just poorly ventilated, so you don't have the air
Speaker 1: circulating and the the virus able to disperse. So this
Speaker 1: idea that ten percent of the people are responsible for
Speaker 1: about eight percent of transmissions. That's from a recent study,
Speaker 1: and what it's describing are these so called super spreader
Speaker 1: events where you have um, you know, one person in
Speaker 1: at a conference. For example, there was a conference in
Speaker 1: Boston in March. Um this church choir would be another.
Speaker 1: Certainly the cruise ships um so months ago. These were
Speaker 1: also super spurturban. You just have several factors to come together,
Speaker 1: both environmental and there may be something about that that
Speaker 1: effected person they speak loudly or where they're standing or whatever,
Speaker 1: um and and so then you end up getting a
Speaker 1: lot of people infected at once. The opposite of that
Speaker 1: is that that means that a lot of people aren't
Speaker 1: actually infecting anybody else. If you have a small number
Speaker 1: of people infecting ten people infecting, ten percent of the
Speaker 1: infected people infecting more, that means you've got a large
Speaker 1: number of people who are not infecting either anybody or
Speaker 1: a very small number of people. And that definitely makes
Speaker 1: that definitely makes the case for wearing face masks. You know,
Speaker 1: if if you were talking loudly and you know, spouting
Speaker 1: out those viral particles, you know, face mask, it's not
Speaker 1: gonna stop everything. It is going to help a lot.
Speaker 1: And you think about transitioning back into the workplace, I mean,
Speaker 1: this leads me to believe that you know, there will
Speaker 1: be no more conference rooms. You know, why would you
Speaker 1: put a lot of people in a small space sitting
Speaker 1: next to each other and you know, what do you have?
Speaker 1: You have a speaker, you have people taking turns talking
Speaker 1: like that. We've proved that we can do without those
Speaker 1: now with virtual meetings and whatnot, So that seems like
Speaker 1: that could be something that goes by the wayside as well.
Speaker 1: You know, the idea of holding a large event indoors.
Speaker 1: It's really difficult to justify right now because you never
Speaker 1: know if somebody's infected, and you know, it's important for
Speaker 1: everybody to remember that if you're infected, you can start
Speaker 1: spreading the virus to other people two days before you
Speaker 1: show any symptoms yourself. So we actually don't know who's
Speaker 1: infected in a group of people, either nobody or people
Speaker 1: who aren't aren't sick yet, So there's a strong argument
Speaker 1: for masks and for everybody to wear a mask because
Speaker 1: you don't know if you're infected, and you don't know
Speaker 1: who around you is infected, and so if you both
Speaker 1: wear it, it's it's a way to protect everybody and
Speaker 1: just keep the air clean. You know this this basically,
Speaker 1: this disease spreads through um it's kind of a gross term,
Speaker 1: but respiratory droplets. The virus comes out with spit and
Speaker 1: there's either little tiny pieces of spit that hang in
Speaker 1: the air a while, and then there's large pieces that
Speaker 1: kind of fall to a surface right away. And um.
Speaker 1: The idea when you get in these consigned spaces, particularly
Speaker 1: those that aren't well ventilated, that's another thing. Building codes
Speaker 1: are probably going to have to change. Right Um, when
Speaker 1: you get you get this sort of build up virus,
Speaker 1: and that's that's one way you get a lot of
Speaker 1: people infected. Yeah, I mean, it's super important to understand
Speaker 1: how this works so that we can change those policies.
Speaker 1: As you just mentioned right now, you know, better ventilation
Speaker 1: systems and buildings probably across the board is what we're
Speaker 1: gonna end up needing. But you know, learning so much
Speaker 1: more about this and it's starting to click in my
Speaker 1: head a little bit why this might be so difficult
Speaker 1: for some people to go through, because it's almost like
Speaker 1: a changing of a lifestyle really that we have to
Speaker 1: go through in real time right now. You know, we
Speaker 1: have to adjust the way we've been doing things for
Speaker 1: so long so that we can limit the spread of this.
Speaker 1: You know, these person a person encounters. You know, people
Speaker 1: are so used to this in the workplace and just
Speaker 1: in their general lives, and we have to kind of
Speaker 1: moderate how we do that now. You know, you also
Speaker 1: want to know where it's safe. One of the things
Speaker 1: that inspired me to do this story was I was
Speaker 1: wondering for myself and my faith outside, like could I
Speaker 1: get it from a passer by, you know, walking on
Speaker 1: the street, And so I started looking into it, and
Speaker 1: the answer is, you know, the chances are really low.
Speaker 1: It's because because it's just such a fleeting encounter and
Speaker 1: somebody's passing you by, and your outdoors where the viral
Speaker 1: particles would disperse pretty quickly and some lay will you
Speaker 1: help decay it and all that stuff, You're actually pretty safe.
Speaker 1: So I think it's helpful for people to know, you know,
Speaker 1: we can't think of ourselves and these total lockdowns forever.
Speaker 1: I think it's it's economically impossible, it's for the rest
Speaker 1: of our health, physical and mental health, very very difficult.
Speaker 1: And so knowing what you can do and what you
Speaker 1: really shouldn't do, UM, and that there are things you
Speaker 1: can do, I think is is really helpful for us
Speaker 1: as we move forward, knowing that we have a long
Speaker 1: ways to go before we come out of this. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I totally agree. UM. You know, spending that time outdoors,
Speaker 1: given yourself and your body, that kind of respite from
Speaker 1: being on that lockdown is so important, and you can
Speaker 1: at least have a little more confidence now knowing that
Speaker 1: you're generally safer in that sense, and you know, as
Speaker 1: you mentioned, you know where to keep away from UH
Speaker 1: in order to help yourself. So some very good information.
Speaker 1: Betsy McKay, senior writer at The Wall Street Journal, Thank
Speaker 1: you very much for joining us. Well, thanks so much
Speaker 1: for having me. I'm Oscar Ramirez and this is reopening America.
Speaker 1: Don't forget day's big news stories. You can check me
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