Speaker 1: Welcome to Bloomberg Opinion. I'm Vonnie Quinn. This week, the
Speaker 1: median projection is five point two percent this year and
Speaker 1: false to two point six percent next year and two
Speaker 1: point two percent in two thousand twenty four. FED Jerry J.
Speaker 1: Powell on inflation forecasts after the f o MC decided
Speaker 1: on the biggest interest rate increase seventy five basis points
Speaker 1: in twenty seven years. John Author Is, Near Casar and
Speaker 1: Jonathan live In discuss later one in five Americans suffer
Speaker 1: from some form of long COVID Lisa Jarvis on persistent
Speaker 1: and widespread COVID nineteen. Let's get straight to the FED
Speaker 1: now with John Authors and Near case are. So, we
Speaker 1: had the Federal Reserve meeting, we had the decision, we
Speaker 1: had the news conference. We learned a lot, but also
Speaker 1: a lot of this was priced in. We effectively got
Speaker 1: this on Monday. Is that too harsh? No, I'm inclined
Speaker 1: to say that the FED probably handled an impossible situation
Speaker 1: about as well as it could be handled in terms
Speaker 1: of having a blackout, but obviously eating to make some
Speaker 1: kind of response to really seriously bad numbers that came out,
Speaker 1: and I think the way they did that which Ja
Speaker 1: Pou didn't really deny, was by guiding the press through
Speaker 1: what was likely to happen, and the market of course
Speaker 1: priced at all in yes, near the FED chair obviously
Speaker 1: said that the University of Michigan preliminary figures were a
Speaker 1: huge motivating factor here. He said, he's not going to
Speaker 1: see this too often from now on? Is that fantasy?
Speaker 1: Will we see numbers like this? You know, I wish
Speaker 1: we knew because it would make his job a lot easier,
Speaker 1: But I think that you know, as you say, as
Speaker 1: John had mentioned, the bigger news from all this is
Speaker 1: how much Powe was committed to fighting this. They added
Speaker 1: a statement in the release that says that they're strongly
Speaker 1: committed to returning inflation to their two percent target, and
Speaker 1: he reinforced that message in the presser and all this
Speaker 1: is really important because he of course is trying to
Speaker 1: get the market too self correct as it were, which
Speaker 1: they had done some of the work for him before today.
Speaker 1: The question was once these prints became really ugly, were
Speaker 1: they really going to act? And I think they did
Speaker 1: their best both indeed and and word to reassure the
Speaker 1: market that they're going to fight this all the way.
Speaker 1: I think that's right. It was as though j Pal
Speaker 1: had a binkie of the word commitment. I think he
Speaker 1: came back to saying they were committed to fighting inflation
Speaker 1: more or less every question he took in the press conference.
Speaker 1: There were some very unusual things about this particular press conference, though,
Speaker 1: For example, the idea that headline inflation is almost becoming
Speaker 1: more important at the moment than the PC deflator. I mean,
Speaker 1: is there any usefulness to the PC deflator these days?
Speaker 1: There's a lot of use if you're a central banker.
Speaker 1: A politician quite reasonably cares most about the headline, because
Speaker 1: the headline is what actually hurts people. You're calling politician that.
Speaker 1: There are lots of fascinating issues about exactly how politically
Speaker 1: independent a central bank needs to be. But he's obviously
Speaker 1: under pressure, as he should be, because we do want
Speaker 1: some degree of democratic accountability, even if we also want independence.
Speaker 1: He's obviously under a lot of pressure to deal with
Speaker 1: inflation at this point because it's so intense. Well, and
Speaker 1: as excuse near is and I'm quoting, forces are different.
Speaker 1: Inflation is behaving differently. The pandemic is over, though, and
Speaker 1: the war in Ukraine is a long term event, So
Speaker 1: figure that out. Well, I think this has gone on
Speaker 1: longer than anyone wants, and so obviously we can no
Speaker 1: longer call it transitory in any way. But I think
Speaker 1: there's another reason to worry about the headline inflation, which
Speaker 1: is that some of this is based on expectations, and
Speaker 1: the headline inflation is what people are really feeling. And
Speaker 1: to the except that people are really feeling the brunt
Speaker 1: of the headline inflation number and that is affecting their
Speaker 1: behavior and their expectations, then that's a problem for the FED.
Speaker 1: So I think they're in this moment where in a
Speaker 1: theoretical sense they'd like to focus on the PC, but
Speaker 1: as a practical matter, they have no choice. That's a
Speaker 1: great way of putting it. If you look at the
Speaker 1: retail sales numbers for this month, Basically, as a certain point,
Speaker 1: headline inflation becomes deflationary in terms of economic growth. And
Speaker 1: here it's an empirical matter exactly where that comes, but
Speaker 1: it seems to have come last month. There were fewer
Speaker 1: retail sales than the month for presumably because higher gas
Speaker 1: prices and someone were acting like attacks. So there is
Speaker 1: a point which has been reached where the dual mandate
Speaker 1: goes by the board, you just have to get inflation
Speaker 1: down for the sake of both parts of the mandate,
Speaker 1: inflation and employment. Well, and I'm quoting again now, he
Speaker 1: actually said during the news conference it would be hard
Speaker 1: to watch anything more closely than we're watching consumers spending.
Speaker 1: And it sounds like he's watching consumer spending headline inflation
Speaker 1: forces outside of his control. I mean, he's got a
Speaker 1: terribly difficult job, and they're kind of hoping that unemployment
Speaker 1: goes up for good reasons and that that means that
Speaker 1: we avoid a recession. What are the odds now that
Speaker 1: we avoid at least a deep recession. I mean, they're
Speaker 1: looking slimmer and slimmer all the time. You know, I
Speaker 1: was just looking at the GDP now that the Atlanta
Speaker 1: said publish. They're their most recent forecast is zero real
Speaker 1: growth for the current quarter. So it's looking like, if
Speaker 1: we're not already in recession, were on the precipice. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's good. Depressing, it's not good. One of the things
Speaker 1: that forecasters have been saying is get out of risk assets.
Speaker 1: And we talked about this a little bit, sweet John,
Speaker 1: about how companies are going to see defaultrates going up.
Speaker 1: It's going to be more difficult for them to roll
Speaker 1: over dead. At the same time, we've seen amount of
Speaker 1: sell off. We're in a bear market from many of
Speaker 1: the industries. If we're already in a recession, how much
Speaker 1: worse can it get? Well, the key question is profits.
Speaker 1: We've seen a very big reduction in valuations in pe s,
Speaker 1: partly reversing a massive expansion in valuations in the immediate
Speaker 1: aftermath of the pandemic and the money to tie us
Speaker 1: through it. We haven't so far seen any real adjustment
Speaker 1: to what the EA is likely to be. The e
Speaker 1: m P estimates for this full year are still something
Speaker 1: at three percent higher than they were at the beginning
Speaker 1: of January, despite all that's happened since January exclude energy,
Speaker 1: and it's still flat. Usually earnings expectations fall during a
Speaker 1: normal year. The fact that you haven't seen earnings expectations
Speaker 1: begin to decline in any meaningful way is the reason
Speaker 1: I would still be quite nervous about this market. It's
Speaker 1: all about expectations from the FED two earnings near Are
Speaker 1: you getting out of all risk assets? No? No, definitely
Speaker 1: not In out market. Timing is you're never going to
Speaker 1: be able to call the top to the bottom. If
Speaker 1: you try it, you're gonna lose. Having said that, I mean,
Speaker 1: I think it's useful to have some expectation about what's coming.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think the best thing we can say
Speaker 1: is expected returns for equities have to be higher today
Speaker 1: and they were before this whole mess started. You know,
Speaker 1: so far, this to me looks like a quite orderly repricing.
Speaker 1: Enterprises in the US were too high. I think that
Speaker 1: was generally acknowledged they needed to come down. You never
Speaker 1: know what the catalyst for that is going to be.
Speaker 1: Do they deserve to come down a bit further? I
Speaker 1: think probably certainly. They're well higher than the bottoms of
Speaker 1: previous sell off, So there's a lot more room to
Speaker 1: go if the market wants to go there. Esther George,
Speaker 1: who hadn't been a hawk, dissented in favor of fifty
Speaker 1: basis points. What was that about? I saw one interpretation
Speaker 1: that it was about communication credibility, to the extent that
Speaker 1: we saw the FED perhaps leaking basis point move from
Speaker 1: saying no, obviously, I haven't spoken to Rested George. My
Speaker 1: best guess, because it is surprising she's been one of
Speaker 1: the more hawkish members. Is exactly that, having said that
Speaker 1: seventy five isn't on the table, we really can't do.
Speaker 1: We have to do fifty and be really mega hawkish
Speaker 1: about the future. I'm guessing would have been a line
Speaker 1: that would make some fair degree of sense and would
Speaker 1: be consistent with what she said in the past. But
Speaker 1: it is strange. Well, you know, one of the things
Speaker 1: that I look at is again going to the Atlanta Fed.
Speaker 1: They have a FED funds tracker based on the futures markets,
Speaker 1: and right now, a year from now, that's sitting at
Speaker 1: three forty basis points. And as we're sitting down after
Speaker 1: this rate high today we're sitting at the range of
Speaker 1: seven five. So they have a lot of room to
Speaker 1: move before they get to expectations. And of course, if
Speaker 1: inflation keeps running hot, I mean, if these efforts are
Speaker 1: not having a meaningful impact, I'm getting some sort of disinflation,
Speaker 1: then those expectations are probably likely to go higher um.
Speaker 1: And so at this point, the feed is in a
Speaker 1: position where it's chasing with the market expect which is
Speaker 1: both good and bad. It's good in the sense that
Speaker 1: it gives them a lot of room to move without
Speaker 1: shock in the market. On the other hand, it's bad
Speaker 1: because their credibility is constantly being questioned, Right, I mean
Speaker 1: they have to get up to the marker, otherwise they're
Speaker 1: going to be seen as not being serious about this. Right.
Speaker 1: How does he look like a guy who understood that
Speaker 1: very well today? Well, and in fact, he came straight
Speaker 1: out and said, and I'm quoting again, by this point,
Speaker 1: we thought we'd be seeing signs of inflation flattening and
Speaker 1: ideally declining. I mean, they must be completely shocked. There
Speaker 1: were only two FED governors. I have the December dots
Speaker 1: plots in front of me. There were only two FED
Speaker 1: governors who thought that FED funds rate would get as
Speaker 1: high as one percent by the end of this year
Speaker 1: as of December. Jonathan Levin wrote, a great artist, and
Speaker 1: we're now well beyond that's already exactly unanimously on his
Speaker 1: point was that Bullard needs an apology from somebody because
Speaker 1: he's been saying this, and he was probably one of
Speaker 1: the only ones saying and even even he because we
Speaker 1: don't know which dot he is, but even he has
Speaker 1: been surprised in a Hawkes direction by by what's happened
Speaker 1: in the last six months, and he was the outline
Speaker 1: you brought consumer spending earlier, Vanni in the conversation. And
Speaker 1: I think some of the uncertainty that we're seeing within
Speaker 1: the set itself has to do with the way that
Speaker 1: economic data works, right. I mean, part of the problem
Speaker 1: for them is the economic data. That means that most
Speaker 1: of them is lagging data, and so you know, by
Speaker 1: the time that they have the data to make a decision,
Speaker 1: you know, a lot of people think that the FETE
Speaker 1: has already waited too long, and to some extent that's
Speaker 1: just the nature of the beast, and that's more to
Speaker 1: try to find leading indicators, and that's probably why they
Speaker 1: took the preliminary Michigan expectations so seriously. I mean, typically
Speaker 1: you'd wait for a thing reading right right, what's pricedon now?
Speaker 1: For what gets pricedon I should say for July. Now
Speaker 1: at the moment, it's a rate hike of sixty six
Speaker 1: basis points. I happened to check just before I came
Speaker 1: into the studio, So a seventy five bits hike you've
Speaker 1: seen is slightly more lightly than a fifty and certainly
Speaker 1: Powell saying that it was going to be a choice
Speaker 1: between fifty and seventy five at the next and therefore
Speaker 1: implicitly taking a hundred off the table and saying we
Speaker 1: shouldn't get used to rate hikes of this dimension was
Speaker 1: very important in the market liking what they heard as
Speaker 1: much as they did. He was saying he was committed,
Speaker 1: but he was also saying, don't worry, guys, there aren't
Speaker 1: going to be any hundred medieval hundred basis And we
Speaker 1: did talk an you know, I'm not sure the path
Speaker 1: matters so much as the destination. I think, however, they
Speaker 1: get there, My guess is what we're talking about now
Speaker 1: is roughly three hundred fifty basis points on set funds,
Speaker 1: give or take. And that's a number I keep my
Speaker 1: eye on because if that number starts to drift higher,
Speaker 1: then I think the probability of them having to be
Speaker 1: more aggressive on the path goes up. Also, I just
Speaker 1: wouldn't put a whole lot of faith and what the
Speaker 1: markets are telling us about the past. I would put
Speaker 1: more faith of what they're telling us about the destination
Speaker 1: as the data currently sits. Yeah, I agree with that.
Speaker 1: I personally am nervous. I can easily by the notion
Speaker 1: that we need to go to four even if the
Speaker 1: FED doesn't essentially lose control, and obviously if the FED
Speaker 1: loses control, then disguise the limit. I think, yeah. And
Speaker 1: do we need to worry about the curve being inverted
Speaker 1: at several points at the moment, Well, I mean it's
Speaker 1: it's never healthy, It's never a great sign At this point,
Speaker 1: the curve inverted and uninverted twice on Monday. I'm not
Speaker 1: that concerned about the curve as a whole, because plainly
Speaker 1: it has been inverted or flat over a long enough
Speaker 1: period to signal very great concern about recession, and we
Speaker 1: can't really treat it as much more of a concrete
Speaker 1: indicated than this. There are lots and lots of reasons
Speaker 1: for concern about the bond marketing general, obviously, yeah, including
Speaker 1: contact of tightening. This is not the base case by
Speaker 1: any stretch of the imagination, but I think there is
Speaker 1: a higher probability than than people are generally acknowledging that
Speaker 1: the FED will have to go higher than anyone thinks
Speaker 1: right now and the funds, and that the longer end
Speaker 1: of the curve doesn't follow higher just for supply and
Speaker 1: demand reason, because there's so much interest internationally in longer
Speaker 1: term treasury because a lot of the pension funds in
Speaker 1: the US have moved to hedge their liabilities against thirty
Speaker 1: year treasuries. UM. It seems to me that there's a
Speaker 1: lot of demand for U S treasuries on the longer
Speaker 1: end of the curve. If pet funds goes higher than
Speaker 1: we think, you could have some serious inversion. I mean,
Speaker 1: you could have in version that I think people are
Speaker 1: really not talking about whether it loses its signal at
Speaker 1: that point because of idiosyncratics applying demand forces. In terms
Speaker 1: of telling us what that means for the economy, I'm
Speaker 1: not convinced that that's going to be the case necessarily,
Speaker 1: but keep your eye on that longer end of the curve.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure it's going to follow the FED funds
Speaker 1: of time. There was concern in the news conference about
Speaker 1: international economies, you know, and the stronger dollar. That's the question.
Speaker 1: That's the point I was about to make that the
Speaker 1: really big fault lines. The fit matters a lot, But
Speaker 1: there are two other immense fault lines in the global economy,
Speaker 1: both of which are affected negatively by a strong dollar.
Speaker 1: One is the Eurozone, where very Unfortunately, the CB still
Speaker 1: hasn't managed to convince markets for much the same structural
Speaker 1: problems that created the crisis of a decade ago that
Speaker 1: it's going to be able to keep the euro Zone together.
Speaker 1: Asset raises, rates and more pressure on the euro makes
Speaker 1: that all the worse. And then in Japan you've had
Speaker 1: the end breaking through some very significant and also twenty
Speaker 1: to the Chinese UN, which is only the second time
Speaker 1: it's got there. The first time was followed within days
Speaker 1: by the shocking Chinese UNS evaluation of then caused to
Speaker 1: sort of mini global crisis for a few months. So
Speaker 1: there is a There is also a very important element
Speaker 1: of tension where the if the Japanese want to keep
Speaker 1: controlling the yield curve, that will mean the stays ever
Speaker 1: more artificially weak, and that is going to be a
Speaker 1: real problem for its neighbor China. So that's the other
Speaker 1: fault line that it's very difficult to avoid. John Old,
Speaker 1: there is a near case, are there some indicators of
Speaker 1: inflation expectations have risen, and projections of this year have
Speaker 1: moved up notably. So we thought that strong action was
Speaker 1: warranted at this meeting, and today we delivered that in
Speaker 1: the form of a seventy five basis point rate hike.
Speaker 1: Be Jared your Ome Powell. We're with Jonathan Levin covering
Speaker 1: the fat and fixed income from Bloomberig Opinion. Jonathan, what
Speaker 1: for you were the most salient features of this particular
Speaker 1: news conference? What really struck me was j Pal's meditation
Speaker 1: on what's going on with inflation expectations? And I really
Speaker 1: thought it underscored sort of the catch twenty two that
Speaker 1: this bed finds itself in. You know, the tricky part
Speaker 1: here is that, as j Pal himself put it, central
Speaker 1: bankers cannot control volatile food and energy products. However, those
Speaker 1: very same volatile food and energy products have a tremendous
Speaker 1: impact on the way that consumers think about inflation. So
Speaker 1: Jpal finds himself in an extraordinary pickle here. Right now,
Speaker 1: as we saw in the University of Michigan survey, those
Speaker 1: inflation expectations are drifting up. Central bankers believe that this
Speaker 1: is a huge problem. Clearly, this is happening in part
Speaker 1: because of what's going on at the pump. But the
Speaker 1: Fed's reaction mechanism, as j Pal himself seemed to acknowledge, today,
Speaker 1: is going to forever, keep them behind the curve on
Speaker 1: managing those expectations. Yeah, exactly, And he even said we're
Speaker 1: absolutely determined to keep inflation expectations at two how much
Speaker 1: above han does he is that? I think it's going
Speaker 1: to be very tricky. I mean, it's not a fantasy, because,
Speaker 1: of course, there is a possibility that some of these
Speaker 1: sources of inflation that consumers most experienced could come in
Speaker 1: on their own. Right. It would be great if some
Speaker 1: of these gas prices would moderate, if some of these
Speaker 1: food prices would moderate. But what we're seeing, sort of unfortunately,
Speaker 1: is Powell is tacitly admitting that so much of this
Speaker 1: is out of his hands. He's really kind of just
Speaker 1: you know, putting his hands together and saying a little
Speaker 1: prayer that these inflation expectations could stay under control. And
Speaker 1: there's absolutely nothing on the horizon to suggest that any
Speaker 1: of those things is changing anytime soon, right. I mean,
Speaker 1: we still have countries holding onto what food they can
Speaker 1: produce themselves and not letting it get exported. We're not
Speaker 1: seeing oil get any relief anytime soon. There's not much
Speaker 1: the head can do about those kinds of things, so
Speaker 1: it has to look for other avenues are there any Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, the main thing they can do,
Speaker 1: I think is to just show that they are not
Speaker 1: asleep at the wheel, and you know, basis points. I
Speaker 1: think it's a step, perhaps in the right direction. Perhaps
Speaker 1: that's why you saw such a rally in the market.
Speaker 1: I think markets are just pleased to see that this
Speaker 1: FED is paying attention to what's going on. So, Jonathan,
Speaker 1: what's the beds terminal rate now? So? I think in
Speaker 1: the Summary of Economic Projections it has it heading up
Speaker 1: towards the high end of the three, is almost getting
Speaker 1: to the fours. So that is essentially consistent with what
Speaker 1: a simple tailor type rule would suggest. After the CPI
Speaker 1: print that we just got. Yeah, I mean, does it
Speaker 1: look like a recession is more likely than it was
Speaker 1: a few hours ago? Well, you know, I was really
Speaker 1: struck by what the Summary of Economic Projections said about
Speaker 1: the unemployment rate? Right, So the step has the unemployment
Speaker 1: rate moving up from remembering correctly about forty basis points
Speaker 1: or fifty basis points. The some rule famously says, if
Speaker 1: you move up fifty basis points on the unemployment rate
Speaker 1: in a twelve month period, then you're already a recession. Right,
Speaker 1: So the step itself doesn't quite get us there because
Speaker 1: it has us getting to that higher unemployment rate in
Speaker 1: so it's outside of the twelvemonth time frame of the rule,
Speaker 1: but it really shows you how perilously close we're getting
Speaker 1: to that threshold. You know. The other thing that struck me, well,
Speaker 1: many things struck me. One line that I'm going to
Speaker 1: quote is we are not trying to induce a recession.
Speaker 1: It was in response to a question about whether the
Speaker 1: FED is trying to induce a recession. I mean, obviously
Speaker 1: JOJ palal has to say that, but would a little
Speaker 1: recession help? Well, you know, look, the bottom line is
Speaker 1: that the FEDS tools, it's only tools, is to control
Speaker 1: the demand side of the equation. They are actively trying
Speaker 1: to get people to spend less money at a very
Speaker 1: very delicate time for the economy. So you know, the
Speaker 1: risks here are extraordinary, I think for political reasons. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, and J pal is ultimately a political figure here.
Speaker 1: It would be crazy to go before the microphone and
Speaker 1: say I want to take somebody's job away from them.
Speaker 1: They can't do that, right, But this is how it works.
Speaker 1: This is essentially how it works. I've written in the
Speaker 1: past that I think this idea that he can simply
Speaker 1: cool off the labor market by getting companies to take
Speaker 1: down listing, to take down openings without doing anything to
Speaker 1: the people who actually have jobs. I think the FED
Speaker 1: has blunt instruments here, and it's going to be extraordinarily
Speaker 1: difficult and would be virtually unprecedented in the history of
Speaker 1: this thing for them to do a move of this magnitude,
Speaker 1: reign in the worst inflation in forty years, and not
Speaker 1: push unemployment to a meaningful degree. Jonathan live In don't
Speaker 1: forget to reach out with adults, suggestions, opinions. I'm at
Speaker 1: any Quinn on Twitter or email v Quinn at Bloomberg
Speaker 1: dot net. You're listening to Bloomberg Opinion. I'm Bonny Quinn.
Speaker 1: By the way, do get in touch. Comments and opinions
Speaker 1: always welcome. I'm at Bonnie Quinn on Twitter or email
Speaker 1: v Quinn at Bloomberg dot net. Now to COVID nineteen.
Speaker 1: That other persistent and widespread threat to US and global
Speaker 1: well being, both human and economic. Happy to have Lisa
Speaker 1: Jarvis join. So Lisa, first, a word about the nearly
Speaker 1: one million, ten thousand people that are dead in the
Speaker 1: United States as a result of COVID. It almost seems
Speaker 1: unbelievable that that many people are dead in the last
Speaker 1: two years. But if COVID hadn't come along, very many
Speaker 1: of those would not be dead. Is that true. I
Speaker 1: think that's true to a certain extent. Very many people
Speaker 1: would have died no matter what. But we also didn't
Speaker 1: have good vaccine adherents once those were available, So if
Speaker 1: people had gotten vaccinated when they were eligible, we probably
Speaker 1: would have seen several hundred thousand lives would have been saved.
Speaker 1: I would have to take a look at the estimates,
Speaker 1: but we know that many of the serious cases of
Speaker 1: COVID were preventable one to the vaccines were available. What
Speaker 1: are we going to learn over the course of the
Speaker 1: next year, two x years, maybe five years, maybe ten,
Speaker 1: maybe more about COVID and various viruses like COVID from
Speaker 1: the amount of people that have died. Are their studies ongoing?
Speaker 1: I hope that what we're going to learn is actually
Speaker 1: from the people who have lived, and in that instance,
Speaker 1: what we want to know is long COVID. I think
Speaker 1: that's the biggest opportunity here to better understand viruses. One
Speaker 1: in five Americans suffer from some form of long COVID,
Speaker 1: which is a big umbrella term. It can mean a
Speaker 1: lot of different things. That's part of the issue is
Speaker 1: that there's no good definition for it, but for a
Speaker 1: small percentage of that one in five people, that can
Speaker 1: mean that their symptoms transform into something that is potentially
Speaker 1: lifelong and looks a lot like chronic fatigue syndrome. We
Speaker 1: know that those people stopped working, and so justin Box
Speaker 1: actually has a column out about that. At the moment,
Speaker 1: it's actually showing up in the employment data. It is
Speaker 1: showing up in unemployment data, and so you know, we
Speaker 1: know that this is a huge issue now and it's
Speaker 1: going to be a huge issue going forward because even
Speaker 1: people who had mild COVID could end up with long
Speaker 1: COVID and O macron and its siblings are just sweeping
Speaker 1: the country. Many more people have been exposed, sometimes multiple
Speaker 1: times the virus. The NH has been given one point
Speaker 1: two billion dollars to run along COVID study to really
Speaker 1: try to understand and get to the bottom of who's
Speaker 1: at risk, what are some of the possible treatments to
Speaker 1: better define it. Unfortunately, that study is moving very slowly.
Speaker 1: That makes me very worried about how quickly we're going
Speaker 1: to get to answers to help the people who currently
Speaker 1: have long COVID and those who will in the future.
Speaker 1: But we still have a lot of questions we need
Speaker 1: to answer. Also, how long does it last? Can it
Speaker 1: go away? I mean, just anecdotally, it seems that sometimes
Speaker 1: long COVID does go away, other times it hasn't gone
Speaker 1: away yet. Yeah, that's right. I mean part of that
Speaker 1: is again, you know, there's this big umbrella of symptoms
Speaker 1: that compass long COVID, and one of the things that
Speaker 1: I think we need to do is get better at
Speaker 1: defining that. So you could think about it in two ways.
Speaker 1: To start with the people who had very serious COVID
Speaker 1: and have long COVID because they have organ damage from
Speaker 1: you know, being in the hospital. And then there's the
Speaker 1: people who had mild COVID and went on to have
Speaker 1: this long tale of symptoms. Those are the ones that
Speaker 1: are the real mystery. And within that there's other buckets.
Speaker 1: You know, people who have heart symptoms and there are
Speaker 1: some treatments for that. And I think that's a message
Speaker 1: more cardiologists would like to get out there that you're
Speaker 1: experiencing heart palpitations or high heart rate after having COVID.
Speaker 1: There are treatments for you. There's people who have lung effects,
Speaker 1: and then there are these people who progress to these
Speaker 1: chronic fatigue like symptoms. So yeah, we'd like to understand
Speaker 1: what puts you at risk for that and how can
Speaker 1: we provide it and how can we treat it. We're
Speaker 1: now at eight five point seven million cases in the
Speaker 1: United States and another one hundred thousand per day. If
Speaker 1: one in five of those turns into long COVID, we
Speaker 1: have a very serious health issue on our hands over
Speaker 1: the coming decades. I mean, it's terrifying to really think about.
Speaker 1: And when you talk to people who are working on this,
Speaker 1: I think they really are calling it kind of a
Speaker 1: parallel pandemic that not enough people are talking about. I mean,
Speaker 1: there are going to be people, as you pointed out,
Speaker 1: who's seen them you resolve, and it might be kind
Speaker 1: of like the same you know, long viral effects when
Speaker 1: you have the flu. You might be tired or have
Speaker 1: a cough that persists for a few weeks, and some
Speaker 1: people are calling that long COVID. It may also be
Speaker 1: you know that some portion of those people go on
Speaker 1: to have longer term damage that's still hidden. We just
Speaker 1: don't know that. We need to be putting more time
Speaker 1: and attention towards setting it. Lisa, how is the virus
Speaker 1: evolved from delta through omcom to the subvariants that we're
Speaker 1: seeing now. It seems like we're in now, I don't know,
Speaker 1: the sixth seventh wave of subvariant. Yeah, we keep seeing more.
Speaker 1: Part of that has to do with the lack of
Speaker 1: vaccinations around the world, giving the virus plenty of opportunity
Speaker 1: to spread. These variants forms because the virus has lots
Speaker 1: of hosts. Another way that the variants form is when
Speaker 1: they just the right host, So someone who's immun compromise
Speaker 1: and the virus persists in their system for a really
Speaker 1: long time. That allows it time to evolve. Is that,
Speaker 1: you know, something fitter emerges. Right now, we've got three
Speaker 1: they're circulating. We've got be A two point one to one.
Speaker 1: We've got be A four and b A five. I
Speaker 1: was looking at the recent data out of CBC and
Speaker 1: I think BE A four and five are starting to
Speaker 1: really creep up in the US. Something like one percent
Speaker 1: of cases this week are those two variants. Which I
Speaker 1: should note that if you're someone who had O macron
Speaker 1: B A one, the original O macron in the winter
Speaker 1: and even in the spring, if you had B A
Speaker 1: one or B A two, you're susceptible to be A
Speaker 1: four and five. You might not get really sick, but
Speaker 1: chances are good that you'll get reinfected if you're not
Speaker 1: being careful. Um, and that brings up the question about
Speaker 1: those who qualify for a second booster. Is it of
Speaker 1: any use against the new sub variants. I think the
Speaker 1: second booster is always going to help protect you against
Speaker 1: serious infection. If you're someone that is at risk of
Speaker 1: serious infection, you should get that second booster. Um. There's
Speaker 1: so much virus circulating right now. Tony Saucci has COVID.
Speaker 1: You know, I think everyone at some point is being
Speaker 1: exposed to this virus, and so if you're someone as
Speaker 1: high risk, we know that are the vaccine protection wanes
Speaker 1: over time. Yeah. Another thing that happened this week was
Speaker 1: that the US started letting people in from other countries
Speaker 1: without a negative test. How does it impact the rest
Speaker 1: of the world and the United States domestically that people
Speaker 1: who have taken vaccines other than those that were available,
Speaker 1: say in the US and Europe, will start to mix
Speaker 1: with each other now that travel is becoming more prevalent.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure if the fact that they're vaccinated differently
Speaker 1: will matter. I mean, I honestly think that it made
Speaker 1: sense to lift that testing requirement in no small part
Speaker 1: because people were flying within the US. They're flying domestically
Speaker 1: without having to test, and we know that the opportunity
Speaker 1: for spread is great there. But I think one thing
Speaker 1: that has been a little confusing has been trying to
Speaker 1: part data coming out of different countries that are better
Speaker 1: tracking infections where people have different kinds of immunity. So,
Speaker 1: for example, we look at data out of South Africa,
Speaker 1: a lot of people that have been infected over and
Speaker 1: over again with different variants but haven't been vaccinated. We
Speaker 1: look at you know, Israel, where Dave vaccinated with the
Speaker 1: same vaccines we use, but maybe in a little different schedule.
Speaker 1: That's offering us and good data. The picture is getting
Speaker 1: very complex as we try to understand, you know, our immunity.
Speaker 1: To be honest with you, what do we know about
Speaker 1: it and whether we should take goodness. So first of all,
Speaker 1: let me say packs of it is a very good
Speaker 1: drug for the people that it works in. We only
Speaker 1: know right now that it works in people who are
Speaker 1: unvaccinated and are at high risk for getting covid um.
Speaker 1: You know, we saw some new data from Fiser yesterday
Speaker 1: that essentially said we're stopping our study looking at people
Speaker 1: who are vaccinated and have one risk factor because it's
Speaker 1: enrolling too slowly, and essentially it didn't look like the
Speaker 1: drug was helping those people very much, if at all,
Speaker 1: and so we just we're giving the drug out as
Speaker 1: part of this Test to Treat program, which the cornerstone
Speaker 1: of the Biden administration's current pandemic plan. And basically, if
Speaker 1: you get covid you can go get tested and immediately
Speaker 1: be given a prescription for pax leavid if you qualify. However,
Speaker 1: you know that really means that many, many people who
Speaker 1: may not benefit from the drug are taking it. A
Speaker 1: second issue is that we're seeing these rebounds with tax lavid.
Speaker 1: So people are taking this five day pill pack and
Speaker 1: at the end of it, they feel better and then
Speaker 1: their virus comes back. We don't know if that's because
Speaker 1: of pax leavid or if that's something that naturally happens
Speaker 1: when you get when you get COVID and those people
Speaker 1: that same thing might have happened, But we really need
Speaker 1: to study it so much to learn. Speaking of which
Speaker 1: monkey pokses diagnosed, now, is it a real threat as
Speaker 1: we go about our everyday activities. I don't think it is.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's not that it's not serious and we
Speaker 1: shouldn't be paying attention to it. We should, you know, um,
Speaker 1: but this is the kind of thing that transmits differently
Speaker 1: than COVID, you know. I think there was a little
Speaker 1: fear around some of the media attention to it being
Speaker 1: potentially airborne. I think most people think that's not a risk.
Speaker 1: It really is transmitted primarily recently through sexual contacts. So
Speaker 1: it's important to get that message out in the communities
Speaker 1: where there are people who are vulnerable and may contract
Speaker 1: monkey pocks. It's not a sexually transmitted disease, it's not
Speaker 1: a SPI, but it is can be transmitted through that
Speaker 1: kind of activity, and so, you know, I think the
Speaker 1: focus has to be on contact tracing, making sure communities
Speaker 1: that are particularly at risk are aware. And then another approach.
Speaker 1: I think that people are thinking about bring vaccination. So
Speaker 1: if you've been exposed to monkey poks, you would vaccinate
Speaker 1: just the people who are close contact to ensure that
Speaker 1: it doesn't spread well. And that's the other thing lesa
Speaker 1: vaccination weariness. I mean, we're coming to the point where
Speaker 1: it's flu vaccination season again. Is vaccination weariness going to
Speaker 1: impact the number of flu vaccinations given out this year? Gosh,
Speaker 1: that's something I'm very worried about. So you tis to
Speaker 1: provide a little context to the first winter of our pandemic.
Speaker 1: We were locked down and you know, pretty locked down,
Speaker 1: and we had very little flu, almost none. It just
Speaker 1: never happens that way. And I think people in some
Speaker 1: of the high risk age groups, most prominently seniors, did
Speaker 1: a good job getting vaccinated. I think everyone was trying
Speaker 1: to get some sort of vaccine, that COVID vaccine. But
Speaker 1: last year, gosh, we had a little more flu. This
Speaker 1: season has been very wonky, but the fewer people in
Speaker 1: those vulnerable groups got vaccinated. So we've seen vaccination where
Speaker 1: rates drop over the last two years, and both kids
Speaker 1: and pregnant women who are at risk for serious outcomes
Speaker 1: from the flu. So I worry, you know, I worry
Speaker 1: with general vaccine fatigue that people aren't going to go
Speaker 1: out and get their shots. Lisa Jarvis there. We're now
Speaker 1: choosing to end all conversations not with you, though, as
Speaker 1: always we love to hear from you. I'm at Bonnie
Speaker 1: Quinn on Twitter, or send your thoughts to v Quinn
Speaker 1: at Bloomberg dot net. We're produced by Eric mollow Until
Speaker 1: next time on Bloomberg Opinion h