Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2: Earlier this year, Bloomberg data reporter Jinshawn Honk got hung
Speaker 2: up on this question. It was something she kept noticing
Speaker 2: at work, at home, everywhere she went. She couldn't shake it.
Speaker 1: Why does it seem like everyone everywhere like seems to
Speaker 1: be getting sick all the time.
Speaker 2: Jinshawn's colleagues in Hong Kong and their family members all
Speaker 2: seemed to be getting sick. Jinhawn kept catching things too.
Speaker 2: Everybody was talking about it.
Speaker 3: I'm a person that rarely gets sick. I had pink eye,
Speaker 3: my broat was swollen. I couldn't breathe through my nose.
Speaker 3: It was the worst two months of my life.
Speaker 2: Here at the Big Take, we've been hearing similar laments
Speaker 2: from our family and friends all year.
Speaker 1: My husband had COVID in September. My daughter and I
Speaker 1: had stepped throat in October.
Speaker 3: RSB.
Speaker 2: In November, it seemed like everybody had their own sickness story.
Speaker 2: I had pneumonia. It turns out I went to urging
Speaker 2: care twice. It probably took a little about three weeks
Speaker 2: before I started feeling human again.
Speaker 3: In March, I had shingles, at the age of twenty nine.
Speaker 1: At first I thought it was allergies, but now I
Speaker 1: think I'm sick. My nose is running uncontrollably and I
Speaker 1: feel achy and tired.
Speaker 2: Even Olympic athletes are getting sick. This week, Team USA
Speaker 2: sprinter Noah Lyles won a bronze medal in the two
Speaker 2: hundred meter dash, only to disclose afterwards that he had
Speaker 2: tested positive for COVID a few days before. Olympic authorities
Speaker 2: new Liles had COVID, but he was allowed to compete anyway.
Speaker 2: In fact, dozens of athletes have reportedly tested positive for
Speaker 2: COVID at the Games, but most people seem to have
Speaker 2: accepted that that's just our new reality. From the sniffles
Speaker 2: to shingles to our heart to shake nemesis COVID this year,
Speaker 2: sickness is showing up everywhere. But Jinshan is a data reporter.
Speaker 2: She knows talk is cheap and noticing a trend isn't enough.
Speaker 1: We decided to look into this and find out whether
Speaker 1: it's just a perception issue, is there something really going
Speaker 1: on that we should figure out for the public.
Speaker 2: It was a mystery, so Jinhn and her team went
Speaker 2: into detective mode. Working with disease forecasters to gather case counts,
Speaker 2: calling up doctors, combing through research from all over the world,
Speaker 2: and what they found was truly eye opening. Today on
Speaker 2: the show, grab your hand sanitizer and your N ninety
Speaker 2: five's for a data detective story, we joined Jinshan as
Speaker 2: she scours the research for clues, culprits, correlations, and causations
Speaker 2: as she takes on the case of why everybody seems
Speaker 2: to be getting sick all the time. This is the
Speaker 2: big take from Bloomberg News. I'm Sarah Holder. Tracking how
Speaker 2: sickness spreads is a massive data undertaking and to begin
Speaker 2: to understand how often it's spreading post COVID, Bloomberg's Jinshawn
Speaker 2: Honk first had to narrow down a list of illnesses
Speaker 2: to look at, so she enlisted the help of a
Speaker 2: London based firm that forecasts diseases worldwide called Airffinity, and
Speaker 2: the help of her colleague Buma Shrivastova. Together, they analyzed
Speaker 2: data from sixty public health agencies and organizations like the
Speaker 2: WHO and UNICF and came up with a grim list.
Speaker 1: We will to vote to identify at least thirteen communicabo
Speaker 1: diseases the dah surging in paths of the world that's
Speaker 1: above pre pandemic waves and in some cases is surpass
Speaker 1: the pre pandemic peak by a significant margin.
Speaker 2: These diseases included cholera, measles, tuberculosis, RSV, dengay, and the flu.
Speaker 2: Jahn also wanted to know where these diseases were spiking.
Speaker 1: So before the pandemic we were able to find out
Speaker 1: the peak of every disease in every country between twenty
Speaker 1: seventeen to twenty nineteen, and after COVID we have twenty
Speaker 1: twenty two to twenty twenty four, also three year and
Speaker 1: we find out a peak and compare the two. Whenever
Speaker 1: we see a spike. Then we market on a map,
Speaker 1: and with that we were able to identify regions where
Speaker 1: certain diseases are searching more profoundly.
Speaker 2: Now, this data wasn't completely exhaustive, but it did show
Speaker 2: some notable trends. All thirteen of the diseases they tracked
Speaker 2: had surged above post pandemic levels somewhere.
Speaker 1: It may not be higher in every country, but then
Speaker 1: we do see every one of them seem to be
Speaker 1: showing up in a variety of geographies at higher levels. So,
Speaker 1: for example, dn GEY is making a very strong resurgence
Speaker 1: in Americas. We also have like nisos like spreading to
Speaker 1: about twenty states in the US and other countries in Europe.
Speaker 1: And we are also seeing tuberculesis is like really making
Speaker 1: a lot of spikes in the developing world. And with that,
Speaker 1: everyday common diseases like cold and flu and RSV are
Speaker 1: also reported above pre pandemic levels.
Speaker 2: Some of the surges are especially dramatic and more than
Speaker 2: forty places at least one of these diseases has seen
Speaker 2: case counts leap tenfold or more from their pre pandemic baselines.
Speaker 2: Influenza was up forty percent in the US during the
Speaker 2: last two flu seasons compared to pre COVID levels. Besides
Speaker 2: the health impacts and the strains to the medical system
Speaker 2: this can create, there are also other economic impacts. All
Speaker 2: those sick days are starting to add up.
Speaker 1: We were looking through workplace research reports from places like
Speaker 1: UK and the US and there is more absenteesan with that,
Speaker 1: we seeing people reporting more sick days or taking longer
Speaker 1: sick leaves from work. Maybe in the COVID years when
Speaker 1: you were a little sick, you'll still go out and
Speaker 1: have a drink. It's like, Ah, I'm sick, but I'm
Speaker 1: not sick to a degree that I cannot function. I'll
Speaker 1: still go to work. But now, like I think, we
Speaker 1: are also more aware that, oh I feel a bit
Speaker 1: sick today, maybe I shouldn't go to work.
Speaker 2: That's one helpful lesson to come out of COVID. That's
Speaker 2: staying home when you're sick and curb infections. But illnesses
Speaker 2: are spiking anyway, and that's concerning, especially because Ginhan reminded
Speaker 2: me the COVID nineteen pandemic was unprecedented, and so is
Speaker 2: our post pandemic reality.
Speaker 1: According to who's chief scientist Jeremy Farral, we are really
Speaker 1: in a new place because the last devastating major pandemic
Speaker 1: we had was in nineteen eighteen, which was so called
Speaker 1: the Spanish Flu, and back then we were not having
Speaker 1: as many vaccinations, diagnosis, or even treatment. At that time.
Speaker 1: It was really a different stage. So what we are
Speaker 1: facing right now is really an unparallel situation that scientists
Speaker 1: are raising to understand.
Speaker 2: Even though it was a massive data lift, Jinshan says
Speaker 2: that figuring out that we were all getting sick more
Speaker 2: often was actually the easy part coming up after the break,
Speaker 2: unraveling the mystery of what's causing this spike in global
Speaker 2: illness If you think about this story as a big
Speaker 2: global health mystery at this point, Bloomberg's Jinshawn Hank has
Speaker 2: identified the say victims, those of us who are getting
Speaker 2: sick more often all around the world. But who or
Speaker 2: what in this case is the culprit what's making everyone
Speaker 2: sick in this post pandemic era. Well, Jinhehn told us
Speaker 2: there are a few major theories floating around. I asked
Speaker 2: her to introduce some of the prime suspects. So first,
Speaker 2: there's this idea that we all lost our immunity because
Speaker 2: we stayed home during the pandemic, there were quarantines, we
Speaker 2: weren't being exposed to as many diseases. How much of
Speaker 2: that is at play here?
Speaker 1: That theory, which was at one point very leading theory
Speaker 1: during the pandemic, is that it's called immunity debt, where
Speaker 1: people became more susceptible to various infectious respiratory diseases because
Speaker 1: they were not exposed to the pathogen during the lockdown years.
Speaker 1: But that's still quite controversial among scientists that we talked
Speaker 1: to some of them think there's not enough data yet
Speaker 1: to prove it, and some other thing. Even if they
Speaker 1: make surgeons, they are not supposed to be the size
Speaker 1: of the spikes that we actually see today.
Speaker 2: While this immunity debt theory is contested, experts told Jinshn
Speaker 2: that lockdowns could have contributed to the current spikes in
Speaker 2: a different way. Babies who avoided catching respiratory diseases during
Speaker 2: COVID quarantines and school closures maybe getting exposed and sick
Speaker 2: for the first time as toddlers.
Speaker 1: It's more like a delayed education to their immune system.
Speaker 2: Delayed education. In other words, in the years since lockdowns ended,
Speaker 2: more kids might now be getting sick all At the
Speaker 2: same time, these kinds of COVID related delays are also
Speaker 2: showing up in some countries mortality rates.
Speaker 1: Some countries that used to control COVID very well during
Speaker 1: the pandemic years seem to have higher O course mortality
Speaker 1: rates right now. So one theory they presented was that
Speaker 1: because those countries were able to keep frail elderly people
Speaker 1: live longer and keep them away from regularly circulating disease
Speaker 1: that are usually common in the communities. So with that
Speaker 1: they are now facing a higher death burden.
Speaker 2: Another mystery doctors and scientists are trying to investigate is
Speaker 2: the effect of COVID infections on people's longer term health.
Speaker 2: Did you look into long COVID. Has COVID itself made
Speaker 2: people more susceptible to other illnesses?
Speaker 1: Yeah, that is also a very heated topic that scientists
Speaker 1: are looking into, because COVID definitely has changes on some
Speaker 1: people that's much more than the general public, But that's
Speaker 1: still like relatively a smaller population compared to the general
Speaker 1: public in terms of everybody. I think there's no proof
Speaker 1: at this point, according to our interviews, that we are
Speaker 1: becoming much weaker than before.
Speaker 2: Suspect in the rise of illness across the world. The
Speaker 2: anti vaccine movement.
Speaker 1: For example, one thing that went very rampant during COVID
Speaker 1: was the vaccine misinformation, the social media and how the
Speaker 1: information got spread to many many people, and the mistrust
Speaker 1: of vaccination seems to continue.
Speaker 2: Vaccine hesitancy and misinformation, along with supply chain issues, have
Speaker 2: led to a steep drop in childhood vaccination rates in Europe.
Speaker 2: Musles case suspect thirty fold last year after a few
Speaker 2: years where nearly two million infants missed their shots. And
Speaker 2: it's not just musles vaccines.
Speaker 1: Basic vaccinations for children such as DTP had declined and
Speaker 1: that's resulting in a lot of the surges right now.
Speaker 2: Meanwhile, COVID exacerbated other issues that can keep people sick.
Speaker 1: There's also the social inequality caused indirectly by COVID policies.
Speaker 1: So there are increasingly poorer communities living in crowded environments
Speaker 1: and that prompts and potentially fuel disease circulating in the areas.
Speaker 2: So those are all the culprits that are potentially related
Speaker 2: to the pandemic and its aftermath. But as any mystery
Speaker 2: fan knows, oftentimes the real villain is completely unrelated to
Speaker 2: the obvious suspect. So I asked Jinshawn, were there any
Speaker 2: other plot twists or culprits unrelated to the pandemic.
Speaker 1: When we talked about climate change, we tend to think
Speaker 1: about economic losses or risks to different kinds of countries
Speaker 1: and people. But like in terms of diseases, now we
Speaker 1: are seeing it playing out in multiple aspects, with more flooding,
Speaker 1: with more extreme weather, with more warm weather. We are seeing,
Speaker 1: for example, like Dean Gay, which relies on mosquitoes to
Speaker 1: spread the disease is getting to more places because a
Speaker 1: mosquitos where able to survive in previously colder environments.
Speaker 2: So Jinchon, out of everything that we've talked about, what
Speaker 2: did the experts tell you is the most likely reason
Speaker 2: why sicknesses are surging?
Speaker 1: They tell us it's a perfect storm, and it is.
Speaker 2: A puzzle a perfect storm. What they mean is there's
Speaker 2: not just one bad guy here. There's the disruption to
Speaker 2: our immune systems, a rise in global poverty, climate change,
Speaker 2: and a dip in childhood vaccination rates. It's that last one,
Speaker 2: vaccines that many scientists and health researchers agreed is most compelling.
Speaker 2: In the meantime, I asked Jineon what can we do
Speaker 2: to stay healthier? I've been sick, You've been sick. Nobody
Speaker 2: likes being sick. How can people at home buck the
Speaker 2: global trend and stop getting sick all the time?
Speaker 1: That's something I think people have been trying to find
Speaker 1: a balance with. Do we need to continue a lot
Speaker 1: of the measures that we started with COVID, for example,
Speaker 1: wearing masks on public transport and buses when you feel unwell.
Speaker 1: The answer from some experts that we talked to is
Speaker 1: probably yes, because there's kind of a public fear for
Speaker 1: doing those measures again because they make them look weird, like,
Speaker 1: you know, COVID is over, why are you still wearing masks?
Speaker 2: But actually, right, you're living in the past.
Speaker 1: Yeah, are you living in the past. What are you
Speaker 1: afraid of? But if you really feel sick, that might
Speaker 1: help to spare your colleague from this particular disease that
Speaker 1: you are going through.
Speaker 2: So after months of research and data collection and creating
Speaker 2: her map, Jinchon did not end up being able to
Speaker 2: name any one offender. There was no kernel mustard in
Speaker 2: the library with the candle to really hammer home the metaphor.
Speaker 2: He likely had some accomplices. The culprits seem to include
Speaker 2: all of us have slightly wonky immune systems after being
Speaker 2: isolated and inside for a long time, though that might
Speaker 2: be a little bit of a red herring. There's the
Speaker 2: effects of the COVID virus itself, fewer people are getting vaccines,
Speaker 2: and climate change the wild card that's causing disease spreading
Speaker 2: agents like mosquitoes to move to different places. But my
Speaker 2: main takeaway from Jinshan's research is that even as we
Speaker 2: try to move our minds away from the days of COVID,
Speaker 2: in a lot of ways, our bodies have not moved on,
Speaker 2: at least not yet. This is the Big Take from
Speaker 2: Bloomberg News. I'm Sarah Holder. This episode was produced by
Speaker 2: Adriana Tapia. It was edited by Stacy Vanicksmith and Rachel Chang.
Speaker 2: It was mixed by Veronica Rodriguez. It was fact checked
Speaker 2: by Thomas lu Special thanks to Arafat Jolasho Perry. Our
Speaker 2: senior producers are Kim Gittleson and Naomi Shadan. Our senior
Speaker 2: editor is Elizabeth Ponso. Old Beamster bor Is. Our executive
Speaker 2: producer Sage Bauman is Head of podcasts. Thanks so much
Speaker 2: for listening. Please follow and review The Big Take wherever
Speaker 2: you get your podcasts. It helps new listeners find the show.
Speaker 2: We'll be back next week.