Speaker 1: It's Thursday, Janu I'm Oscar Emrrors from the Daily Dive
Speaker 1: podcast in Los Angeles, and this is Reopening America. California
Speaker 1: and other states have begun rolling back some of their
Speaker 1: strict coronavirus restrictions as new COVID strains are beginning to circulate,
Speaker 1: new cases and hospitalizations are declining, causing governors like Gavin
Speaker 1: Newsom to let some businesses open at limited capacity again.
Speaker 1: Some say politics maybe at place since he is facing
Speaker 1: a recall effort, but Newsom says that has no merit.
Speaker 1: Businesses and restaurants are happy at the chance to reopen,
Speaker 1: but some urge caution that it could be too soon.
Speaker 1: And McCourt, health reporter at Bloomberg News, joins us for more.
Speaker 1: Thanks for joining us, Emma, thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 1: I wanted to talk about what's going on right now
Speaker 1: as states are trying to ease their COVID restrictions. There's
Speaker 1: a lot of big states like California specifically, that are
Speaker 1: rolling back some of their stay at home orders, allowing
Speaker 1: some businesses to start operating again, although a limited capacity.
Speaker 1: But it's coming at a very precarious time right now.
Speaker 1: These variants that we keep hearing about from the UK, Brazil,
Speaker 1: South Africa. There's some that have been spotted in the
Speaker 1: United States itself. So I emma tell us a little bit,
Speaker 1: you know, kind of the balance that the states are
Speaker 1: having to work through right now. As you rightly point out,
Speaker 1: we are seeing states starting to loosten some of those
Speaker 1: COVID percautions at this time. You know, we've been in
Speaker 1: the biggest surge of COVID nineteen for a long time now,
Speaker 1: and as those national numbers are starting to come down,
Speaker 1: we're seeing case counts declining, hospitalizations coming down. The trajectory
Speaker 1: of the pandemic appears to be easing. We're seeing states
Speaker 1: rightly take action and say we think we can allow
Speaker 1: some kinds of economic activity to restart, for instance, in Illinois,
Speaker 1: you know, saying after months of not allowing indoor dining
Speaker 1: that you know, indoor dining can resume in Chicago and suburbs.
Speaker 1: But you know, it is the difficult balance to strike
Speaker 1: because on the one hand, you do see these encouraging
Speaker 1: signs when it comes to the data. On the other hand,
Speaker 1: we do know that there are worries and indicators in
Speaker 1: the horizon, including the emergence of these new variants which
Speaker 1: bring with them, you know, we know that at least
Speaker 1: one of these variance is more transmissible than the kind
Speaker 1: of currents dominant strain of the coronavirus. But the other
Speaker 1: concerning aspects of this status quo is the fact that
Speaker 1: we know the vaccine rollout has been lagging behind expectations,
Speaker 1: and of course the vaccine is kind of that key
Speaker 1: critical tool in terms of being able to promote immunity
Speaker 1: in the population and word off further spread of disease
Speaker 1: on that front. Real quick of the CDC release of numbers,
Speaker 1: they said that about forty five million or so vaccine
Speaker 1: doses have been sent out, but really maybe twenty three.
Speaker 1: It's about million vaccines have been administered. So we're still
Speaker 1: playing from behind there, and the United States has a
Speaker 1: population of one and so a long long way to
Speaker 1: go on that front. We also noticed as a vaccine
Speaker 1: where you know, it remains to be seen, but we've
Speaker 1: seen we've heard a lot about hesitancy among Americans, people
Speaker 1: being concerned maybe they were developed too quickly and and
Speaker 1: and being worried about things like anaphylaxis. You know, these
Speaker 1: severe allergic reactions which have been reported in the context
Speaker 1: of these vaccines, but are as far as we know
Speaker 1: so far, extremely rare. So there are factors around the
Speaker 1: vaccine rollout that still remain to be seen in terms
Speaker 1: of how successful it'll be. And we know there have
Speaker 1: been a number of logistical issues in terms of just
Speaker 1: getting those doses to the sites and getting them in
Speaker 1: people's arms that are still kind of being worked out
Speaker 1: at the moment. Let's talk a little bit about California,
Speaker 1: obviously a huge state. The governor there, Gavin Newsom, had
Speaker 1: these stay at home orders restaurants and he closed outdoor
Speaker 1: dining at restaurants was a huge thing for local restaurants
Speaker 1: and businesses. So now we're seeing caseloads go down, hospitalization
Speaker 1: and go down, and these restrictions are being loosened up.
Speaker 1: There's still a lot of people that say, hey, wait
Speaker 1: a minute, we could be moving too fast. Going back
Speaker 1: to that balance again that we've been talking about, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of other people saying, well, politics was playing
Speaker 1: a role in this. Governor Gavin Newsom is facing a
Speaker 1: recall effort, and that effort has almost the amount of
Speaker 1: signatures they need to put it onto the ballot. So
Speaker 1: some people were saying politics was playing a part in
Speaker 1: this as well, and of course Newsom has denied that
Speaker 1: politics are playing a role in this. The state has
Speaker 1: been pretty firm and saying this is based on the
Speaker 1: numbers we have right the case numbers, the factors like
Speaker 1: declining hospitalization and test positivity rates, and this expectation that
Speaker 1: the availability of intensive care beds is going to improve.
Speaker 1: So that's what we're definitely getting out of the state.
Speaker 1: I think that's really interesting about California and has been
Speaker 1: kind of a consistent factor throughout this pandemic has been
Speaker 1: that California is almost sort of stupefied experts in terms
Speaker 1: of why has the situation in California been consistently so
Speaker 1: concerning even though California famously early to impose restrictions, quick
Speaker 1: to take the kinds of measures we've heard experts advocate for,
Speaker 1: and it's led some people to think maybe the issue
Speaker 1: isn't the measures that the state has taken, but more
Speaker 1: this question of adherence to those measures, and specifically, are
Speaker 1: these measures so strict that people have decided, you know what,
Speaker 1: you say, I can't eat outdoors at a restaurant while
Speaker 1: I'm going to go gather in my friend's apartment and
Speaker 1: without a mask, and we'll all get sick there. I mean,
Speaker 1: obviously that wasn't the intent. I live in California, and
Speaker 1: anecdotally I can say that's kind of true. People have
Speaker 1: been driven in and they are still gathering with their
Speaker 1: family members, and we know that these are these points
Speaker 1: of transmission. So yeah, I I would say that, like
Speaker 1: I said, anecdotally from what I hear, that has happened,
Speaker 1: and that's been the problem. That COVID fatigue that we've
Speaker 1: talked about before is so huge right now, and people
Speaker 1: are just wanting to get back out there, and even
Speaker 1: for the restaurant themselves, that's such a huge point. For
Speaker 1: local businesses, they're just hemorrhaging money right now, staying closed
Speaker 1: and even being at limited capacity doing outdoor dining. Maybe
Speaker 1: they're not making profits, but at least they're not losing
Speaker 1: those vast amount of money. So that's where this kind
Speaker 1: of thing has been lying at. It's been tough for
Speaker 1: a lot of people. And the point you raised, I
Speaker 1: think as a really that sort of anecdotal those stories
Speaker 1: is an interesting one. I spoke with a public health
Speaker 1: expert who said, you know, we know from other kinds
Speaker 1: of diseases like HIV for instance, or other diseases where
Speaker 1: you can impose different kinds of approaches to trying to
Speaker 1: prevent it or scate it off. That you know, encouraging
Speaker 1: this idea of like abstinence only like almost like insects,
Speaker 1: like that you should just not do anything at all,
Speaker 1: doesn't work as well as trying to mitigate risk, you know,
Speaker 1: different levels. And so he said, you know, California took
Speaker 1: this approach, they definitely needed to recalibrate what they were doing.
Speaker 1: Whether this new approach is going to work, so it
Speaker 1: depends a lot on whether the state has good contact
Speaker 1: tracing data to say we know people, for instance, are
Speaker 1: gathering in private household and getting sick. And he says,
Speaker 1: we haven't actually seen that data. It hasn't been made
Speaker 1: very transparent by California, So it'll kind of remain to
Speaker 1: be seen whether this new approach work. And as adherence
Speaker 1: to the guidelines, the social distancing, the mask wearing, that's
Speaker 1: what we're getting conversations of, like should people be double masking,
Speaker 1: should we be triple masking? You know, that was kind
Speaker 1: of hitting the storylines this week, just as these restrictions
Speaker 1: are starting to loosten and people want to get out there.
Speaker 1: Should we protect ourselves more with masks? Now? So this
Speaker 1: is all kind of rolled up into it, and those
Speaker 1: are key things that we need to do as we
Speaker 1: start going back to business right And I think another
Speaker 1: really important aspect of seam states relaxed these measures is
Speaker 1: also listening at what they're doing in terms of relaxing
Speaker 1: these measures. So this week we also got a report
Speaker 1: from the CDC which said that school reopening would be
Speaker 1: done safely if you took all the right precautions and
Speaker 1: also if you took steps to make sure transmission in
Speaker 1: the community at large was minimized and was as controlled
Speaker 1: as possible. And so when you're talking about, for instance,
Speaker 1: in Illinois, reopening indoor dining and restaurants, it is an
Speaker 1: interesting question of well, what about the schools. You know,
Speaker 1: are we taking all of the same kinds of are
Speaker 1: we relaxing all the same kinds of measures we relaxed before.
Speaker 1: Are we trying to do this smarter? Do this in
Speaker 1: a in a way that could have more impacts, you know,
Speaker 1: in terms of social and educational programs. Lots of stuff
Speaker 1: to go through as We mentioned that balance is so
Speaker 1: difficult and we want to keep it under control. So
Speaker 1: we'll see how these states do as they do ease
Speaker 1: these restrictions and the court health reporter at Bloomberg News,
Speaker 1: thank you very much for joining us. Thank you. I'm
Speaker 1: Asco Ramires and this has been reopening America. Don't forget that.
Speaker 1: For today's big news stories, you can check me out
Speaker 1: on the Daily Dive podcast every mondy through Friday, So
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