WEBVTT - COVID Data Findings and the Impact of Teleheatlh 0:00:01.280 --> 0:00:05.119 You're listening to the Bloomberg Opinion podcast count US Saturdays 0:00:05.120 --> 0:00:08.280 at one and seven pm Eastern on Bloomberg dot Com, 0:00:08.320 --> 0:00:11.479 the iHeartRadio app, and the Bloomberg Business App, or listen 0:00:11.520 --> 0:00:13.760 on demand wherever you get your podcasts. 0:00:15.760 --> 0:00:18.960 Welcome to Bloomberg Opinion I Amy Morris. This week we 0:00:19.040 --> 0:00:21.959 look at COVID. We got a lot right about the risks, 0:00:22.000 --> 0:00:24.919 but we talk with Bloomberg's Justin Fox, who says we 0:00:25.040 --> 0:00:28.320 got the response wrong, and we'll look at the benefits 0:00:28.320 --> 0:00:32.159 of telehealth and how it can be especially helpful for teenagers. 0:00:32.440 --> 0:00:36.440 Bloomberg's Lisa Jarvis explains how the COVID pandemic highlighted how 0:00:36.600 --> 0:00:40.080 telehealth can fit in as part of your healthcare routine. Plus, 0:00:40.200 --> 0:00:43.360 the US might want to consider changing it's COVID booster 0:00:43.479 --> 0:00:47.360 strategy because whatever they're doing now just doesn't seem to 0:00:47.400 --> 0:00:50.960 be working. But we begin with another holdover from COVID, 0:00:51.040 --> 0:00:54.640 working from home. While companies are getting more serious about 0:00:54.640 --> 0:00:58.240 their return to office policies, more employees are looking for 0:00:58.280 --> 0:01:03.360 that flexibility in their careers. Karen Cambro is LinkedIn's chief economist. 0:01:03.680 --> 0:01:06.640 Employers are now gradually pulling back on that they would 0:01:06.680 --> 0:01:08.440 like to see people back in the office. We're seeing 0:01:08.480 --> 0:01:11.360 an upswing in hybrid work where people are coming in, 0:01:11.440 --> 0:01:14.479 say it's three days out of the week, and we're 0:01:14.480 --> 0:01:18.199 seeing a decrease in job openings that offer fully remote works. 0:01:18.240 --> 0:01:21.080 So there's definitely a trend of getting back into the office. 0:01:21.319 --> 0:01:23.640 But is that the way to go? Is there any 0:01:23.720 --> 0:01:27.679 room for flexibility. Let's talk with Bloomberg opinion columnist Sarah 0:01:27.680 --> 0:01:31.240 Green Carmichael. She joins us now. Sarah, always a pleasure. 0:01:31.319 --> 0:01:34.039 Thank you for taking the time in your column on 0:01:34.040 --> 0:01:37.399 the Bloomberg terminal. You use Amazon as an example because 0:01:37.400 --> 0:01:40.520 that company has gotten really serious about its return to 0:01:40.560 --> 0:01:41.200 work policy. 0:01:42.160 --> 0:01:45.080 Yes, Amazon has been tightening the screws now for months 0:01:45.080 --> 0:01:48.840 on employees, and last week Business Insider got hold of 0:01:48.880 --> 0:01:52.360 a memo that they had sent to their managers asking 0:01:52.400 --> 0:01:56.920 them to first talk to anyone who has not been 0:01:56.920 --> 0:01:58.880 coming in three times a week and give them a 0:01:58.920 --> 0:02:01.720 sort of an official war. Follow up with an email 0:02:01.800 --> 0:02:04.639 sort of documenting a dolores Umbradge sort of type memo 0:02:04.800 --> 0:02:06.360 of you know, you haven't been coming in and there 0:02:06.360 --> 0:02:10.480 will be consequences, and then if things haven't improved after 0:02:10.520 --> 0:02:13.920 a week, or two to really start termination proceedings. So 0:02:14.000 --> 0:02:17.960 this is really like exercising the nuclear option on hybrid work. 0:02:18.040 --> 0:02:19.520 You know, they're really saying you've got to be in 0:02:19.560 --> 0:02:21.399 three days a week and if you're not, you could 0:02:21.440 --> 0:02:21.920 be fired. 0:02:22.480 --> 0:02:24.799 So what is this push and pull over working from 0:02:24.840 --> 0:02:26.639 home due to middle managers? 0:02:27.600 --> 0:02:29.519 I think it puts them in a really tough spot. 0:02:29.639 --> 0:02:34.320 You know, middle managers are in my uh as. I've 0:02:34.360 --> 0:02:36.280 sort of talked with them. Yes, would they like some 0:02:36.320 --> 0:02:37.919 of their employees to come in more often? 0:02:38.200 --> 0:02:40.840 Yes they would. Do they want to be firing people? 0:02:41.160 --> 0:02:41.280 No? 0:02:41.720 --> 0:02:44.480 Are they trying to manage employees who have real needs 0:02:44.480 --> 0:02:45.399 for flexibility? 0:02:45.560 --> 0:02:45.800 Yes? 0:02:45.880 --> 0:02:48.600 Are they also trying to get people, you know, to 0:02:49.120 --> 0:02:51.480 do their best at work? Of course? So I think 0:02:51.880 --> 0:02:54.400 sort of asking middle managers to kind of become the 0:02:54.560 --> 0:02:56.880 enforcer of this policy really does put them in a 0:02:56.919 --> 0:02:59.080 bind on top of everything else that middle managers are 0:02:59.120 --> 0:02:59.560 asked to do. 0:03:00.320 --> 0:03:03.440 Now, why is there still so much disagreement about whether 0:03:03.520 --> 0:03:07.600 working from home actually works? Didn't we prove this in 0:03:07.680 --> 0:03:10.400 twenty twenty and beyond amy? 0:03:10.440 --> 0:03:13.480 That is the key question. That's really what the debate 0:03:13.560 --> 0:03:17.519 is here. A lot of managers will say that they 0:03:17.560 --> 0:03:20.200 don't think that people are as productive at home. They 0:03:20.240 --> 0:03:23.840 see the primary benefit of hybrid work as work life balance. 0:03:24.600 --> 0:03:28.200 Employees who are working in a hybrid or remote way 0:03:28.240 --> 0:03:30.560 see it differently. They are Yeah, the work life balance 0:03:30.600 --> 0:03:33.480 is nice, but actually one of the most important benefits 0:03:33.520 --> 0:03:35.840 is that I feel so much more productive at home. 0:03:36.280 --> 0:03:38.840 So there's this real perception gap based on your position 0:03:38.920 --> 0:03:42.240 in the organization. I think part of that gap is 0:03:42.280 --> 0:03:45.839 to do with trust. Employees feel like they're getting locked 0:03:45.840 --> 0:03:47.960 done at home, managers cannot see them doing it, and 0:03:48.040 --> 0:03:51.280 so managers, I think, are more skeptical. And it could 0:03:51.280 --> 0:03:53.840 also be that, you know, there are some types of 0:03:54.320 --> 0:03:57.720 managing that are actually more difficult when employees aren't right 0:03:57.800 --> 0:04:00.800 under your nose. So even if the employee is more productive, 0:04:01.040 --> 0:04:03.520 it makes the manager's job a little bit tougher. 0:04:04.120 --> 0:04:06.880 And this isn't supposition on your part. You've found in 0:04:06.920 --> 0:04:09.160 writing this column on the Bloomberg terminal is that there 0:04:09.280 --> 0:04:12.240 is research out there that shows when the employee has 0:04:12.320 --> 0:04:15.480 some power over their workspace, they do better. 0:04:16.520 --> 0:04:21.280 Yes, I talked to an interesting expert in teams and performance, 0:04:21.880 --> 0:04:25.479 David Burkis, and he was saying, you know, he's looked 0:04:25.480 --> 0:04:27.919 at he's followed this research really closely. A lot of 0:04:27.920 --> 0:04:31.200 it's coming out of Stanford, from Nicholas Blooms group at Stanford, 0:04:31.839 --> 0:04:33.679 And I asked him, you know, why are we seeing 0:04:33.720 --> 0:04:36.400 now such disagreement between these studies. You know, work from 0:04:36.400 --> 0:04:39.480 home is more productive if actually the office is more productive. 0:04:40.080 --> 0:04:42.039 He said, a lot of it has to do with 0:04:42.320 --> 0:04:46.479 people sort of sorting into categories. So if someone prefers 0:04:46.520 --> 0:04:49.200 the office, they will actually be more productive at the office. 0:04:49.279 --> 0:04:52.040 If someone prefers working from home and has some control 0:04:52.120 --> 0:04:55.680 over their schedule and can do that, they'll be more productive, 0:04:55.920 --> 0:04:58.200 you know, in that arrangement. So what we're seeing now 0:04:58.240 --> 0:05:01.880 post COVID is that when people have the option to 0:05:02.480 --> 0:05:05.760 control their work environment, it actually does improve their performance. 0:05:06.080 --> 0:05:08.080 And that's I think what so many employees are trying 0:05:08.080 --> 0:05:10.159 to hold on to and what is so challenging for 0:05:10.200 --> 0:05:11.160 so many managers. 0:05:11.600 --> 0:05:14.640 And we are talking with Bloomberg opinion columnist Sarah Green 0:05:14.720 --> 0:05:17.760 Carmichael about working from home and the push to return 0:05:17.839 --> 0:05:21.120 to work. Sarah, is there any indication that there's some 0:05:21.160 --> 0:05:24.080 sort of relevance to the timing of why there's been 0:05:24.120 --> 0:05:26.360 this big push of late of the past few months. 0:05:26.560 --> 0:05:30.840 I think there's probably a confluence of different factors. You know, 0:05:31.600 --> 0:05:34.840 companies have invested in their office spaces, and I'm not 0:05:34.880 --> 0:05:37.000 sure that they expected them to be this empty for 0:05:37.040 --> 0:05:40.479 this long. That's kind of a huge sub cost. And 0:05:40.560 --> 0:05:42.880 there is this assumption of like, well, we were working 0:05:42.920 --> 0:05:47.120 in person for the last hundred years, surely that's got 0:05:47.160 --> 0:05:49.480 to be the best way. But actually, if you look 0:05:49.560 --> 0:05:51.719 back further, you know, people used to work from home 0:05:51.800 --> 0:05:55.960 all the time. You know, any farmer was working from home. 0:05:56.040 --> 0:05:56.200 You know. 0:05:56.240 --> 0:05:59.159 It's really only until we got these big factories in 0:05:59.200 --> 0:06:02.039 the industrial rebel that people started working outside the home. 0:06:02.680 --> 0:06:05.640 Any cobbler, any smith, all these people worked right out 0:06:05.640 --> 0:06:07.960 of their homes. A lot of shopkeepers lived above the shop. 0:06:08.040 --> 0:06:11.120 So actually work from home is the norm, you know, 0:06:11.279 --> 0:06:14.400 over the course of centuries, and it's only relatively recently 0:06:14.400 --> 0:06:16.839 that we invented these sort of massive office buildings. So 0:06:17.240 --> 0:06:20.800 from my perspective, you know, I think it's worth taking 0:06:20.880 --> 0:06:22.880 the long view on this and thinking, you know, what 0:06:22.920 --> 0:06:24.520 do we want work to be like one hundred years 0:06:24.520 --> 0:06:27.040 from now, rather than trying to preserve sort of what 0:06:27.040 --> 0:06:29.240 it's been like for most of the twentieth century. 0:06:29.520 --> 0:06:31.799 Well, let's get into that a little bit. We've seen 0:06:32.000 --> 0:06:34.359 so many changes with COVID, and I think there's no 0:06:34.520 --> 0:06:39.040 question that the workplace dynamic has changed. And from what 0:06:39.120 --> 0:06:42.440 you've just said, it sounds like it's always changing. So 0:06:43.000 --> 0:06:46.120 would COVID then be one of those little shoves that 0:06:46.320 --> 0:06:49.560 helps change the workplace as we've known it for the 0:06:49.640 --> 0:06:50.560 past few decades. 0:06:51.440 --> 0:06:52.840 I mean, we'll see. 0:06:52.960 --> 0:06:53.760 I think it will. 0:06:53.839 --> 0:06:56.440 I think what's hard about this moment is that there 0:06:56.560 --> 0:06:59.760 were big changes that happened during COVID, and now there's 0:06:59.760 --> 0:07:04.320 a lot, a lot of growths, growing pains, anxiety exactly. 0:07:05.400 --> 0:07:08.480 And I think what's hard about us sort of policy 0:07:08.560 --> 0:07:10.920 like amazons if you know, come in this many days 0:07:10.920 --> 0:07:14.040 a week or we will summarily fire you, is that 0:07:14.040 --> 0:07:16.240 that even if you're happy to come in three days 0:07:16.240 --> 0:07:19.920 a week, that creates that tension, creates a really challenging 0:07:19.920 --> 0:07:23.640 work environment to feel good about, not only for managers, 0:07:23.640 --> 0:07:25.440 but for all kinds of people, you know, for people 0:07:25.440 --> 0:07:27.480 who've been happily coming in three or four or five 0:07:27.560 --> 0:07:28.960 days a week but are now going to see some 0:07:29.000 --> 0:07:33.280 colleagues fired. And so I think that part of what's 0:07:33.280 --> 0:07:36.560 hard about this particular moment is not just the debate 0:07:36.640 --> 0:07:39.480 over remote work, but the fact that this debate has 0:07:39.520 --> 0:07:42.840 created so much tension that is then infecting the workplace 0:07:42.880 --> 0:07:46.760 and affecting people's performance and affecting people's enjoyment of their work. 0:07:46.920 --> 0:07:49.880 Now you have referred to something called return to managing. 0:07:49.920 --> 0:07:53.360 We all know rto return to office. You use the 0:07:53.480 --> 0:07:55.520 acronym RTM in your column. 0:07:56.480 --> 0:07:59.000 Yes, I think what's happening here is that a lot 0:07:59.000 --> 0:08:01.960 of companies have con used returning to office with returning 0:08:01.960 --> 0:08:05.280 to managing. You know, a manager's job is to motivate people, 0:08:05.320 --> 0:08:08.200 to inspire them, to give them feedback, to hold them accountable, 0:08:08.240 --> 0:08:08.960 to set. 0:08:08.840 --> 0:08:11.400 Big goals to move the work forward. 0:08:11.880 --> 0:08:14.160 And you can do a lot of that if you 0:08:14.560 --> 0:08:17.360 even without having your eyes directly on people, even without 0:08:17.400 --> 0:08:19.080 sitting next to them. And of course we know this 0:08:19.160 --> 0:08:22.160 because we have companies that are global companies where people 0:08:22.240 --> 0:08:24.200 on a team might be dispersed all over the world, 0:08:25.280 --> 0:08:28.640 and you know, we're somehow fine with that. But then 0:08:28.680 --> 0:08:31.760 if people are within commuting distance or within fifty miles 0:08:31.760 --> 0:08:33.760 of the office and not coming in, suddenly it's like, 0:08:33.840 --> 0:08:37.160 but how can we possibly manage them? So I think 0:08:37.160 --> 0:08:39.680 that really what needs to happen here is companies should 0:08:39.760 --> 0:08:43.360 just sort of think to themselves, Okay, like what do 0:08:43.400 --> 0:08:46.960 we really need to do in person? And can we 0:08:47.000 --> 0:08:49.400 manage people without seeing them in person, and really put 0:08:49.520 --> 0:08:52.080 some of the effort they've been enormous effort they've been 0:08:52.120 --> 0:08:54.959 putting into getting people back to the office and reallocate 0:08:55.000 --> 0:08:58.319 that just to managing, just to managing to basic management skills, 0:08:58.320 --> 0:09:03.240 giving feedback, holding people accountable, setting goals, holding deadlines, you know, 0:09:03.280 --> 0:09:05.480 all those sort of back to basics management stuff. You 0:09:05.520 --> 0:09:07.640 don't need to get people back in the office to 0:09:07.679 --> 0:09:10.319 start managing them. You don't, So let's not confuse the 0:09:10.360 --> 0:09:10.839 two things. 0:09:11.280 --> 0:09:13.520 So then, is there any concern about what this would 0:09:13.559 --> 0:09:16.640 do to morale? You yourself are talking about how some 0:09:16.679 --> 0:09:18.960 people may be perfectly happy to come into the office, 0:09:19.120 --> 0:09:21.720 but then when you see your colleagues get fired because 0:09:21.760 --> 0:09:24.800 they would rather have a more flexible schedule, what does 0:09:24.840 --> 0:09:26.880 that do to morale? What are the concerns there? 0:09:27.360 --> 0:09:29.560 I think there are big questions about morale right now. 0:09:30.440 --> 0:09:32.960 Forcing people to adopt a work arrangement that they don't 0:09:33.040 --> 0:09:34.840 like is going to be bad for morale. It's going 0:09:34.880 --> 0:09:36.760 to be bad for their morale. Their morale is going 0:09:36.760 --> 0:09:40.480 to affect other people's morale. That's a challenge. I also 0:09:40.600 --> 0:09:42.880 do think that when you look at some of the 0:09:43.640 --> 0:09:46.800 research on remote work, you know it's not always like 0:09:47.360 --> 0:09:49.760 sunshining kittens for the people doing it. You know there 0:09:49.760 --> 0:09:50.760 are real trade offs. 0:09:51.480 --> 0:09:53.200 It can be you know that you. 0:09:53.120 --> 0:09:55.360 Work really hard and you're super productive from home, but 0:09:55.440 --> 0:09:57.880 you're also more likely to burn out and feel maybe 0:09:57.960 --> 0:10:01.400 less connected to your colleagues, you're lonelier. We do need 0:10:01.520 --> 0:10:04.880 sort of these social bonds with each other. So I 0:10:04.920 --> 0:10:10.520 think that to my mind, accepting that and figuring out 0:10:11.240 --> 0:10:13.760 how do we make this work for the largest number 0:10:13.760 --> 0:10:16.840 of people is a key question for management. I also 0:10:16.880 --> 0:10:20.320 think employees have responsibilities to ask themselves, how do I 0:10:20.360 --> 0:10:23.200 really work best? And if you really do work best 0:10:23.200 --> 0:10:25.720 in an office, I think you owe it to yourself, 0:10:26.120 --> 0:10:28.360 never mind the company. You owe it to yourself to 0:10:28.400 --> 0:10:30.080 put yourself in a position where you can do your 0:10:30.120 --> 0:10:33.160 best work. But given that, given the trade offs people 0:10:33.160 --> 0:10:35.120 have to make in their real lives, I do think 0:10:35.120 --> 0:10:37.200 this is a moment of great fluidity. It's going to 0:10:37.200 --> 0:10:39.560 be challenging to manage. It's going to be challenging for 0:10:39.600 --> 0:10:41.320 each of us to figure out out of all the 0:10:41.360 --> 0:10:43.760 options we have, how do we work best? But it's 0:10:43.800 --> 0:10:46.640 also a moment of enormous opportunity where we really have 0:10:47.080 --> 0:10:49.920 a chance, for the first time in decades, to think 0:10:49.960 --> 0:10:51.839 about how should we make this work. 0:10:51.920 --> 0:10:55.520 Bloomberg Opinion columnist Sarah Green Carmichael, and coming up, we're 0:10:55.559 --> 0:10:57.160 going to take a look at the risks and the 0:10:57.240 --> 0:11:00.400 response to COVID. What did the country get right and 0:11:00.440 --> 0:11:04.200 what did everybody get wrong. You're listening to Bloomberg Opinion. 0:11:13.800 --> 0:11:17.599 You're listening to the Bloomberg Opinion podcast. Catch us Saturdays 0:11:17.640 --> 0:11:20.760 at one and seven pm Eastern on Bloomberg dot Com, 0:11:20.840 --> 0:11:23.960 the iHeartRadio app, and the Bloomberg Business App, or listen 0:11:24.040 --> 0:11:26.280 on demand wherever you get your podcasts. 0:11:28.160 --> 0:11:31.360 You're listening to Bloomberg Opinion. I'm Amy Morris. As we 0:11:31.440 --> 0:11:34.040 take a closer look at the COVID pandemic this week, 0:11:34.160 --> 0:11:37.400 Let's consider the risk factors and the response. Now, you 0:11:37.520 --> 0:11:40.520 might remember when doctor Anthony Fauci, then head of the 0:11:40.600 --> 0:11:45.120 National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, testified before Congress 0:11:45.320 --> 0:11:48.400 about the risks of the spread of COVID nineteen. This 0:11:48.520 --> 0:11:50.440 is back in June of twenty twenty. 0:11:50.679 --> 0:11:54.960 We are now having forty plus thousand new cases a day. 0:11:55.520 --> 0:11:57.760 I would not be surprised if we go up to 0:11:57.840 --> 0:12:01.160 one hundred thousand a day if this does not turn around, 0:12:01.480 --> 0:12:03.040 And so I am very concerned. 0:12:03.200 --> 0:12:05.360 Well, that does feel like a long time ago, even 0:12:05.400 --> 0:12:08.679 though we are still feeling some residual impact of the 0:12:08.720 --> 0:12:12.079 illness and the loss and the risks involved. Bloomberg opinion 0:12:12.120 --> 0:12:14.640 columnist Justin Fox joins us now to look at what 0:12:14.679 --> 0:12:18.160 we got right and what we got wrong. And Justin, 0:12:18.240 --> 0:12:21.360 when you say risk in your columns on the Bloomberg terminal, 0:12:21.400 --> 0:12:24.959 you're talking about the risk of catching COVID or hospitalizations 0:12:25.000 --> 0:12:26.520 or fatalities. What are you referring to. 0:12:26.800 --> 0:12:29.199 The risk of dying of it if you get it, 0:12:29.440 --> 0:12:32.640 the infection without fatality rate? And what did you find 0:12:33.120 --> 0:12:37.160 so very early on back in March twenty twenty, I was, 0:12:37.280 --> 0:12:39.480 you know, I'm not a medical journalist or anything, but 0:12:39.559 --> 0:12:41.800 I like to make charts, and I was concerned and 0:12:41.800 --> 0:12:43.839 I wanted to I was a little frustrated with how 0:12:43.840 --> 0:12:47.240 it was being covered, so I just went out to find, Okay, well, 0:12:47.240 --> 0:12:51.040 what's the best estimate of how deadly this disease is? 0:12:51.080 --> 0:12:55.440 And it was a paper from February twenty twenty from 0:12:55.720 --> 0:12:59.120 Imperial College in London, Neil Ferguson, a guy who later 0:12:59.160 --> 0:13:03.080 became a little for some reasons. But it said it 0:13:03.120 --> 0:13:07.040 was approximately one percent of people who got it died 0:13:07.120 --> 0:13:10.760 in China, and when you looked in the details of 0:13:10.800 --> 0:13:13.959 the text, it was point eight or point nine percent. 0:13:14.080 --> 0:13:17.960 I was, and so you know, I wrote a column 0:13:18.000 --> 0:13:20.560 then using that a bunch of other numbers to sort 0:13:20.559 --> 0:13:23.560 of throw out this ballpark of three hundred thousand to 0:13:23.600 --> 0:13:26.480 six hundred thousand people could die of COVID in a year, 0:13:26.559 --> 0:13:33.040 and that's what happened. And so this whole backdrop is 0:13:33.080 --> 0:13:35.760 I'm reading this new book by a couple friends of mine. 0:13:35.760 --> 0:13:38.160 Actually it's called The Big Fail. It's a history of 0:13:38.200 --> 0:13:45.200 the pandemic. And there's this discussion of Ja Bodachari at Stanford, 0:13:45.240 --> 0:13:49.000 who was early on pushing this idea that maybe it 0:13:49.040 --> 0:13:52.640 was a lot less dangerous than people thought that COVID was, 0:13:52.880 --> 0:13:58.199 and it just sort of misstated. What you know, there 0:13:58.200 --> 0:14:00.840 were these case fatality numbers going around where they just 0:14:01.080 --> 0:14:03.600 took confirmed cases and divided deaths and it was like 0:14:03.640 --> 0:14:06.079 three percent. And I think everybody knew then that that 0:14:06.160 --> 0:14:08.679 was much that was too high because most people weren't 0:14:08.679 --> 0:14:15.400 getting tested, and so basically my Bodachari was arguing that 0:14:15.520 --> 0:14:18.480 maybe it was as low as point zero one percent 0:14:18.640 --> 0:14:21.320 and twenty or forty thousand people would die of the 0:14:21.360 --> 0:14:24.480 disease in the US, and that was clearly wrong. And 0:14:25.360 --> 0:14:29.400 yet in the book it was sort of discussed as 0:14:29.440 --> 0:14:32.760 if Baudachari had been right and the consensus had been wrong. 0:14:32.840 --> 0:14:37.000 And actually the consensus of how dangerous COVID was was 0:14:37.120 --> 0:14:39.840 pretty spot on. You look at the early papers that 0:14:39.920 --> 0:14:42.280 tried to make a serious estimate of it, and it 0:14:42.360 --> 0:14:45.040 was that, you know, in a population with you know, 0:14:45.200 --> 0:14:48.800 an age spread like the US when it first hits, 0:14:48.840 --> 0:14:51.400 it would kill around one percent of people who got it, 0:14:51.680 --> 0:14:55.960 which is exactly what happened in New York. It's less 0:14:56.080 --> 0:14:59.720 if it's not everywhere like it was in New York. 0:14:59.760 --> 0:15:02.720 It's less if the population is younger, like in Sub 0:15:02.760 --> 0:15:07.080 Saharan Africa. And so what was sort of interesting to 0:15:07.120 --> 0:15:09.560 me is I still think, you know, the initial reaction, 0:15:09.640 --> 0:15:11.560 who knows what the right thing was to do, But 0:15:11.600 --> 0:15:13.960 it does seem pretty clear in retrospect that sometime in 0:15:14.360 --> 0:15:20.720 summer twenty twenty, things took this weird turn where you know, 0:15:20.760 --> 0:15:23.560 a lot of places decided to keep schools closed for 0:15:23.600 --> 0:15:26.960 the whole year, and just so a lot of ways 0:15:27.000 --> 0:15:29.480 have decided to just sort of keep a lighter version 0:15:29.560 --> 0:15:33.600 of the lockdowns going indefinitely, and I just all the data, 0:15:34.120 --> 0:15:36.080 there's just not much evidence that that was the right 0:15:36.120 --> 0:15:36.600 thing to do. 0:15:37.320 --> 0:15:40.200 And we are talking with Bloomberg opinion columnist Justin Fox 0:15:40.240 --> 0:15:43.640 about how we got COVID's risks right, but the response 0:15:43.960 --> 0:15:47.119 was wrong. And let's get back to that. The pandemic 0:15:47.160 --> 0:15:50.920 shutdown is it. Is there any way to measure whether 0:15:50.960 --> 0:15:51.920 that was worth it? 0:15:52.400 --> 0:15:54.840 I mean, there are lots of people who run lots 0:15:54.880 --> 0:15:58.760 of regressions and done studies, and I think overall the 0:15:59.440 --> 0:16:04.080 argument is if you did it early enough that maybe 0:16:04.120 --> 0:16:07.120 it was worth it, Like in New York, It's a 0:16:07.160 --> 0:16:09.560 little hard to say, because I had my own I 0:16:09.640 --> 0:16:13.000 attempted to sort of reconstruct the pandemic for a column 0:16:13.040 --> 0:16:15.520 a couple of years ago, like when when it hit, 0:16:15.600 --> 0:16:18.480 when people got it when and it looked like it 0:16:18.480 --> 0:16:22.760 had already peaked and was receding when the strictest of 0:16:22.800 --> 0:16:25.520 the lockdown measures came in because people were scared and 0:16:25.560 --> 0:16:30.600 had already changed their behavior and so but I think overall, 0:16:30.680 --> 0:16:33.280 the idea that when it was first coming, you didn't 0:16:33.320 --> 0:16:37.640 have enough mass hospitals risk being overwhelmed. It made sense 0:16:37.760 --> 0:16:41.400 to take a few weeks off from things. But I 0:16:41.440 --> 0:16:44.400 think a lot of places, really and the US seems 0:16:44.400 --> 0:16:47.080 to have struggled the most. I mean, I guess in 0:16:47.080 --> 0:16:50.480 one sense we some places opened up again very quickly, 0:16:50.560 --> 0:16:52.440 lots of other places didn't. But it seemed like we 0:16:52.520 --> 0:16:54.800 kind of got the worst of both worlds, whereas there 0:16:54.800 --> 0:16:57.880 were other countries like Germany or Denmark that opened up 0:16:57.920 --> 0:17:00.880 pretty quickly but were more careful about it, had more 0:17:00.920 --> 0:17:04.320 testing and stuff, and were able to mostly live their 0:17:04.359 --> 0:17:07.680 lives normally with some brief shutdowns in the winter. 0:17:08.040 --> 0:17:11.400 And it does seem like the biggest mismatch involved schooling 0:17:11.640 --> 0:17:14.720 and kids. And how did the US get that wrong? 0:17:14.840 --> 0:17:16.920 What other what else could they have done? 0:17:17.600 --> 0:17:20.600 I mean, I you know, it was funny. I was 0:17:20.640 --> 0:17:24.120 watching a bunch of Faucheet videos from that summer, and 0:17:24.240 --> 0:17:27.520 you know, he knew that there was very little risk 0:17:27.680 --> 0:17:33.280 to children, and he clearly his default was that schools 0:17:33.280 --> 0:17:37.320 should reopen. But I don't know for whatever reasons he 0:17:37.440 --> 0:17:40.840 wasn't willing to push people to do that, And definitely, 0:17:40.880 --> 0:17:43.320 as the summer went on and case numbers went up 0:17:43.359 --> 0:17:45.560 again in parts of the country, he was like, maybe 0:17:45.600 --> 0:17:48.160 you shouldn't reopen in those places where cases were really high. 0:17:48.200 --> 0:17:50.800 But what's kind of funny is what happened is schools 0:17:50.840 --> 0:17:53.399 reopened in all the places in the South where cases 0:17:53.400 --> 0:17:56.600 were really high, and they didn't reopen in places on 0:17:56.640 --> 0:18:00.600 the coasts where they weren't so And and I don't 0:18:00.640 --> 0:18:03.120 think it was disastrous in those places in the South 0:18:03.200 --> 0:18:06.199 where it reopened. It definitely, I mean, you look at 0:18:06.240 --> 0:18:09.719 the numbers, like comparing Florida in California, there were some 0:18:09.920 --> 0:18:12.760 you know, more children died in Florida than in California, 0:18:12.800 --> 0:18:14.720 but it was very few in both places. 0:18:15.760 --> 0:18:18.119 While we were in the thick of this, before we 0:18:18.160 --> 0:18:20.840 had the testing and the vaccines, and while everyone was 0:18:20.880 --> 0:18:24.639 staying home, there was that debate though over how nasty 0:18:25.200 --> 0:18:26.399 this virus could be. 0:18:27.119 --> 0:18:30.240 One they nailed it down pretty well, but the fact 0:18:30.320 --> 0:18:35.560 that there's this huge variance by age that extremely dangerous 0:18:35.600 --> 0:18:39.920 if you're above sixty, not so dangerous if you're below fifty, 0:18:40.040 --> 0:18:42.960 and sort of hard to know if you're in your 0:18:42.960 --> 0:18:47.040 fifties like now, And I just think that was hard 0:18:47.119 --> 0:18:49.600 to you know, and with schools obviously very low risk 0:18:49.640 --> 0:18:53.520 to children, but you know, some teachers real risk. So 0:18:54.880 --> 0:18:58.080 the knowledge was there, and in the public health community, 0:18:58.160 --> 0:19:01.040 you know, people knew what the where, they knew the 0:19:01.080 --> 0:19:03.760 profile that it was much lower for children. I know, 0:19:03.800 --> 0:19:05.960 you could see it in the CDC data that it 0:19:06.000 --> 0:19:08.240 was putting out as not optimal at all. 0:19:08.720 --> 0:19:09.600 What have we learned? 0:19:09.960 --> 0:19:10.400 Huh? 0:19:10.520 --> 0:19:12.600 I mean that's the most interesting, I mean one thing 0:19:12.640 --> 0:19:14.679 since I've written it, there's still all of these people, 0:19:14.720 --> 0:19:17.560 including Jay Boditaria, still arguing that they were right, that 0:19:17.960 --> 0:19:20.800 it was much less dangerous than people thought, and I 0:19:20.800 --> 0:19:23.280 I just I run the numbers and they're wrong. I mean, 0:19:23.280 --> 0:19:25.800 it was about as dangerous as people thought. Obviously got 0:19:25.880 --> 0:19:29.520 less dangerous over time, less dangerous whether there or any 0:19:29.520 --> 0:19:33.679 old people, et cetera. And so it's interesting that that 0:19:33.880 --> 0:19:36.840 was done spectacularly well, and figuring out what to do 0:19:36.920 --> 0:19:39.480 about that was really hard. And you know, I think 0:19:39.520 --> 0:19:44.240 it's it's the age gradient. And it's also you know, 0:19:44.280 --> 0:19:46.280 what do you do about a thing that has a 0:19:46.320 --> 0:19:49.520 one percent chance of killing people overall? It's like, do 0:19:49.520 --> 0:19:52.760 you completely shut down society or do you totally go normal. 0:19:52.800 --> 0:19:55.080 It's probably neither of those. It's somewhere in between. And 0:19:55.119 --> 0:19:58.359 I think the countries that were most successful sort of 0:19:58.480 --> 0:20:01.320 kept up this in between where changed behavior, but it 0:20:01.400 --> 0:20:05.440 wasn't super dramatic like Japan or Sweden or wherever. 0:20:06.200 --> 0:20:08.280 All Right, Justin, thank you so much for sharing those 0:20:08.359 --> 0:20:11.960 numbers with us. Glad to do it, Bloomberg Opinion columnist 0:20:12.160 --> 0:20:14.520 Justin Fox. And coming up, we look at a different 0:20:14.600 --> 0:20:18.520 impact of COVID on kids' mental health and how telehealth, 0:20:18.560 --> 0:20:21.800 which grew in popularity during the height of the pandemic shutdown, 0:20:22.280 --> 0:20:25.280 might help. And don't forget We're available as a podcast 0:20:25.320 --> 0:20:29.760 on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast platform. This is 0:20:29.800 --> 0:20:30.760 Bloomberg Opinion. 0:20:41.800 --> 0:20:45.600 You're listening to the Bloomberg Opinion podcast. Catch us Saturdays 0:20:45.640 --> 0:20:48.800 at one and seven pm Eastern on Bloomberg dot Com, 0:20:48.840 --> 0:20:51.960