Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Opinion podcast. Catch us Saturdays
Speaker 1: at one in seven pm Eastern on Bloomberg dot Com,
Speaker 1: the iHeartRadio app and the Bloomberg Business App, or listen
Speaker 1: on demand wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 2: Welcome to Bloomberg Opinion. I'm Amy Morris. This week we
Speaker 2: bust a myth about working from home, that your employee
Speaker 2: may actually be working a second full time job. And
Speaker 2: we'll look at the vaccine rollout for the fall and
Speaker 2: how the US deserves better, plus how becoming a celebrity
Speaker 2: scientist can backfire on you. But let's begin with how
Speaker 2: women can be an asset in the fight against inflation.
Speaker 2: About seventy five percent of women in their prime working
Speaker 2: years are employed, and that is a record high. Women
Speaker 2: are playing a crucial role in helping ease labor shortages
Speaker 2: and alleviating upward pressure on inflation, especially mothers of young children.
Speaker 2: Now you might recall a couple of years ago when
Speaker 2: the White House announced thirty nine billion dollars in funds
Speaker 2: to help childcare efforts and keep childcare centers open during
Speaker 2: the pandemic. Then Press Secretary Jansaki pointed to the millions
Speaker 2: of women who left the workforce at the time because
Speaker 2: of the pandemic.
Speaker 3: These funds will help early childhood educators and family childcare
Speaker 3: providers keep their doors open and make sure every state
Speaker 3: has a strong child's care system that provides families with
Speaker 3: what they need. Since the start of the pandemic, as
Speaker 3: we've talked about a bit in here, roughly two million
Speaker 3: women have left the workforce. That is disproportionately due to
Speaker 3: caregiving needs. And we're hopeful that this will help.
Speaker 2: And while women have made a comeback in the workforce,
Speaker 2: those childcare funds are ending. Let's learn more about this.
Speaker 2: Bloomberg Opinion columnist Claudia sam is founder of Some Consulting
Speaker 2: and a former Federal Reserve economist. She joins me now, Claudia,
Speaker 2: it's worth noting that at the start of the pandemic
Speaker 2: it was women mostly who stayed home to take care
Speaker 2: of the family. So this record employment rate that you
Speaker 2: cite in your column is impressive.
Speaker 4: Rights it is impressive. Women really came from behind in
Speaker 4: the pandemic, both because they lost jobs at a much
Speaker 4: higher pace than men because primarily women are more represented
Speaker 4: in the service sector, and that's what got shut down
Speaker 4: and then also millions of women left the labor market,
Speaker 4: and a large portion of that was for caregiving responsibilities
Speaker 4: that became didn't have the childcare that was reliable, the
Speaker 4: schools were closed, and we are at a point now
Speaker 4: where the employment rate of prime age women, so aged
Speaker 4: twenty five to fifty four, is at the highest it
Speaker 4: has ever been, so seventy percent of women in that
Speaker 4: group are working now. That has been a huge help
Speaker 4: to reducing the labor shortages that we've seen because again
Speaker 4: they're coming back in the service sector work and some
Speaker 4: of the supports that have been put in place to
Speaker 4: help women get back on their feet and have their
Speaker 4: family caregiving taken care of, like these childcare subsidies, they're
Speaker 4: over and that there's a real question as to whether
Speaker 4: the advances that they've made with jobs and with other
Speaker 4: being part of the labor market, if that's going to
Speaker 4: slip away or if we're going to just slide back
Speaker 4: to some extent. Another important piece, and we've seen this
Speaker 4: across a number of groups that have historically had some
Speaker 4: difficulties getting jobs, is that we have had a great
Speaker 4: labor market, so employers part of getting women back with
Speaker 4: employers being more open minded about how flexible they could
Speaker 4: make the jobs, how good the pay could be. I mean,
Speaker 4: there are childcare options out there, but you've got to
Speaker 4: be able to afford them. So there are some aspects
Speaker 4: of how women got ahead that didn't slip away last
Speaker 4: month entirely with the childcare now these subsidies, and I
Speaker 4: think people might remember that there was a talk of
Speaker 4: big childcare programs getting money to families with the build
Speaker 4: back better and that didn't happen.
Speaker 2: And so this.
Speaker 4: Program is its aim was to keep the childcare centers
Speaker 4: that we had open.
Speaker 2: Now the point of your column, the meat of it
Speaker 2: is about how women are a neglected asset in the
Speaker 2: fight against inflation. What is it that women bring to
Speaker 2: the table that helps in that fight?
Speaker 4: Right as you said, the piece is really taking the
Speaker 4: twenty thousand foot view of what are we missing, not
Speaker 4: so much the struggle of the families, which are real
Speaker 4: in terms of the caregiving. What's the benefit to the
Speaker 4: entire country if we get more women involved, given in
Speaker 4: the example a very topical one of the labor shortages
Speaker 4: and dealing with the inflation, that's just scratching the surface.
Speaker 4: I mean, that's the one inflation. Inflation is everything we're
Speaker 4: thinking about now, and yet we there's long term growth
Speaker 4: and productivity. These are the these are the big ones
Speaker 4: right in terms of where where we're going to be
Speaker 4: ten years, twenty years from now. One aspect of this
Speaker 4: cost equation of not bringing women in is the fact
Speaker 4: that over time we're at a place where women are
Speaker 4: more likely than men to be receiving higher and higher education.
Speaker 4: And so these women have invested Our schools and universities
Speaker 4: have invested a lot in them in terms of getting
Speaker 4: what you know, quote unquote marketable skills, like certain things
Speaker 4: that they could apply at work, and then we're not
Speaker 4: helping them get work to a place where they can
Speaker 4: be a part of it. So you've left this kind
Speaker 4: of money on the table in terms of people that
Speaker 4: really have something to add in the workforce. We're not
Speaker 4: allowing many women and to make a choice not to
Speaker 4: Like I don't you know, we shouldn't be forcing everyone
Speaker 4: to work, but there are many women who were not
Speaker 4: giving them a chance to realize their full potential. That
Speaker 4: costs them in terms of career opportunities and wages, and
Speaker 4: it costs all of us in terms of not having
Speaker 4: being as productive as we could be.
Speaker 2: So let's flip it on its head. Then what is
Speaker 2: the risk as women are removed from that equation.
Speaker 4: Again, and it's this loss of potential and we know
Speaker 4: what we can do better. We can compare ourselves to
Speaker 4: other countries that have made a concerted effort, like they
Speaker 4: understand getting women into the workforce benefits everyone in the
Speaker 4: United States, whereas we were on the leaderboard a couple
Speaker 4: decades ago, that is no longer the case. And there
Speaker 4: were very different kinds of social programs, very different kinds
Speaker 4: of goals set for bringing women in. So we can't
Speaker 4: make the excuse that it's just like, oh, women don't
Speaker 4: want to work, Oh this is the best we can do.
Speaker 4: That's absolutely not the case. The policies, it's tricky, right,
Speaker 4: and some of these very much sit with the private
Speaker 4: sector in terms of and businesses are losing out right.
Speaker 4: They're not bringing in the workers, they're not allowing again,
Speaker 4: they're not allowing the workers to reach their full potential.
Speaker 4: This I think it was very timely. I didn't foresee
Speaker 4: this that Professor Claudia Golden Yesay received the Nobel Prize
Speaker 4: and Economics. Claudia's lifetime career has been focused on women
Speaker 4: and work and among other areas that she studied. And
Speaker 4: one thing, and there's a piece of the column that
Speaker 4: is very much inspired by knowing her research, is that
Speaker 4: it's not just that women can't get the child care.
Speaker 4: It's often the jobs are set up the women just
Speaker 4: can't do them right. They have inflexible hours, and you
Speaker 4: think of a lot of professional degrees where you need
Speaker 4: to be able to drop everything when the phone rings
Speaker 4: and the client needs something, and you have to stay
Speaker 4: late for the dinners and do things that are just
Speaker 4: not conducive to someone who has caregiving responsibilities or woman right.
Speaker 4: And so she talked about just we have these barriers,
Speaker 4: sometimes ones we don't even think about that keep women
Speaker 4: from being there. And then they are also ones that
Speaker 4: it's like do you really need that or your operation,
Speaker 4: your business to be productive. And so this is on
Speaker 4: you know, there are a lot of social programs that
Speaker 4: could help, not holding my breath when a lot of
Speaker 4: those happening. There are a lot of private sector solutions.
Speaker 4: Part of the column is to try and emphasize why
Speaker 4: we all benefit, why employers would benefit from making accommodations
Speaker 4: so that people with childcare responsibilities or other limitations kind
Speaker 4: of with a standard day to day of work schedule.
Speaker 4: In some of these jobs, employers have a lot of
Speaker 4: control over how they set up their work. And we
Speaker 4: know with things like the work from home, which have
Speaker 4: benefited women among other groups, like these accommodations can work.
Speaker 4: This was proof of concept here, So then there are
Speaker 4: others out there.
Speaker 2: The numbers at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco
Speaker 2: found during its assessment. Let's just go over those numbers
Speaker 2: very briefly, if we could, and kind of hammer that
Speaker 2: point home that you're trying to make in your column
Speaker 2: about what this could mean.
Speaker 4: That's an excellent piece that came out of San Francisco.
Speaker 4: They looked at women, they also looked at racial minorities
Speaker 4: and thinking about this integration, and they did it on
Speaker 4: lots of dimensions. Essentially, it was if we could get
Speaker 4: women working on a lot of different dimensions, you know,
Speaker 4: their wages, their participation, their hours, if we could have
Speaker 4: them engaged in the labor market in the same way
Speaker 4: that men are, what would that look like. And again,
Speaker 4: this wasn't about the individuals and how would that affect
Speaker 4: their day to day life. And their careers. It was
Speaker 4: about how would it affect the economy, how would it
Speaker 4: affect GDP for women alone. They estimated that closing all
Speaker 4: of these gaps would have increased GDP in twenty nineteen
Speaker 4: by about eight percent one point seven trillion dollars. And
Speaker 4: this is something that would grow over time, so it's
Speaker 4: not just to pay off at one point in time.
Speaker 4: It would push up GDP. It's over time. And what
Speaker 4: is GDP It is our ability to produce goods or services.
Speaker 4: So it goes back to this idea that we as
Speaker 4: a country are not fulfilling our potential or full potential
Speaker 4: if we don't integrate women into the workforce.
Speaker 2: Claudia, thank you so much for taking the time with
Speaker 2: us today. We appreciate it. Thank you, Bloomberg Opinion columnists.
Speaker 2: Claudia sam is founder of Some Consulting, a former Federal
Speaker 2: Reserve economist, and the creator of the sm rule that's
Speaker 2: a recession indicator. Now coming up, we're going to take
Speaker 2: a look at work from home and one big myth,
Speaker 2: how many of your employees are actually moonlighting when they
Speaker 2: work from home. You're listening to Bloomberg Opinion.
Speaker 1: You're listening to The Bloomberg Opinion podcast Contest Saturdays at
Speaker 1: one and seven pm Eastern on Bloomberg dot Com, the
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio app and the Bloomberg Business App, or listen on
Speaker 1: demand wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 2: You're listening to Bloomberg Opinion. I'm Amy Morris. Working from
Speaker 2: home is likely here to stay. University of Texas Management
Speaker 2: Professor Andrew Brodsky.
Speaker 5: You're the one company that's not offering remote work. You're
Speaker 5: going to be losing talent.
Speaker 2: Professor Brodsky says bigger employers are offering work from home
Speaker 2: as a perk.
Speaker 5: One of the things that I've been seeing in job listing.
Speaker 5: You can work from anywhere you want. You don't have
Speaker 5: to live in, you know, one of the five most
Speaker 5: expensive cities in the United States.
Speaker 2: But there is a myth that speaks to employers' fears
Speaker 2: about out of sight workers. They might be moonlighting, secretly
Speaker 2: work working a second job, but not working eighty hour weeks,
Speaker 2: instead toggling between job one and job two. They're called
Speaker 2: the over employed. But is this just an urban legend?
Speaker 2: Bloomberg Opingion columnist Sarah Green Carmichael joins us now. Sarah
Speaker 2: always a pleasure. Just set us straight. Do these people
Speaker 2: exist or are there really people who are over employed
Speaker 2: and using work from home to hide that second job.
Speaker 6: At least a few of.
Speaker 7: These people exists because people, you know, reporters at the
Speaker 7: Wall Street Journal have talked to some of them, Bloomberg
Speaker 7: reporters have talked to some of them. There have been
Speaker 7: stories about this in the BBC, The Washington Post, Vanity Fair.
Speaker 7: I believe these reporters actually did talk to some people
Speaker 7: doing this, but these seem to be more anecdotes of
Speaker 7: people in extraordinary situations rather than the widespread trend it's
Speaker 7: reported to be. There have been several surveys suggestiness as
Speaker 7: a widespread phenomenon, but when you look at like Feerau
Speaker 7: of labor statistics data, it really doesn't show up at all.
Speaker 2: This is something that employers are watching engaging, because that
Speaker 2: kind of gives them more impetus to remove those work
Speaker 2: from home flexibilities.
Speaker 6: Yes.
Speaker 7: In fact, you know, over the last few months, as
Speaker 7: you have heard more CEOs trying to push people back
Speaker 7: to the office more often, some of those all hands
Speaker 7: zooms that have gone viral have included CEOs saying things like, look,
Speaker 7: we don't know what people are doing at home, they
Speaker 7: could be working for a competitor. So I do think
Speaker 7: it's something where the plethora of stories on this topic
Speaker 7: has triggered a really real anxiety in the minds of
Speaker 7: senior leaders. Even if these anecdotes are really just anecdotes.
Speaker 2: And what is another indication that they're just anecdotes. You
Speaker 2: mentioned if somebody's slacking off or otherwise not contributing, chances
Speaker 2: are the boss is going to notice.
Speaker 7: Chances are the boss is going to notice. And there
Speaker 7: have been some people who have been fired after their
Speaker 7: companies found out that they were double dipping. It is
Speaker 7: pretty easy to tell people think they're being sneaky. But
Speaker 7: you can tell if someone's on two zooms at once
Speaker 7: and they unmute themselves at the wrong time if you
Speaker 7: can hear another zoom happening in the background. These kinds
Speaker 7: of snawfoos are very very difficult. Moreover, you know, most jobs,
Speaker 7: I think do require people to actually turn in work
Speaker 7: every now and then. And if someone's work is constantly
Speaker 7: late or they're constantly canceling meetings, you know you're got it.
Speaker 7: You really are going to notice. I also have to say,
Speaker 7: you know, there were a couple of non academic studies
Speaker 7: that came out that at surveys based on you know,
Speaker 7: a thousand people that seem to show really high rates
Speaker 7: of remote workers doing multiple jobs.
Speaker 6: But a couple of things.
Speaker 7: One, these are just surveys put out by organizations like
Speaker 7: resume builder, Monster dot com. They're not, you know, sort
Speaker 7: of peer reviewed like big studies. And second, you know,
Speaker 7: when you look closer at some of the details, some
Speaker 7: of it turns out some of those side hustles are
Speaker 7: things like driving for Uber, selling jewelry on Etsy.
Speaker 6: Some people even listed.
Speaker 7: Sex work as their second job, a surprisingly high number
Speaker 7: of people. So data points like that made me wonder, really,
Speaker 7: you know, how how reliable is this survey our remote
Speaker 7: workers really sitting at home with a full time side job,
Speaker 7: you know, doing all these sorts of things. I don't
Speaker 7: find that particularly credible.
Speaker 2: And we talked about it a bit, But how much
Speaker 2: of an over employed worker is a factor when a
Speaker 2: company is deciding whether to scale back or eliminate work
Speaker 2: from home options or is it just sort of buried
Speaker 2: in there.
Speaker 6: It's more of a corporate bogey man.
Speaker 7: These stories have you gotten a ton of attention when
Speaker 7: they've been you know, published, and it's easy to see why.
Speaker 7: You know, the details are irresistible. People pulling down six
Speaker 7: hundred thousand dollars a year by working two or three,
Speaker 7: you know, coding jobs all simultaneously. So I think there's
Speaker 7: this this idea that this figure sort of lurks in
Speaker 7: c's minds as a kind of bogeyman, but there's really
Speaker 7: no sense of a widespread trend. In fact, you know,
Speaker 7: less than a percent of the US workforce works to
Speaker 7: full time jobs.
Speaker 2: And we are talking with Bloomberg opinion columnist Sarah Green
Speaker 2: Carmichael here to bust some myths about working from home.
Speaker 2: How much do side hustles factor into this? You mentioned
Speaker 2: selling stuff on Etsy or maybe driving an uber. Is
Speaker 2: that really the predominance or is there more to it?
Speaker 7: I do think that, you know, there is solid data
Speaker 7: from the Bureau Labertatistics that show that more Americans now
Speaker 7: do have some kind of secondary job. But it's clearly
Speaker 7: a primary job that's their full time job, and then
Speaker 7: a secondary job where they're picking up part time shifts
Speaker 7: or doing that kind of side hustling. And actually, I
Speaker 7: think if you asked a lot of CEOs, you know,
Speaker 7: do you mind if your entry level worker picks up
Speaker 7: a few weekend shifts at Starbucks?
Speaker 6: They would probably say no. Depending on the circumstance. It
Speaker 6: is like they probably wouldn't mind at all.
Speaker 7: But I think it's really this idea that somehow people
Speaker 7: are simultaneously working two full time jobs, like one for
Speaker 7: Google and one for Meta that keeps people awake at night.
Speaker 2: So what is the reason behind this attention on the
Speaker 2: mythical highly paid two timing remote workers. Where is all
Speaker 2: of this coming from.
Speaker 7: There's a few different reasons that it so has captured
Speaker 7: the imagination. One is, I think a real managerial fear
Speaker 7: that they don't know what people are doing at home.
Speaker 7: The other is I think an anxiety among workers that
Speaker 7: we're somehow missing out on easy money, that really there's
Speaker 7: enough slack time in your day that maybe you could
Speaker 7: take two full time jobs and double your salary. And
Speaker 7: I think it speaks to a lot of people who
Speaker 7: are frustrated and feel like they haven't gotten a raise
Speaker 7: that they deserve. The cost of living has gone up,
Speaker 7: and there must be some easy way to kind of
Speaker 7: significantly really increase their earnings.
Speaker 6: And then there's that sense that like gosh, is everyone
Speaker 6: doing this? Am I falling behind? That's a very powerful
Speaker 6: motivator for journalists to do more of these stories.
Speaker 8: You know.
Speaker 2: That also speaks to, like you said, hourly wages not
Speaker 2: going up as much as people might want or need, inflation,
Speaker 2: and then the continuing fallout from the pandemic and the shutdown.
Speaker 2: I mean that still is resonating because that's where work
Speaker 2: from home really got some traction.
Speaker 7: And I think that there is also in some jobs
Speaker 7: there are quiet times, and there are dead times, and
Speaker 7: I think that there are some very smart, skilled people
Speaker 7: who actually could leverage that dead time in their main
Speaker 7: job to possibly work a second job. I don't want
Speaker 7: to say it's not possible, it's just not very widespread.
Speaker 2: And one of the numbers that you quote in your
Speaker 2: column this really tickled me, is it indicated that about
Speaker 2: a third of all full time workers have a second
Speaker 2: full time gig, not just a side gig, but a
Speaker 2: second full time job. And I look around my newsroom
Speaker 2: and with my colleagues, and I think, there's no way
Speaker 2: any of these people have a second full time job.
Speaker 2: You'd be exhausted. It just doesn't seem feasible.
Speaker 7: Yeah, And That's one of the things that I think
Speaker 7: was challenging when I started really looking at the data,
Speaker 7: was this disappointment that these sort of surveys, they really
Speaker 7: commandeer the headline figure, And I thought, who stopped and
Speaker 7: thought about does this make any sense? Do a third
Speaker 7: of full time workers, all workers, not just remote workers,
Speaker 7: really have a second forty hour week job, Like I
Speaker 7: really don't think so.
Speaker 6: And that's why I had to go back and check sort.
Speaker 7: Of the Saint Louis FED and the Bureau Labor Statist
Speaker 7: six and some of these really more sort of reliable
Speaker 7: sources to see are we even close to those numbers?
Speaker 2: And we're not, and we're not, and we're not.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 2: Bloomberg opinion columnist Sarah Green Carmichael busting the myths when
Speaker 2: it comes to working from home and how many of
Speaker 2: us are actually get in a second job. Not as
Speaker 2: many as we think. Thank you Sarah for talking to us.
Speaker 2: Thank you Amy, and don't forget we are available as
Speaker 2: a podcast on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
Speaker 2: Now coming up. Getting your vaccines and your shots, getting
Speaker 2: them up to date maybe even more challenging, especially when
Speaker 2: those shots aren't available. You're listening to Bloomberg Opinion.
Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Opinion podcast. Catch us Saturdays
Speaker 1: at one and seven pm Eastern on Bloomberg dot Com,
Speaker 1: the iHeartRadio app, and the Bloomberg Business App, or listen
Speaker 1: on demand wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 2: This is Bloomberg Opinion. I'm Amy Morris. Are you up
Speaker 2: to date on your annual flu shots and vaccines? Maybe
Speaker 2: you're not, and you might be just as frustrated as
Speaker 2: some people who have found that the shots simply aren't
Speaker 2: always available. The CDC authorized the COVID shots for everyone
Speaker 2: six months and older back in mid September, so you'd
Speaker 2: think they'd be available within days, but that hasn't been
Speaker 2: the case. Let's talk about this. Bloomberg Opinion columnist Lisa
Speaker 2: Jarvis covers biotech, healthcare, and the pharmaceutical industry, and she
Speaker 2: joins me. Now, Lisa, thank you for taking the time
Speaker 2: with us. Let's talk about this. We've been told over
Speaker 2: and over we should avoid a triple demic this fall.
Speaker 2: We've heard all about the triple demic and it's likely
Speaker 2: to hit this fall in this winter. But as long
Speaker 2: as we're vaccinated week and help stave it off. But
Speaker 2: if the shots aren't there, is that a mixed message?
Speaker 2: What are we hearing? What kind of message is that sending.
Speaker 6: It's frustrating.
Speaker 9: You know, we know that last year very few people,
Speaker 9: Only seventeen percent of adults rolled up their sleeves to
Speaker 9: get their COVID shot, and with the flu it was better,
Speaker 9: but not ideal. We were at less than half. I
Speaker 9: think forty seven percent of adults got their flu shot
Speaker 9: last year. And so the idea is get vaccinated, help,
Speaker 9: you know, rein in the potential for a triple demic.
Speaker 9: But it's the first season that we have a commercial
Speaker 9: market for the COVID vaccines, and so that rollout I
Speaker 9: think everyone expected to be rocky, but maybe not as
Speaker 9: frustrating as it's been. I think it's a combination of
Speaker 9: issues supply getting the shots to the pharmacies and also
Speaker 9: the pharmacies having actual people to give the shots. And
Speaker 9: then you know there's just this lag and availability of
Speaker 9: pediatric shots that's really frustrating parents. I mean, they're still
Speaker 9: not available for the kids under twelve in a lot
Speaker 9: of places, and you know, any parent that's trying to
Speaker 9: get their kid to get a vaccine knows. You just
Speaker 9: want to get the flu in the COVID shots at
Speaker 9: the same time. You don't want to make more than
Speaker 9: one trip. Sure, and so parents are frustrated. They're super frustrated.
Speaker 9: They're being told to call, you know, every few days,
Speaker 9: refresh the pediatric you know, provider's website to see when
Speaker 9: they're going to be available, and it's just frustrating.
Speaker 2: Okay, so you touched on a couple of issues there.
Speaker 2: Let's get into it. What is the problem supply chain issue?
Speaker 2: The first time that insurers are handling it, not the
Speaker 2: government to talk us through that. Let's start with the
Speaker 2: supply chain.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I think it's all of the above.
Speaker 9: I mean, it seems like it seems like the supply.
Speaker 6: Chain is one of the issues.
Speaker 1: I know.
Speaker 9: On the pediatric side, my impression is that they had
Speaker 9: been prioritizing the adult shots and so to get those
Speaker 9: out to pharmacies first. To be fair, adults are the
Speaker 9: most vulnerable to the worst outcomes for COVID, so fine,
Speaker 9: but that doesn't mean that kit shouldn't get vaccinated, especially
Speaker 9: the ones who have never been vaccinated. I think every
Speaker 9: pediatrician will tell you, you know, if your child has not
Speaker 9: ever been vaccinated, they should get vaccinated for COVID. And
Speaker 9: then I think insurance is another layer. This is the
Speaker 9: first year we have this commercial market, and so not ensure.
Speaker 9: There's these technical things they have to input the right
Speaker 9: codes and if they haven't done that at the pharmacy
Speaker 9: that you go to, the pharmacy is not going to
Speaker 9: give you the shot. They're going to ask you for
Speaker 9: the money up front, and it's over one hundred dollars
Speaker 9: for your COVID shot and most people don't want to
Speaker 9: pay that out of pocket, right And so even if
Speaker 9: they arrive and their appointment hasn't been canceled, it's a
Speaker 9: possibility that they're ensure may not have you been prepared,
Speaker 9: that might not be in sync yet. So that's another
Speaker 9: layer of what's happening.
Speaker 2: So are there surprise bills that people are also getting
Speaker 2: those medical bills? I had no idea it was one
Speaker 2: hundred dollars plus.
Speaker 9: Yeah, there are or that they're arriving at a CVS.
Speaker 9: I think a pharmacy your doctor's office probably will swallow
Speaker 9: the cost and then bill you later, whereas is CBS
Speaker 9: and Walgreens, which you know, the pharmacies are the ones
Speaker 9: that really have gotten the supply first, they won't. They're
Speaker 9: going to ask you for the money upfront, and so
Speaker 9: I think people are deciding to just leave and not
Speaker 9: get their shot, which is a real shame because again
Speaker 9: we know that we've struggled to get folks interested in
Speaker 9: getting vaccinated, whether that's for COVID or the flu.
Speaker 2: So it does seem like a mixed message. Then if
Speaker 2: you're trying to push to have the constituency you get
Speaker 2: those shots, and then you don't make the shots readily available,
Speaker 2: it seems like you're defeating yourself.
Speaker 9: Yeah, I mean, you know, to be fair, we all
Speaker 9: got used to this situation where our shots were free.
Speaker 9: We could go anywhere and get a free shot, no
Speaker 9: matter what kind of insurance or no insurance we had.
Speaker 9: I mean, it does give us a little insight into
Speaker 9: a system where you know, public health is made a
Speaker 9: priority and works out for everyone. And so it's frustrating
Speaker 9: to watch this rollout. You know, one thing that I
Speaker 9: think some of that will get ironed out, and hopefully
Speaker 9: part pieces of that will be better next year. But
Speaker 9: the piece that I'm worried about not being better is
Speaker 9: that the arrival of the COVID shots came well into
Speaker 9: what we know is what feels like now annual summer
Speaker 9: wave of COVID and so people were eager to get
Speaker 9: their shots because they knew so many people getting sick,
Speaker 9: and yet they were not yet available.
Speaker 2: And we are talking with Bloomberg opinion columnist Lisa Jarvis
Speaker 2: about the season's vaccine rollout. How could this be handled better?
Speaker 6: That's a good question.
Speaker 9: I mean, I think next year, like I said, I
Speaker 9: think the insurance piece should be ironed out because that
Speaker 9: will be routine by then that I hope the distribution
Speaker 9: is better.
Speaker 6: One thing that.
Speaker 9: Changed as well this year is that they switched you know,
Speaker 9: you may recall that when these COVID shots originally were available,
Speaker 9: there were a lot of doses in each vial, and
Speaker 9: they've lowered the number of doses so that you're not
Speaker 9: wasting them because it ensures, you know, the pharmacies are
Speaker 9: on the hook for that now. And I think that
Speaker 9: that transition might be part of it, so that will
Speaker 9: be more routine. But one thing, I'm just concerned that
Speaker 9: we seem to be struggling to sink the arrival of
Speaker 9: the shots with the arrival of the COVID wave and
Speaker 9: when people wanting to get them with the arrival also
Speaker 9: of flu shots, because a lot of people would like
Speaker 9: to get both at once, and so that piece of it,
Speaker 9: I'm little concerned we won't have perfected by next year.
Speaker 2: Now, Lisa, you touched on this earlier, but I wanted
Speaker 2: to ask. They really seem to be able to roll
Speaker 2: out these vaccines fairly easily during the height of the pandemic.
Speaker 2: I remember going to one of those those mass vaccination
Speaker 2: sites and it was like clockwork. They had it down
Speaker 2: to a science, so to speak. Why is it so
Speaker 2: much harder now?
Speaker 9: Well, I think this, you know, combination of it being
Speaker 9: on the commercial in the commercial market, people having different insurances,
Speaker 9: and now instead of going straight from the government to
Speaker 9: the distribution site, it's going to a middle person, you know,
Speaker 9: a distributor, and there's a system for getting your shots
Speaker 9: that's different than in the past, for the for the pharmacies,
Speaker 9: and so it just a confluence of things happening. But
Speaker 9: you know, to be fair, we have now seen what
Speaker 9: it could be like right when everything is well oiled
Speaker 9: and we prioritize public health, So it'd be nice to
Speaker 9: inject a little of that into our system next year.
Speaker 2: And it does seem like we're getting a little bit
Speaker 2: more used to it, just the assumption that it'll be
Speaker 2: one of the vaccines that we get seasonally, I hope.
Speaker 9: So it feels like more people are interested this year.
Speaker 9: You know, I don't think it's going to be flu level,
Speaker 9: and I hope flu levels we see go up because
Speaker 9: because that's really important, especially for younger kids and for
Speaker 9: older people.
Speaker 6: But you know, we need to boost.
Speaker 9: That interest a bit because if you haven't been vaccinated
Speaker 9: and you haven't been infected, you're still at risk.
Speaker 2: Are we seeing more people buying in?
Speaker 9: It seems like there's a little bit more demand, you know,
Speaker 9: Will it be as you know, optimistic as the demand
Speaker 9: that Maderna and Pfizer hope there will be hard to say,
Speaker 9: but you know, they now can market their shots in
Speaker 9: a different way than they were allowed to in the
Speaker 9: past when the government was the one that was distributing them.
Speaker 9: And so you know, I think trying to increase interest
Speaker 9: in the shots and is helping. So it doesn't but
Speaker 9: you know, again it running counter to that is people's
Speaker 9: appointments being canceled or the surprise bills you know, so,
Speaker 9: you know, I hope that we get that right, because
Speaker 9: for some people, they may very few people got the booster,
Speaker 9: which means that there's some people who might not have
Speaker 9: a ton of protection at this point if they haven't
Speaker 9: also gotten COVID in the last year.
Speaker 2: So who is more likely to have a hard time
Speaker 2: finding these shots at this point?
Speaker 4: Really?
Speaker 9: Children are the parents looking for shots? For children? A
Speaker 9: lot of daycare is still don't let you bring your
Speaker 9: kid back for ten days if they get COVID, And
Speaker 9: so you know, some parents are eager to, you know,
Speaker 9: get some layer of protection to help minimize this bread.
Speaker 2: Just because you cover the biopharmaceutical industry, Are we close
Speaker 2: to getting a vaccine that would combine both COVID and
Speaker 2: the flu kind of clear that up, just one big
Speaker 2: shot and be done with it.
Speaker 9: Yes, I hope, So I think that by t twenty
Speaker 9: twenty five that could be a possibility. Maderna certainly hope.
Speaker 9: So they've got a shot in the works that combines
Speaker 9: both sodisfeizer. The question will be how FDA the kind
Speaker 9: of information that FDA wants out of them, and whether
Speaker 9: what they're providing will be enough for FDA to approve
Speaker 9: it by then, but I certainly would be eager, and
Speaker 9: it seems like it would simplify everything to have both
Speaker 9: things at once.
Speaker 2: Lisa Jarvis is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist who covers biotech, healthcare,
Speaker 2: and the pharmaceutical industry. You're listening to Bloomberg Opinion. I'm
Speaker 2: Amy Morris. Time was when you wanted to be famous,
Speaker 2: you might go into acting or performing. You want to
Speaker 2: be a movie star or rock star or supermodel. But
Speaker 2: there is a celebrity status of sort for scientists, and
Speaker 2: that might not end well for anyone. Let's talk with
Speaker 2: Bloomberg Opinion columnists Fey Flamou covers science and hosts the
Speaker 2: follow the Science podcast. Faye, what is the risk? What
Speaker 2: is wrong with fame being a measure of success for
Speaker 2: researchers and scientists.
Speaker 8: Well, one of the problems is that sometimes it can
Speaker 8: tempt people to cheat, and as a recent cases illustrated this,
Speaker 8: this sort of cheating happens occasionally, and often when people cheat,
Speaker 8: they end up getting published in very high profile journals
Speaker 8: and they get a lot of positive press coverage. And
Speaker 8: that's what happened with the case that I was looking
Speaker 8: into with the physicist at Rochester University.
Speaker 2: Well, when you say cheat, you mean like data manipulation.
Speaker 8: Yes, there are lots of different ways that scientists can cheat.
Speaker 8: One of the most egregious, and you know ones that
Speaker 8: the one that is really considered outright fraud is to
Speaker 8: have a paper that with a graph that says this
Speaker 8: data came from you know, a certain type of experiment,
Speaker 8: but either get the data from somewhere else, or make
Speaker 8: up the data or change the data to make it
Speaker 8: look like you've observed something that you haven't, or that
Speaker 8: your result is more dramatic than it actually is.
Speaker 2: And when you talked with one blogger as you did
Speaker 2: research for this column, that blogger explained how humility is
Speaker 2: punished if you're trying to get published. To talk to
Speaker 2: us about that.
Speaker 8: So i'van uransky is actually he started something called Retraction
Speaker 8: Watch he in another science journalist, which is really kind
Speaker 8: of an essential resource for science journalists because they look
Speaker 8: at all of the problems and the bugs and the
Speaker 8: things that go wrong in science, and they look at
Speaker 8: papers that get accepted into journals and then are retracted.
Speaker 8: And usually they're not retracted unless there's evidence of some
Speaker 8: form of cheating. Or there's something an error that actually
Speaker 8: invalidates the entire result, and seed usually we get one
Speaker 8: big scandal a year every couple of years. In this case,
Speaker 8: there was sort of an escalation of issues because he
Speaker 8: was claiming to have found a phenomenon room temperature super conductivity,
Speaker 8: which is something that is sort of a holy grail.
Speaker 8: It's been people have been looking for it for a
Speaker 8: long time. Lots of different people have tried to find
Speaker 8: a material that will it conducts electricity without any resistance,
Speaker 8: and they normally have to chill these substances to very
Speaker 8: low temperatures that are actually used in the MRI imaging
Speaker 8: and some other applications. But it's expensive because you have
Speaker 8: to chill them. And so if you could get one
Speaker 8: to work at room temperature, that would be amazing. And
Speaker 8: it may be that he's founded, but there's been so
Speaker 8: many people have looked at his results and seen evidence
Speaker 8: that he's manipulated data, plagiarized sections of his papers that
Speaker 8: it's casting doubt on it. And at the same time,
Speaker 8: when there are certain journals Nature and Science that send
Speaker 8: out very dramatic press releases to journalists, and then the
Speaker 8: journalists want to get attention, so they'll dress it up
Speaker 8: even more so. Then you suddenly have the New York
Speaker 8: Times saying that this discover is going to transform civilization.
Speaker 2: Well, aren't these things peer review anyway? I mean, how
Speaker 2: are you getting published if you've manipulated data?
Speaker 8: That is a good question. There's only so much peer
Speaker 8: review can do, and often there are problems in the
Speaker 8: peer review. In fact, the people I talked to who
Speaker 8: had looked into this paper couldn't figure out who had
Speaker 8: reviewed it, and they say that the reviews actually should
Speaker 8: be public so that other people can look them over
Speaker 8: and see what the reviewers might have missed or what
Speaker 8: they might have flagged, and the journal may have gone
Speaker 8: ahead anyway. There are times when people have said that
Speaker 8: they were reviewers and they suggested the paper not be published,
Speaker 8: and the journal goes ahead and publishes it. So the
Speaker 8: process is better than not having peer review, but it's
Speaker 8: still far from full proof.
Speaker 2: Bloomberg Opinion columnist bayflam host of followed the Science Podcast,
Speaker 2: and that does it for this week's Bloomberg Opinion. We
Speaker 2: are produced by Eric Molow, and you can find all
Speaker 2: of these columns on the Bloomberg terminal. We're available as
Speaker 2: a podcast on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast platform.
Speaker 2: Stay with us. Today's top stories and global business headlines
Speaker 2: are just ahead. I Mami Morris, this is Bloomberg.