Speaker 1: Welcome to Prognosis. I'm Laura Carlson. It's day two hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty four since coronavirus was declared a global pandemic.
Speaker 1: Today's main story. Amid a lame duck presidency and with
Speaker 1: the widespread availability of a COVID nineteen vaccine months away,
Speaker 1: US governors have become the first line of defense against
Speaker 1: the pandemics. Winter onslaught with the holidays around the corner,
Speaker 1: many local authorities have little choice but to act as
Speaker 1: the virus sets daily records across the country. But first,
Speaker 1: here's what happened in virus news today. A COVID nineteen
Speaker 1: vaccine developed by the University of Oxford and Astra Zeneca
Speaker 1: was shown to prevent a majority of people from getting
Speaker 1: the disease. Although positive news, the vaccine fell short of
Speaker 1: the bar set by those in development by five and moderna.
Speaker 1: On average, the Oxford and astra Zenica vaccine prevented seventy
Speaker 1: percent of cases in large trials in the UK and Brazil.
Speaker 1: Astra Zenica announced that it would prepare to file its
Speaker 1: data to global regulators, including an emergency use listing from
Speaker 1: the World Health Organization. Italy has become the second nation
Speaker 1: in the European region after the UK to reach fifty
Speaker 1: thousand deaths from the coronavirus. Italy reported six hundred and
Speaker 1: thirty daily deaths on Monday as cases surge in the country,
Speaker 1: prompting a region by region lockdown. Meanwhile, in Asia, the
Speaker 1: highly anticipated travel bubble between Hong Kong and Singapore was shelved.
Speaker 1: The bubble had once been heralded as the first in
Speaker 1: the world, allowing people to travel to and from the
Speaker 1: two areas without the knee to quarantine. Two sides had
Speaker 1: previously agreed to suspending the bubble if local infections exceeded
Speaker 1: five on a rolling seven day average. Hong Kong reported
Speaker 1: sixty three new local cases on Monday. A new launch
Speaker 1: date for the travel bubble has yet to be announced,
Speaker 1: and now for today's main story. With more than twelve
Speaker 1: million cases and over two hundred and fifty thousand deaths,
Speaker 1: the US response to COVID nineteen has stood out on
Speaker 1: the world stage as ineffectual and scatter shot. Amid surgeon
Speaker 1: case counts and a tense presidential transition, governors have had
Speaker 1: to face hard choices about how to stem the rising
Speaker 1: tide of coronavirus in their states. I spoke to reporter
Speaker 1: em A Court who discussed how with a lack of
Speaker 1: federal leadership, it has fallen to local authorities to impose
Speaker 1: mask mandates, curfews, and potentially even lockdowns before the winter
Speaker 1: and the holidays hit. You know, since the pandemic began,
Speaker 1: how would you describe the role of state authorities, let's say,
Speaker 1: governors in determining their state's response to COVID nineteen. When
Speaker 1: we're talking about restrictions, lockdowns, or even say mask requirements.
Speaker 1: Throughout this pandemic, governors have really been the front lines
Speaker 1: of the COVID response, and we've heard that very clearly
Speaker 1: from the federal government saying states need to take a
Speaker 1: leading role in this because only they can understand the
Speaker 1: local conditions, what's appropriate in their states. That kind of
Speaker 1: thing and the consequence of has been really a patchwork
Speaker 1: of different regulations and conditions in different states. And someone
Speaker 1: in New York City, for instance, might travel to another
Speaker 1: state and be shocked by what they see going on there,
Speaker 1: because you really do have such drastically different things. You know,
Speaker 1: Indoor dining in one state might be off limits in
Speaker 1: another state. There might not even be capacity restrictions on
Speaker 1: indoor dining. So it's a pretty big change depending on
Speaker 1: where you are. And I mean, how would you characterize
Speaker 1: the relationship, say, between state and federal responsibility in terms
Speaker 1: of these mandates or restrictions. And do you think we're
Speaker 1: seeing more state action or more governors act due to
Speaker 1: perhaps a lack of leadership from the federal level. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a really good question. What you'd hear from the
Speaker 1: federal government from the Trump administration is, look, this is
Speaker 1: what we want to happen. We want states to take
Speaker 1: the lead on this um. But I think what we've
Speaker 1: heard from consistently from public health experts throughout this entire
Speaker 1: pandemic has been you need the power of the federal
Speaker 1: government marshaling a unified national response, not just because otherwise
Speaker 1: you have fifty sets of states grappling with fifty sets
Speaker 1: of policies about how people should behave be behaving, but
Speaker 1: also because of the fact that resources that are involved
Speaker 1: here too. Right, We're talking about protective equipment, we're talking
Speaker 1: about testing, We're talking about all these different supplies that
Speaker 1: every state needs, and so um this has been a
Speaker 1: real point of tension throughout the pandemic. With the election, though,
Speaker 1: we are seeing things change quite a bit because suddenly
Speaker 1: you have a lame duck administration that won't acknowledge that
Speaker 1: it has been defeated in an election, and it's unclear
Speaker 1: that the federal government is going to do anything beyond
Speaker 1: what it's done so far. In some states, we're seeing
Speaker 1: governors who have been here too for reluctant to impose
Speaker 1: things like mask mandates starting to take those steps. Places
Speaker 1: like Iowa, Utah, North Dakota suddenly having mask mandates. We
Speaker 1: were suddenly seeing a period where there is sort of
Speaker 1: a power vacuum and states are kind of having to
Speaker 1: step up because really, in some cases they have they
Speaker 1: have no choice. Yeah, and I was hoping you might
Speaker 1: actually dig deeper on that of you know, either within
Speaker 1: this more recent time frame in terms of this dramatic
Speaker 1: rising cases we're seeing throughout the U S or or
Speaker 1: just we're generally throughout these nine months of the pandemic,
Speaker 1: what types of restrictions and requirements have we seen governors impose. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we're seeing honestly measures that look a lot like the
Speaker 1: start of the pandemic that are you know, heavier handed
Speaker 1: than we've seen for first periods of months. Right We're
Speaker 1: seeing MASK mandates being implemented in states that didn't have
Speaker 1: MASK mandates before. We are seeing new capacity restrictions being
Speaker 1: placed on businesses, were even seeing curfews in some places.
Speaker 1: We're seeing, you know, the return of stay at home orders,
Speaker 1: limited shutdown. So these are things that that really do
Speaker 1: kind of feel like deja vu, right um, And I
Speaker 1: think for a long time it was believed that we
Speaker 1: would never return to these kinds of aggressive measures, really
Speaker 1: replicating some of the periods of time when we didn't
Speaker 1: know anything about this virus, because we know so much
Speaker 1: more about the how the virus spreads now and we
Speaker 1: can have more targeted measures that can you know, for instance,
Speaker 1: shut down specific neighborhoods that are hot spots and closed
Speaker 1: essential business closed businesses that aren't essential. They're things like that.
Speaker 1: That's not what's happening now. We're seeing kind of the
Speaker 1: return to the days of of lockdowns. We're seeing the
Speaker 1: virus so out of control that leaders are are feeling
Speaker 1: like they have to really close things down in a
Speaker 1: way that's extremely extremely aggressive. For instance, this past weekend,
Speaker 1: we even saw Los Angeles county say they're closing outdoor
Speaker 1: dining and and the big overarching question is is it
Speaker 1: too little, too late? You know, are things so out
Speaker 1: of control in this country that these measures won't work
Speaker 1: or won't work fast enough. And that raises another point
Speaker 1: about how state populations are responding to these new, often
Speaker 1: very much increased restrictions. Are people willing to adhere to
Speaker 1: these new restrictions As to whether they'll work, We'll have
Speaker 1: to see with time, um, but we have seen people
Speaker 1: protesting these new restrictions in various states saying, you know,
Speaker 1: you don't have control over me. This is, you know,
Speaker 1: the government can't tell me what to do or whether
Speaker 1: I can gather with people inside of my home for instance.
Speaker 1: You know, it's unclear exactly how widespread that sentiment is.
Speaker 1: I think people in the US are generally seeing these
Speaker 1: measures for what they are, which is really a statement
Speaker 1: of how bad things are. Another big question, though, is
Speaker 1: you know, when you mandate things like this, you know,
Speaker 1: are you really gonna put enforcement behind that? For instance,
Speaker 1: I recently heard the Illinois Department of Public Health director
Speaker 1: talking about how they had a mask mandate in the state,
Speaker 1: but you know, compliance was really only about fifty or
Speaker 1: sixty percent, and they didn't have the resources to go
Speaker 1: around ticketing people for not wearing masks. So you know,
Speaker 1: things like mask mandates, you know, are only so effective
Speaker 1: as you know, if people actually follow them, it's gonna
Speaker 1: be interesting to see what happens. There's this real public
Speaker 1: private divide emerging between you know, you can shut down,
Speaker 1: for instance, non essential businesses, you can limit their capacity,
Speaker 1: you can limit their operating hours. But ultimately, you know,
Speaker 1: even if you announced restrictions on indoor gatherings, as we've
Speaker 1: seen some states do say, oh, you know, limit your
Speaker 1: indoor gatherings even in your own home to only ten
Speaker 1: or fifteen people. All that's something that's a little bit
Speaker 1: harder to enforce. And you bring up a very relevant point,
Speaker 1: particularly for this week in terms of gathering in in
Speaker 1: private homes. With Thanksgiving coming up on Thursday. This has
Speaker 1: been a concern for weeks over a potential further spread
Speaker 1: of COVID nineteen with with families and friends gathering together
Speaker 1: for the holiday. What if we heard from state or
Speaker 1: local authorities about trying to prevent that exact scenario from happening.
Speaker 1: Are we seeing more restrictions or more mandates to try
Speaker 1: and tamp down any spread related to the Thanksgiving holiday.
Speaker 1: This is a huge hot button issue right now in
Speaker 1: the United States, and it's really unclear what's going to
Speaker 1: happen after this holiday. I think we're seeing a lot
Speaker 1: of early evidence that people are in fact traveling for Thanksgivings.
Speaker 1: We heard the CDC last week say please don't travel
Speaker 1: for Thanksgiving and please don't celebrate with someone who's outside
Speaker 1: of your immediate household. But we have seen data from
Speaker 1: you know, airports and airport screenings showing that people are traveling. Um,
Speaker 1: we're seeing colleges sending students home for Thanksgiving as well.
Speaker 1: A lot of colleges that have done in person semesters
Speaker 1: are concluding them at Thanksgiving and sending students home. So
Speaker 1: there's gonna be a degree of travel happening no matter what.
Speaker 1: By and large, the guidance has been please don't celebrate
Speaker 1: a big Thanksgiving. Please be as careful as possible. If
Speaker 1: you're going to celebrate Thanksgiving, please do it outside and
Speaker 1: limit how many people. But we are seeing some governors
Speaker 1: saying I'm not I'm not going to tell you not
Speaker 1: to celebrate Thanksgiving. UM. For instance, the governor of South
Speaker 1: Dakota recently said, you know, I'm not going to tell
Speaker 1: you not to spend time together this Thanksgiving. She she
Speaker 1: actually said in South Dakota, we won't stop or discourage
Speaker 1: you from thinking God and spending time together this Thanksgiving.
Speaker 1: And so it does has become this very politically fraud topic,
Speaker 1: and it's very emotional. You know. I think it's gonna
Speaker 1: be really important for public health officials to acknowledge some
Speaker 1: of the emotional burden of this, you know, as we
Speaker 1: proceed forward, because it's it's holiday season, right, It's not
Speaker 1: just Thanksgiving, It's not just Christmas. We have a whole
Speaker 1: range of holidays ahead, and this is the time people
Speaker 1: traditionally come together. Suddenly that's very dangerous. That was Emma Cord.
Speaker 1: And that's it for our show today. For coverage of
Speaker 1: the outbreak from one D and twenty bureaus around the world,
Speaker 1: visit Bloomberg dot com slash Coronavirus and if you like
Speaker 1: the show, please leave us a review and a rating
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Speaker 1: help more listeners find our global reporting. The Prognosis Daily
Speaker 1: edition is produced by Topor Foreheads, Jordan gas Pure, Magnus Hendrickson,
Speaker 1: and me Laura Carlson. Today's main story was reported by
Speaker 1: Emma Court. Original music by Leo Sidrin. Our editors are
Speaker 1: Rick Shine and Francesco Levi. Francesco Levi is Bloomberg's head
Speaker 1: of podcasts. Thanks for listening.