Speaker 1: Welcome to Prognosis. I'm Laura Carlson, a producer on the show.
Speaker 1: We had planned to launch our new season, a deep
Speaker 1: dive into the history of pandemics, in April, but then
Speaker 1: the world changed. COVID nineteen has paralyzed countries, forced families
Speaker 1: into their homes, and wiped out billions in the world's wealth,
Speaker 1: and this is just the beginning. Extraordinary times like this
Speaker 1: call for a few changes in programming, So Prognosis is
Speaker 1: becoming a daily show for as long as it makes
Speaker 1: sense to be one. Every weekday afternoon. We'll talk you
Speaker 1: through the most important developments in the COVID nineteen outbreak.
Speaker 1: I'll be hosting this daily edition with the help of
Speaker 1: Bloomberg's Jason Gale in Australia. Before we move on, one
Speaker 1: more announcement. When you're done listening to the Daily Report today,
Speaker 1: stick around for another special episode. It's an in depth
Speaker 1: profile of the doctors and scientists who are leading the
Speaker 1: fight to understand and beat global scourges like the new coronavirus.
Speaker 1: If you're subscribed, that episode's in your feed right now.
Speaker 1: Let's get started. It's day sixteen since the World Health
Speaker 1: Organization declared COVID nineteen a global pandemic. As of the
Speaker 1: latest reports, there are half a million known cases worldwide,
Speaker 1: and the disease has killed over twenty two thousand. Today's
Speaker 1: main story what went wrong with testing? But first, here's
Speaker 1: the latest news. Spain reported a surge in cases, though
Speaker 1: the country had fewer deaths than a day earlier. Infections
Speaker 1: also climbed in the Lombardy region of Italy, the epicenter
Speaker 1: of the crisis in Europe. Europe now accounts for seven
Speaker 1: out of ten reported fatalities, the World Health Organization said.
Speaker 1: In the US, the virus is causing a total economic
Speaker 1: system shock that's showing up in new economic indicators. Three
Speaker 1: point to eight million Americans filed for unemployment benefits last
Speaker 1: week after much of the U s economy ground to
Speaker 1: a halt. That's more than four times the highest number
Speaker 1: ever recorded back in nineteen eighty two, according to Labor
Speaker 1: Department data release today. To offset the pandemic's destructive effect
Speaker 1: on workers and businesses, the Senate passed a historic two
Speaker 1: trillion dollar rescue plan late last night. The package includes
Speaker 1: expanded and extended unemployment benefits, loans, and assistance to large
Speaker 1: and small businesses and billions for airlines, hotels, and the
Speaker 1: retail industry. It is expected to pass the House easily
Speaker 1: in a vote Friday morning. And finally, some encouraging minds
Speaker 1: that we may soon be able to diagnose cases much faster.
Speaker 1: Companies are rolling out COVID nineteen tests that can deliver
Speaker 1: results in hours or even minutes. A new blood test
Speaker 1: from medical supply firm Henry Shine takes nothing more than
Speaker 1: a pin prick and can tell patients whether they are
Speaker 1: infected in just fifteen minutes. Other companies like Robert Bosch
Speaker 1: and The Logic Limited are also prototyping and developing quick
Speaker 1: turnaround tests that diagnosed cases and a couple of hours
Speaker 1: or a few minutes. Previously, it had taken days to
Speaker 1: receive results. Even as companies race to invent smarter, faster
Speaker 1: tests at the speed of the virus, the situation with
Speaker 1: testing has varied widely around the world, which brings us
Speaker 1: to our main story today, what went wrong with testing?
Speaker 1: Health officials around the world have urged countries to step
Speaker 1: up testing for the new coronavirus. They say we need
Speaker 1: widespread tests to help under stand and reduce the transmission
Speaker 1: of the virus. But some nations, like the United States,
Speaker 1: have been slow to respond. When is testing everyone the
Speaker 1: right thing to do? And why have some countries sprung
Speaker 1: into action with aggressive testing while others seem so unprepared
Speaker 1: to get tests on on a massive scale. It turns
Speaker 1: out that resources are only part of the answer. Senior
Speaker 1: editor Jason Gale reports, Dr ted Ross I don't know
Speaker 1: Gabriezos is the World Health Organizations Directed General. On March sixteenth,
Speaker 1: the delivered a stock warning to countries battling the coronavirus.
Speaker 1: You cannot fight a fire unfolded, and we cannot stop
Speaker 1: this pandemic if we don't know who is infected. We
Speaker 1: have a simple message for all countries, test Test Test.
Speaker 1: Dr Tras was sending this message because not all countries
Speaker 1: are testing for the virus on a massive scale. As
Speaker 1: of last week, the US had carried out just over
Speaker 1: ten tests per hundred thousand people in the population. The
Speaker 1: testing rate in South Korea, on the other hand, is
Speaker 1: more than sixty times higher. South Korea is often pointed
Speaker 1: to as the biggest case for why widespread testing is
Speaker 1: a success story. It was one of the first countries
Speaker 1: outside of China to experience a large scale epidemic of
Speaker 1: COVID nineteen. Last month, the disease rest veerying out of control,
Speaker 1: with infections rising thirtyfold in just ten days. In response,
Speaker 1: South Korea tested more than three hundred and twenty thousand
Speaker 1: people in less than a month. It was a diagnostic
Speaker 1: blitz creek, and it helped bring down the daily tally
Speaker 1: of new infections to less than one hundred. That was
Speaker 1: a big slowdown from just a few weeks earlier, when
Speaker 1: new infections topped eight Here to day, South Korea shows
Speaker 1: that scaling up testing and putting in place measures to
Speaker 1: stop onward transmission can put the epidemic in reverse. But
Speaker 1: lots of countries aren't doing the kind of widespread testing
Speaker 1: south Korea has done. One reason we live an incredibly
Speaker 1: short supply around the world. That's Dr Mike Catton. He's
Speaker 1: the director of the Victorian Infectious Diseases Reference Laboratory in Melbourne.
Speaker 1: He tested and diagnosed the first COVID nineteen case in Australia.
Speaker 1: A coronavirus test requires certain chemicals or reagents to perform.
Speaker 1: Mike says all of the testing around the world has
Speaker 1: created intense demand for these chemicals and they're made in
Speaker 1: Europe and in in Asia and America, which are both
Speaker 1: heavily manufacturing capacity smashed, and their desperate to use those
Speaker 1: very same reagents themselves. So there's a lot of competition
Speaker 1: for our supply chains. Were all provably stockpiled, but we're
Speaker 1: going through those tests. That an enormous right. Doctors want
Speaker 1: more tests because it helps them tracks spread in communities.
Speaker 1: It also allows hospital workers to identify patients for whom
Speaker 1: they need to take extra precautions. In a city like
Speaker 1: New York, which is more than a quarter of cases
Speaker 1: in the United States, that spread is wide. Deborah Burke's,
Speaker 1: the State Department doctor who is advising Vice President Mike Pants,
Speaker 1: said this week that of tests in New York City
Speaker 1: and surrounding areas are coming back positive. That compares with
Speaker 1: less than eight and the rest of the country and
Speaker 1: suggests a high prevalence of COVID nineteen. That makes it
Speaker 1: even more important to find infected people. But that alone
Speaker 1: isn't enough. So the first thing is you have to
Speaker 1: have testing. But testing is only a good investment if
Speaker 1: that leads to case isolation and to contact tracing. This
Speaker 1: is doctor Analyze Wilder Smith. She's a professor of Emerging
Speaker 1: infectious Diseases at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
Speaker 1: In the absence of plentiful testing kids, there's been a
Speaker 1: focus on only testing severe cases or people at risk
Speaker 1: of developing serious complications. Analie says that's not sufficient to
Speaker 1: turn the epidemic around. She says even people with mild
Speaker 1: symptoms should get tested and then isolate themselves until the
Speaker 1: result comes back negative. It's something she's trying to create
Speaker 1: awareness about among the medical community in Switzerland, where she lives.
Speaker 1: If you look at what China did, despite totally being
Speaker 1: overwhelmed more than we are, they continued with isolation of
Speaker 1: mild case cases whilst we stopped it. In total. In total,
Speaker 1: there's no case. There's no isolation of milder cases in Singapore.
Speaker 1: I visit a Singapore a week ago. Mild cases are
Speaker 1: even in negative pressure rules and they dress up for
Speaker 1: them like like like demola. So that's how serious Singapore
Speaker 1: takes mild cases because it's about not the case, it's
Speaker 1: about transmission. So you need to have the facilities in
Speaker 1: place to do isolation of mild cases. It's no coincidence
Speaker 1: China and Singapore took similar approaches to COVID nineteen. Analy
Speaker 1: says she was working in Singapore seventeen years ago when
Speaker 1: the city state experienced an outbreak of another coronavirus from China,
Speaker 1: Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome or SARS. The lessons from SARS
Speaker 1: have put many Asian countries ahead of Europe, not just
Speaker 1: in the speed of their response, but also their capacity
Speaker 1: to deal with it. Europe mistake was that we pulled
Speaker 1: from the experience of influenza Asius advantage was they pulled
Speaker 1: from the experience of stars. The flu mindset of European
Speaker 1: county trees meant they failed to heed the warning signs
Speaker 1: coming from China as early as January. We failed to
Speaker 1: stock up on testing, to stock up on face masks
Speaker 1: and and and to prepare true contact tracing in Europe.
Speaker 1: In Europe, we failed. So it seems the big difference
Speaker 1: between the countries which got testing right and the ones
Speaker 1: that didn't is the infrastructure they had in place. Asian
Speaker 1: countries had a semblance of what they'd be dealing with.
Speaker 1: All nations in the West were preparing for flu. Analy
Speaker 1: says it's not too late to learn from Asia the
Speaker 1: lockdowns imposed in many countries provide a window of opportunity
Speaker 1: for health authorities to bolster capacity for not just detecting cases,
Speaker 1: but also for early isolation regardless of severity. That was
Speaker 1: Jason Gale in Melbourne. And that's it for the Prognosis
Speaker 1: Daily Edition. For more on the coronavirus crisis from a
Speaker 1: hundred and twenty bureaus around the world, visit Bloomberg dot
Speaker 1: com slash coronavirus and for more. Right now, there's another
Speaker 1: fresh episode of Prognosis in Your Feet on the scientists
Speaker 1: and doctors uncovering the lessons other pandemics can teach us
Speaker 1: about COVID nineteen. If you appreciate the podcast, please take
Speaker 1: a moment to rate us or leave a review on
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts to help more listeners find our global reporting.
Speaker 1: The Prognosis Daily Edition is hosted by me Laura Carlson.
Speaker 1: The show is produced by Me Topher Foreheads, Jordan Gaspore
Speaker 1: and Magnus Hendrickson, reporting by Jason Gale. Our editors are
Speaker 1: Francesca Levy and Rick Shine. Francesca Levy is Bloomberg's head
Speaker 1: of Podcasts. M