Speaker 1: Welcome to Prognosis. I'm Laura Carlson. It's day one thirty
Speaker 1: eight since coronavirus was declared a global pandemic. Today's main story.
Speaker 1: While drugmaker's race to develop a safe and effective vaccine,
Speaker 1: making one is just the first challenge. The global supply
Speaker 1: chain is not ready for what it takes to distribute
Speaker 1: an eventual vaccine to billions of people. But first, here's
Speaker 1: what happened in virus news today. The virus has found
Speaker 1: its way into a younger demographic around the world. Infections
Speaker 1: among millennials and Generation Z are driving new waves of cases,
Speaker 1: and even where restrictions have been reimposed, they are aren't
Speaker 1: abating easily. A major challenge psychological fatigue with social distancing,
Speaker 1: especially as the pandemic drags into its eighth month. Young
Speaker 1: adults are both less fearful of the coronavirus and face
Speaker 1: greater economic and social costs when they stay home. The
Speaker 1: trend may be a sign that social distancing is untenable
Speaker 1: over a long period, even though doing so flatten the
Speaker 1: virus curve in many places. Earlier this year, Google will
Speaker 1: keep its employees home until at least next July. According
Speaker 1: to a report, by Dow Jones. That makes the tech
Speaker 1: giant the first major US corporation to formalize such an
Speaker 1: extended timetable in the face of the pandemic. Finally, some
Speaker 1: insight into a potential vaccine. Once we've developed one, we
Speaker 1: may need to get a shot every year, just like
Speaker 1: the flu shot. Kate Bingham, head of the UK's COVID
Speaker 1: Vaccine Task Force, told Bloomberg TV that an initial dose
Speaker 1: will probably reduce the severity of symptoms and that continued
Speaker 1: treatment will be needed to maintain immunity. Bingham said people
Speaker 1: who have had COVID don't show long lasting immunity, and
Speaker 1: her task force is seeing a decline in antibodies that
Speaker 1: get generated after infection. A sterilizing vaccine that would prevent
Speaker 1: infection completely is still being pursued. Bingham also said it's
Speaker 1: unlikely any vaccine would be ready before the end of
Speaker 1: this year. Vaccine challenges are also the subject of today's
Speaker 1: main story. An effective vaccine is seen as the world's
Speaker 1: greatest hope for achieving some kind of return to normal,
Speaker 1: and the timeline for developing one has been sped up dramatically.
Speaker 1: But as hard as it's going to be to make
Speaker 1: a vaccine quickly. Once we do, we'll have a new
Speaker 1: problem getting it to billions of people. The industries that
Speaker 1: move goods around the world on ships, planes, and trucks
Speaker 1: acknowledge they aren't ready to handle the epic challenges involved
Speaker 1: in shipping an eventual vaccine to the world. I talked
Speaker 1: to reporter Brendan Murray who explains how difficult it will
Speaker 1: be for the global supply chain to distribute and administer
Speaker 1: the drug. So what are some of the issues with
Speaker 1: getting vaccines into the hands of billions of people? So
Speaker 1: the pharmaceutical companies are are scaling up in a massive
Speaker 1: way to try to deliver this UH and out to
Speaker 1: the coronavirus to billions and billions of people potentially. At
Speaker 1: the same time, the global economy is scaling down in
Speaker 1: a big way. That means ocean shipping companies, air freight
Speaker 1: companies are scaling back capacity to deal with the slower
Speaker 1: demand that the global economy is throwing off. So you
Speaker 1: have these conflicting forces creating a lot of challenges to
Speaker 1: to deliver UH. You know what could be you know,
Speaker 1: three or four or five billion vaccines to two people
Speaker 1: around the world. Now you have you know, a couple
Speaker 1: of other complications, one of the main ones being this
Speaker 1: vaccine is likely going to need to be, if not frozen,
Speaker 1: very close to freezing, and you maintained all throughout the
Speaker 1: transportation process. So uh, you know, there's really are real
Speaker 1: questions about whether there's capacity there to do that in
Speaker 1: any massive way that's going to be required. Now, you know,
Speaker 1: we've seen issues with supply chains before during this crisis.
Speaker 1: Obviously earlier on and I mean even continuing to now,
Speaker 1: there have been issues about getting um, personal protective equipment
Speaker 1: or ppe to healthcare workers, to everyone around the world. Now,
Speaker 1: why is the question of the vaccine and distribution a
Speaker 1: little bit different from that issue that we saw earlier? Right?
Speaker 1: I think most people would say, uh, if you're looking
Speaker 1: at it objectively, that supply chains, you know, we're bent
Speaker 1: and stretched, but they never really broke. Now. You you
Speaker 1: did see shortages of things like toilet paper or even
Speaker 1: you know, medical equipment, UM, but the systems that are
Speaker 1: designed to deliver products, you know, international supply chains essentially
Speaker 1: caught up pretty quickly and resolve that situation. With the vaccine,
Speaker 1: you have, as I said, you know, billions of people.
Speaker 1: They are going to need this, uh. And one of
Speaker 1: the experts that I listened to last week said that,
Speaker 1: you know, it takes one Boeing Triple seven to carry
Speaker 1: a million doses, so a thousand triple sevens to carry
Speaker 1: a billion. So if a billion people are going to
Speaker 1: get two doses of this, that's two thousand triple seven
Speaker 1: cargo planes full of them. And it's it's the vaccine
Speaker 1: isn't going to come all at once. It's going to
Speaker 1: come millions of doses at a time, and there's just
Speaker 1: no telling when exactly that's going to happen. And that
Speaker 1: creates problems for if you if you're a shipping company,
Speaker 1: an ocean freighter company, or or an air cargo company,
Speaker 1: you need to know, uh, you know when that's coming
Speaker 1: to be able to gauge the uh, the the amount
Speaker 1: of capacity you're going to devote to it to the
Speaker 1: demand side. And again, you know that the world economy
Speaker 1: is not going to stop and wait for vaccines to
Speaker 1: be delivered. You know they're going to have to do
Speaker 1: this on top of all the other pushing and pulling
Speaker 1: that you know, supply and demand are doing at the
Speaker 1: same time. And I was wondering if You might dig
Speaker 1: into that a little bit more. As you mentioned this,
Speaker 1: this demand for international resources supplies. Obviously, if and when
Speaker 1: there's a vaccine, that means that there will be distribution
Speaker 1: and demand needed globally. But we're also seeing this simultaneously
Speaker 1: at a point where a lot of world economies are
Speaker 1: contracting or even kind of slowing down their supply chains.
Speaker 1: I mean, what is the push pull there of how
Speaker 1: do we distribute something globally when the global supply chains
Speaker 1: are no longer as strong as they were even say
Speaker 1: a year ago. Yeah, exactly. It's a good point, and
Speaker 1: particularly at a time when you know this is going
Speaker 1: to take global coordination. The the issue that that I've
Speaker 1: heard in the past week or so from the experts
Speaker 1: is that there is no coordinated strategy right now. You
Speaker 1: have to start thinking about this stuff now. If it's
Speaker 1: going to happen in six months. You can't just sort
Speaker 1: of fire up a bunch of cargo planes and and
Speaker 1: and make this happen. So it's a difficult time to
Speaker 1: do so. Supply chains are stretched, countries are are saying
Speaker 1: or we don't want production coming from overseas anymore. They're
Speaker 1: getting very protectionists with the production of particularly drugs and
Speaker 1: medical gear. You know, in an environment where uh, you know,
Speaker 1: countries are already a skeptical of working with others uh
Speaker 1: and dealing dealing with you know, cross border movement of
Speaker 1: of things, particularly as as as vital as as a vaccine.
Speaker 1: You know, you could see all sorts of protectionism breakout
Speaker 1: and kind of the you know, the strong survive or
Speaker 1: the the wealthier country survive at the at the expense
Speaker 1: of of of other countries. There was an expert I
Speaker 1: heard this week who said, how are these vaccines going
Speaker 1: to get to you know, a rural area in Mozambique
Speaker 1: or upen into mountains in Peru if it needs to
Speaker 1: be refrigerated. I mean, the short answer is it's going
Speaker 1: to take a long time if it ever gets to
Speaker 1: places like that. On top of the issue of global economies,
Speaker 1: I mean, we're also looking at a crisis point in
Speaker 1: the airline industry itself, obviously in the wake of the
Speaker 1: pandemic um What are some of the unique challenges that
Speaker 1: the airline industry in particular is facing in terms of
Speaker 1: logistics distributing this vaccine. So the airline industry has both
Speaker 1: curtailed the supply of the capacity of of air cargo,
Speaker 1: because when passengers aren't flying, the bottom half of that
Speaker 1: plane is not filled with cargo. So they have both
Speaker 1: you know, when they grounded planes that left, uh that
Speaker 1: the air air cargo capacity and a real in a
Speaker 1: real crunch. Now, the flip side of that is you
Speaker 1: can turn a passenger plane into into one that haul's cargo.
Speaker 1: It it takes time and money, but they but they,
Speaker 1: but they've been able to do that. Emirates I believe
Speaker 1: has seventy Triple seven's former passenger planes that are now
Speaker 1: running cargo around the world. So that's that's the other
Speaker 1: reason why you need to plan ahead because the airline
Speaker 1: industry is not expecting this downturn to be you know,
Speaker 1: to last for you know, a couple or several more months.
Speaker 1: They're looking at this over the next two to three
Speaker 1: years and try and gauge how much air carbo capacity
Speaker 1: there is is just basically impossible right now. And let's
Speaker 1: finally talk timelines. There are several candidates right now in
Speaker 1: trials um there are numerous attempts to make a successful
Speaker 1: vaccine all over the world, and a lot of people
Speaker 1: are saying that we actually have quite a bit of
Speaker 1: time before we can really expect to see a successful vaccine.
Speaker 1: Will this amount of time in some way do you
Speaker 1: think give us the time we need to prepare for
Speaker 1: this distribution on a global scale. Well, that's one of
Speaker 1: the reasons why I think people in the in the
Speaker 1: transportation shipping logistics industry are kind of raising the alarm
Speaker 1: right now because the most optimistic scenario is the first
Speaker 1: doses are available by the end of the year. Most
Speaker 1: realists would say it's probably more like, you know, the
Speaker 1: first quarter or middle of next year before are tens
Speaker 1: of millions of these are going to be available. So
Speaker 1: that's that's a wide uh, you know, timetable to to
Speaker 1: plan how much how much airlift capacity you're gonna need. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think it's going to be a real there's a
Speaker 1: real question mark. Um. And as soon as that timetable
Speaker 1: is clearer than than the transportation folks can, can you
Speaker 1: get a plan together to do it? You know that
Speaker 1: the fallback is if the private industry can't do this,
Speaker 1: you know, then you you could conceivably see the governments
Speaker 1: in various countries, maybe even the military takeover that that role.
Speaker 1: That was Brendan Murray in London, and that's it for
Speaker 1: our show today. For coverage of the outbreak from one
Speaker 1: bureaus around the world, visit Bloomberg dot com slash Coronavirus
Speaker 1: and if you like the show, please leave us a
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Speaker 1: The Prognosis Daily edition is produced by Tophor foreheads Jordan Gaspore,
Speaker 1: Magnus Hendrickson and me Laura Carlson. Today's main story was
Speaker 1: reported by Brendan Murray. Original music by Leo Sidrin. Our
Speaker 1: editors are Rick Shine and Francesca Levi. Francesco Levi is
Speaker 1: Bloomberg's head of podcasts. Thanks for listening.