WEBVTT - How We Can Defeat the Next Pandemic 0:00:01.800 --> 0:00:04.440 This is Bloomberg Business Week. I'm Karl Masser and I'm 0:00:04.480 --> 0:00:07.280 Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim Stanovk. We're here every day bringing 0:00:07.320 --> 0:00:09.840 you the latest news from the world to business and finance, 0:00:09.840 --> 0:00:13.640 plus technology, politics, economics, all purtnising the power of Business 0:00:13.680 --> 0:00:17.159 Week reporters and editors, not to mention our journalists and 0:00:17.160 --> 0:00:20.000 analyst in more than one twenty countries. You can download 0:00:20.000 --> 0:00:23.239 Bloomberg Business Week and iTunes, SoundCloud, or Bloomberg dot Com. 0:00:23.400 --> 0:00:25.200 You can also listen to our radio show at two 0:00:25.200 --> 0:00:27.760 pm Eastern Time on the Bloomberg Radio or watch us 0:00:27.760 --> 0:00:32.519 on YouTube search Bloomberg Clovel News. Alright, uh fed Wednesday, 0:00:32.560 --> 0:00:34.280 no doubt about it. We've also got a new edition 0:00:34.320 --> 0:00:37.000 of Bloomberg Business Week magazine coming out online on the 0:00:37.040 --> 0:00:40.680 Bloomberg and on newstands tomorrow officially sooner than you think. 0:00:40.680 --> 0:00:43.640 Issue and one of the stories gets into the one 0:00:44.400 --> 0:00:47.760 million Americans tims still without high speed internet access and 0:00:47.800 --> 0:00:50.120 how now may be their best shot in a generation 0:00:50.360 --> 0:00:53.400 at getting it. Yeah. Austin Cars a technology reporter for 0:00:53.520 --> 0:00:56.400 Bloomberg News. He joins us on the phone from l A. 0:00:56.400 --> 0:00:59.920 Austin It's I was actually traveling to a rural air 0:01:00.360 --> 0:01:02.760 of h well, it's not even that rural. The Cat 0:01:02.840 --> 0:01:06.280 Skills over the weekend, uh, and my friends who live 0:01:06.360 --> 0:01:10.479 up there just got broadband internet access for the first 0:01:10.520 --> 0:01:13.200 time in the last couple of years. And this is 0:01:13.200 --> 0:01:15.920 an area that many people go to and many people 0:01:15.959 --> 0:01:19.880 rely on because certainly people rely on broadband if they're 0:01:19.959 --> 0:01:21.880 doing remote work, if they need to apply to jobs. 0:01:21.880 --> 0:01:24.280 And it's still just mind boggling that so many Americans 0:01:24.319 --> 0:01:26.840 do not have access to broadband. Take us into your 0:01:26.880 --> 0:01:30.959 story and what Washington is doing to get these million 0:01:31.000 --> 0:01:33.880 Americans who do not have high speed internet access access. 0:01:34.920 --> 0:01:37.160 So yeah, that's what Tim. What you witnesses in the 0:01:37.440 --> 0:01:41.399 Cat Skills is exactly what I witnessed reporting in rural Arkansas, 0:01:41.480 --> 0:01:44.200 which is it's just a different world than uh, the 0:01:44.240 --> 0:01:48.080 Internet have have experienced versus the Internet have not. You 0:01:48.280 --> 0:01:50.840 where I went to in the Arkansas Delta, which is 0:01:50.840 --> 0:01:54.000 about you know, a couple hours outside of Little Rock, 0:01:54.520 --> 0:01:59.160 very remote, very rural parts, high poverty rates, low density population, 0:01:59.400 --> 0:02:02.680 and you know, only recently one of the internet providers 0:02:03.240 --> 0:02:05.360 I talked with had just turned off their dial up 0:02:05.400 --> 0:02:08.640 internet which they had been you know, charging fifty cents 0:02:08.639 --> 0:02:12.120 per hour. It's just a different world. You don't realize 0:02:12.160 --> 0:02:14.440 that they can't stream Netflix there, they can't do Zoom, 0:02:14.480 --> 0:02:17.200 they can't book a COVID appointment if they don't have 0:02:17.280 --> 0:02:20.640 internet access. And so what I want to show with 0:02:20.720 --> 0:02:22.920 the story is what it looks like on the ground 0:02:23.280 --> 0:02:28.040 as Washington considers tackling this digital divide with the infrastructure 0:02:28.080 --> 0:02:30.640 or spending bill, which is making its way through through 0:02:30.639 --> 0:02:33.640 Congress right now, is through the House as well, and 0:02:34.040 --> 0:02:37.720 they're considering spending tens of billions of dollars on broadband 0:02:37.720 --> 0:02:41.120 deployment subsidies and giving us potentially the best shot in 0:02:41.160 --> 0:02:44.000 many years that a really narrowing the gap. And the 0:02:44.040 --> 0:02:45.920 big debate is how do we actually do that, what 0:02:45.960 --> 0:02:49.400 technologies do we invest in? Uh, what's the best bang 0:02:49.440 --> 0:02:52.000 for our buck? And the story shows what it's like, 0:02:52.880 --> 0:02:55.480 what the reality is like in places like World Arkansas, 0:02:55.480 --> 0:02:57.400 and what you saw in the cat Skills of how 0:02:57.480 --> 0:03:00.040 much it takes to actually close that divide with a 0:03:00.080 --> 0:03:02.080 structure on the ground, Well, how much does it take? 0:03:02.160 --> 0:03:04.760 Because in order for my friends and I'd actually spent 0:03:04.840 --> 0:03:06.800 a lot of time Saturday night talking to them about 0:03:06.840 --> 0:03:08.480 this because this is the first time I had visited 0:03:08.480 --> 0:03:10.400 them in the seven years that they've lived up there 0:03:10.400 --> 0:03:13.360 that they had high speed internet. Every other time they've 0:03:13.360 --> 0:03:15.959 relied on a satellite to actually get them internet access, 0:03:15.960 --> 0:03:18.600 and they were capped at fifteen gigs a month, which 0:03:18.960 --> 0:03:21.400 is really nothing. I mean, people use fifteen gigs a month, 0:03:21.520 --> 0:03:23.800 uh in a day if they're streaming something high definition, 0:03:23.840 --> 0:03:25.800 or in a couple of days. Uh. And and I 0:03:25.840 --> 0:03:28.520 wonder about the way that technology has changed because they 0:03:28.520 --> 0:03:32.280 actually got cable laid down, which is very expensive. But 0:03:32.560 --> 0:03:36.119 you see companies like Starlink Elon Musk's satellite company being 0:03:36.120 --> 0:03:39.600 able to offer potentially lower cost solutions. So what's the 0:03:39.640 --> 0:03:42.440 technology needed here and how much has it cost? So 0:03:42.520 --> 0:03:45.000 in the Arkansas Delta that the big debate is how 0:03:45.080 --> 0:03:47.520 much do you spend on fiber, which is the gold standard, 0:03:47.520 --> 0:03:50.240 that's what you have with every high speed internet pretty 0:03:50.280 --> 0:03:52.680 much and every your wealthier urban part of America at 0:03:52.720 --> 0:03:55.400 this point, or do you invest in sort of a 0:03:55.480 --> 0:04:00.320 riskier technology like Elon Musk's Starling satellites which orbit uh 0:04:00.680 --> 0:04:03.600 lower part over the Earth and zap coverage from space. 0:04:03.920 --> 0:04:06.280 There's five G home Internet, which is sort of a 0:04:06.400 --> 0:04:08.680 home based version of what you get from say T 0:04:08.880 --> 0:04:11.680 Mobile or a T n T or Verizon UM or 0:04:11.680 --> 0:04:15.760 their fixed wireless tools, which like citizens Broadband Radio service, 0:04:15.800 --> 0:04:17.920 which is actually what a bunch of the local Internet 0:04:17.920 --> 0:04:20.680 providers in Arkansas are using these days. UH. It's a 0:04:20.720 --> 0:04:24.560 wireless spectrum historically used by the U. S. Navy to 0:04:24.560 --> 0:04:27.280 to sort of beam radar transmissions, and the STEC has 0:04:27.320 --> 0:04:31.320 repurposed that spectrum for commercial youth, allowing local players to 0:04:31.320 --> 0:04:34.679 sort of beam Internet coverage using radio antennas, which sounds 0:04:34.720 --> 0:04:36.400 kind of old school, but it works for up to 0:04:36.480 --> 0:04:39.159 six miles. It's not as fast or reliable as fiber, 0:04:39.360 --> 0:04:41.479 but it gives decent speeds and costs a fraction of 0:04:41.520 --> 0:04:44.200 physically wiring up every home in America. And so that 0:04:44.360 --> 0:04:46.880 that's really comes down to this cost benefit analysis of 0:04:47.240 --> 0:04:50.159 in rural In rural Arkansas, I'm told it can cost 0:04:50.400 --> 0:04:52.760 fifty thou or more to get a fiber optic cable 0:04:53.240 --> 0:04:55.800 uh laid into the ground, and that's not including trenching 0:04:55.800 --> 0:04:59.200 costs or construction, etcetera. UM, And so how much are 0:04:59.200 --> 0:05:01.480 you willing to invest than that versus the far cheaper 0:05:01.520 --> 0:05:04.640 but maybe less reliable technology that might not be relevant 0:05:04.680 --> 0:05:07.200 ten years that might need to be eventually replaced in fiber, 0:05:07.360 --> 0:05:10.440 but will help get more people online tomorrow instead of 0:05:10.640 --> 0:05:12.800 ten years from now. It is still striking how many 0:05:12.880 --> 0:05:15.920 Americans are without high speed internet access because we take 0:05:15.920 --> 0:05:18.480 it for granted, certainly here on the East Coast. So 0:05:18.600 --> 0:05:21.960 the infrastructure build, does that provide enough money to really 0:05:22.000 --> 0:05:25.479 move the needle here? And what specifically, uh you're getting 0:05:25.480 --> 0:05:27.479 into some of the technologies, I mean, what do what 0:05:27.600 --> 0:05:29.760 needs to be the first couple of steps to move 0:05:29.839 --> 0:05:34.040 towards uh, hooking up those twenty million Americans. Yeah, the 0:05:34.240 --> 0:05:38.080 biggest hold back is actually the SEC's data. It's historically 0:05:38.120 --> 0:05:41.440 been incredibly inaccurate because it's based on census blocks. And 0:05:41.480 --> 0:05:43.520 this is something the SEC is acknowledged, just based on 0:05:43.560 --> 0:05:47.320 census block rather than sort of address by address breakdown 0:05:47.880 --> 0:05:51.440 of the Internet access in America. So the SEC estimates 0:05:51.520 --> 0:05:55.840 roughly between fourteen and eighteen million people don't have broadband access, 0:05:55.880 --> 0:06:00.719 whereas outside um analyzes from from different research group estimate 0:06:00.760 --> 0:06:03.640 the number is as much as forty two million Americans 0:06:03.640 --> 0:06:06.080 without broadband access, or as many as a hundred and 0:06:06.080 --> 0:06:08.240 twenty million if you're just talking about people who don't 0:06:08.279 --> 0:06:11.120 have Internet at broadband speeds like like that that what 0:06:11.240 --> 0:06:13.760 you need to stream Netflix. So so the biggest first 0:06:13.760 --> 0:06:16.479 step here is actually just figuring out where to close 0:06:16.520 --> 0:06:18.520 the gap, because you can't narrow the digital divide if 0:06:18.560 --> 0:06:20.400 you don't know where it is. And then the next 0:06:20.440 --> 0:06:22.800 step is just figuring out how much money can we 0:06:22.839 --> 0:06:26.600 afford uh to sort of break down this problem. And 0:06:27.000 --> 0:06:28.640 I think the issue is a lot of critics have 0:06:28.680 --> 0:06:31.680 said that the broadband subsidies aren't likely going to be 0:06:31.680 --> 0:06:34.320 big enough to do a fiber only network across of 0:06:34.839 --> 0:06:37.360 all of America. The Senate bill right now includes about 0:06:37.600 --> 0:06:41.920 forty two billion dollars for broadband deployments, whereas you know, 0:06:42.000 --> 0:06:44.720 some some estimates say it would cost as much as 0:06:44.720 --> 0:06:47.599 two hundred and forty billion at least just to do 0:06:47.680 --> 0:06:50.240 a five or old need network across America. So if 0:06:50.279 --> 0:06:52.120 we're trying to wire up everyone, we're not going to 0:06:52.160 --> 0:06:53.760 be able to afford it. So the question is what 0:06:53.839 --> 0:06:56.159 are these other technologies? Do we use more satellites than 0:06:56.160 --> 0:06:58.919 fixed wireless to wire up the country or do we 0:06:59.000 --> 0:07:01.480 just try to build a much fiber as possible with 0:07:01.520 --> 0:07:03.719 that spending in this spill he Austin, what's the what's 0:07:03.720 --> 0:07:06.480 the other side of this coin here, the the economic 0:07:06.600 --> 0:07:09.880 cost of not having these more than one million Americans 0:07:10.240 --> 0:07:15.760 connected with broadband internet. What is I mean? Yeah, it's 0:07:15.640 --> 0:07:17.640 a it's a tragic cost. I'm not sure if it's 0:07:17.680 --> 0:07:20.720 it must be difficult to quantify, but it's something that 0:07:20.800 --> 0:07:23.080 The reason there's been more emphasis on this subject is 0:07:23.120 --> 0:07:27.119 because the COVID nineteen pandemic um. You know, prior to 0:07:27.240 --> 0:07:30.080 the pandemic um, you know a lot of folks that 0:07:30.240 --> 0:07:32.680 it said that any infrastructure bill that came up, it 0:07:32.760 --> 0:07:36.000 was always about investing in roads or bridges or railroads. 0:07:36.080 --> 0:07:38.320 And when I talked to the Rural Broadband Association, they 0:07:38.400 --> 0:07:41.000 just kept saying, Hey, it's also in addition to roads 0:07:41.000 --> 0:07:44.080 and bridges, it's also broadband. It's also broadband. It's also broadband. 0:07:44.200 --> 0:07:47.200 And that didn't change the Congress's perspective on that didn't 0:07:47.200 --> 0:07:50.720 really change until the COVID pandemic, when suddenly they realized 0:07:50.960 --> 0:07:53.760 employers couldn't have people working from home because they couldn't 0:07:53.760 --> 0:07:56.560 access zoom, or kids couldn't work from home and do 0:07:56.600 --> 0:07:59.400 their homework because they didn't have uh Internet access. When 0:07:59.400 --> 0:08:02.200 I was an orchand saw, I learned that a handful 0:08:02.200 --> 0:08:04.800 of kids were working outside at a local park center, 0:08:05.160 --> 0:08:08.080 a state run park center, because it had public WiFi, 0:08:08.360 --> 0:08:10.640 and they were working outside in ninety degree heat, and 0:08:10.680 --> 0:08:12.720 that the park ranger brought out fans to cool them off. 0:08:12.880 --> 0:08:15.840 So that that's the real tragic costs that you're seeing 0:08:15.840 --> 0:08:17.400 on the ground. I don't know if I have a 0:08:17.480 --> 0:08:20.200 quantified number for you, but that that's why this is, 0:08:20.320 --> 0:08:23.960 this debate is really uh coming to the forefront right 0:08:24.000 --> 0:08:26.240 now in the Infrastructure Bill of trying to solve that 0:08:26.280 --> 0:08:29.080 digital divide, because man, we saw that during the pandemic 0:08:29.120 --> 0:08:32.240 that the US is just not prepared for a remote society. Well, 0:08:32.280 --> 0:08:34.880 a good story, Austin Carr, thank you so much. This 0:08:35.040 --> 0:08:39.560 is Bloomberg. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol 0:08:39.600 --> 0:08:44.080 Masser and Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim Stinovic on Bloomberg Radio. 0:08:44.640 --> 0:08:46.839 And we've got some breaking news crossing the Bloomberg terminal, 0:08:46.880 --> 0:08:51.720 a Bloomberg exclusive. Facebook's chief technology officer, Mike Chauffeur stecing 0:08:52.000 --> 0:08:56.840 down the CTEO changes posted internally by CEO Mark Zuckerberg. 0:08:56.920 --> 0:08:59.680 So let's get to it and get some clarification on 0:08:59.800 --> 0:09:02.880 the is again a Bloomberg exclusive with us is Bloomberg 0:09:02.920 --> 0:09:06.120 News Corporate Influence reporter Naomi Nick. She's in our interactive 0:09:06.120 --> 0:09:09.920 broker studio. You are here. What's going on? Yes, So 0:09:10.000 --> 0:09:13.480 Mike Schrepfer will be stepping down next year. He's currently 0:09:14.000 --> 0:09:17.679 UM the chief Technology officer for Facebook, so he handles 0:09:18.080 --> 0:09:20.199 UM a lot of the areas that are actually pretty 0:09:20.240 --> 0:09:26.920 critical to Facebook's growth, like augmented reality, blockchain, virtual reality, 0:09:27.440 --> 0:09:30.240 and UM. So this is a significant departure for Facebook, 0:09:30.320 --> 0:09:32.880 significant departure and also a familiar name to people who've 0:09:32.880 --> 0:09:37.319 been watching Facebook for years. Stepping up bos Facebook's hardware 0:09:37.360 --> 0:09:41.160 boss Bosworth to become CTO next year. Uh, tell us 0:09:41.160 --> 0:09:43.080 about bos In his history at the company and what 0:09:43.120 --> 0:09:46.280 he's going to and what it signals that he's becoming CTO. Well, 0:09:46.320 --> 0:09:49.360 this is you know, it's an interesting move for him 0:09:49.400 --> 0:09:53.880 given how much Facebook has been emphasizing it's push into hardware, 0:09:54.200 --> 0:09:57.720 so it has an ocuous unit. UM. It's also you know, 0:09:57.920 --> 0:10:02.320 just recently released a SMA art glasses. Facebook really sees 0:10:02.760 --> 0:10:07.440 its growth area in in creating hardware devices to be 0:10:07.559 --> 0:10:10.600 kind of the next cell phone. I gotta ask you, 0:10:10.640 --> 0:10:12.360 because Facebook has been in the news a lot. We 0:10:12.360 --> 0:10:14.280 should remind everybody to the stock I think hit a 0:10:14.320 --> 0:10:16.840 four month low in today's session. We've seen some pressure 0:10:16.880 --> 0:10:20.079 here UM the New York Times as reporting that Facebook 0:10:20.080 --> 0:10:23.080 promoted positive stories about itself on users news feeds. We 0:10:23.080 --> 0:10:25.720 know they've come under a lot of criticism in terms 0:10:25.840 --> 0:10:29.720 of blocking misinformation on their platform. Is this that all connected? 0:10:30.120 --> 0:10:34.480 My understanding is his group, UH, is the group that 0:10:34.720 --> 0:10:37.960 UM I think was very much involved in removing content 0:10:38.000 --> 0:10:41.880 that violates its policies like nudity, hate speech, and graphic violence. Yes, 0:10:41.960 --> 0:10:45.200 I mean he does oversee the technology that's central to 0:10:45.240 --> 0:10:47.680 those efforts for Facebook. And yeah, I mean it is 0:10:47.720 --> 0:10:51.240 at a time where the company's really under siege, UM 0:10:51.360 --> 0:10:56.120 from multiple investigations from multiple news organizations spanning you know, 0:10:56.160 --> 0:10:59.040 the fact that UM there might be a legal sales 0:10:59.120 --> 0:11:02.800 of of call, you know, illegal car with stings on 0:11:02.880 --> 0:11:07.319 its Facebook marketplace, to how it handles human trafficking UM 0:11:07.400 --> 0:11:10.240 and so, uh you know it's it's so is he 0:11:10.320 --> 0:11:12.800 a fall guy? And I said New York Times reporting 0:11:12.800 --> 0:11:14.520 Wall Street Journal has done a lot of reporting right 0:11:14.840 --> 0:11:17.120 and others on all of this. Is he a fall guy? Here? 0:11:17.320 --> 0:11:20.320 I wouldn't go that far, but I would say, Um, 0:11:20.360 --> 0:11:23.080 it's at a time where Facebook has seen a number 0:11:23.120 --> 0:11:27.440 of departures for veteran so like Fiji Samomo, who was 0:11:27.920 --> 0:11:31.000 also at Facebook recently left to become CEO of Instacart. 0:11:31.280 --> 0:11:38.199 Carolyn Everson, who oversaw Facebook's businesses with advertisers, she also 0:11:38.280 --> 0:11:40.840 recently departed, and they were both people who were at 0:11:40.880 --> 0:11:43.080 the company for more than a decade. And so this 0:11:43.160 --> 0:11:46.400 is another one of those types of departures I do, 0:11:46.520 --> 0:11:48.480 I go ahead, I just gonna say Facebook down about 0:11:48.520 --> 0:11:50.120 six times of a percent in the after I was 0:11:50.160 --> 0:11:52.319 It was down four percent in the regular trade. Now, 0:11:52.320 --> 0:11:55.280 I mean wondering just about again back to Bobs because 0:11:55.400 --> 0:11:58.880 for for people who've been watching Facebook, Andrew Bosworth closely 0:11:58.920 --> 0:12:02.240 for years a familiar name and internally too, and in 0:12:02.320 --> 0:12:06.079 this coming from an internal posting the company recruiting from 0:12:06.120 --> 0:12:08.640 inside the company, keeping people who've been at the company 0:12:08.640 --> 0:12:10.959 a long time and elevating them even though they got 0:12:11.120 --> 0:12:15.360 they've seen these departures from long time executives very recently. Yeah, 0:12:15.400 --> 0:12:18.959 it's actually an interesting, um, you know move for Facebook 0:12:19.160 --> 0:12:21.960 in particular because the company has gotten criticism that it's 0:12:22.000 --> 0:12:24.600 too insular, and it's thinking that it drinks its own 0:12:24.679 --> 0:12:28.720 kool aid and doesn't accept the perspectives of outsiders enough. 0:12:29.120 --> 0:12:31.600 And so you know, this is one of those moves 0:12:31.600 --> 0:12:35.000 that could invite that kind of scrutiny, you know, in 0:12:35.040 --> 0:12:38.360 the future. And so the question is if they continue 0:12:38.400 --> 0:12:41.880 to recruit within, will they change and be able to 0:12:42.040 --> 0:12:45.240 address the criticisms they're facing. Is their net take away 0:12:45.240 --> 0:12:46.720 from all of this, And I know we're gonna be 0:12:46.720 --> 0:12:50.120 covering this into the Thursday trade, Um, I'm just curious. 0:12:50.679 --> 0:12:54.800 I would say it means that Facebook's leadership is shuffling, 0:12:54.920 --> 0:12:57.280 and the question is will there be more departures, will 0:12:57.320 --> 0:12:59.880 there be more reshuffling at the top, and how to 0:13:00.080 --> 0:13:03.240 that effect the direction of the company? Yeah, a day word, 0:13:03.240 --> 0:13:07.320 Facebook closed down four percent to Naomi over those challenges 0:13:07.360 --> 0:13:11.400 that the company is having with Apple's new UH privacy 0:13:11.679 --> 0:13:15.640 settings as well. Naomi Nicks is social media and corporate 0:13:15.679 --> 0:13:19.360 governance reporter. She joins US Live with the Bloomberg Exclusive. 0:13:20.400 --> 0:13:24.000 You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and 0:13:24.080 --> 0:13:28.360 Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim Stinovic on Bloomberg Radio. Well, our 0:13:28.400 --> 0:13:30.320 next guest has been one of the constant and consistent 0:13:30.320 --> 0:13:32.920 go to voices throughout the COVID nineteen pandemic, having a 0:13:32.960 --> 0:13:36.080 front root seat to the health crisis. Former commissioner of 0:13:36.160 --> 0:13:38.440 the f d A of the United States, He's on 0:13:38.480 --> 0:13:40.800 the boards of a Lumina, Tempest Visor, and more. He's 0:13:40.800 --> 0:13:44.559 a resident fellow at the conservative think tank American Enterprise Institute. 0:13:44.600 --> 0:13:48.640 His new book is Uncontrolled Spread, Why COVID nineteen crushed 0:13:48.720 --> 0:13:51.520 Us and How we can defeat the next pandemic. Great 0:13:51.559 --> 0:13:54.800 to welcome here to Bloomberg Business Week from our FDA Commissioner, 0:13:54.880 --> 0:13:58.760 Dr Scott Gottlieb on the phone from Westport, Connecticut. Dr Gottlieb, 0:13:58.880 --> 0:14:01.800 Great to have you here with him and myself. UM, 0:14:01.840 --> 0:14:04.600 so much to ask you and congratulations on the book. 0:14:05.200 --> 0:14:07.120 One thing we wanted to know if the nation had 0:14:07.160 --> 0:14:09.720 shut down early on in the pandemic, let's say, for 0:14:09.800 --> 0:14:13.320 three months, really shut down, federal mandatory shutdown, would we 0:14:13.400 --> 0:14:15.840 be in a better position today? And I'm just talking 0:14:15.840 --> 0:14:19.480 about the US for a moment. Yeah, I don't know that. Um, 0:14:19.520 --> 0:14:21.640 if we had implemented the stay at home order a 0:14:21.680 --> 0:14:23.800 lot earlier would have made an appreciable difference, and I 0:14:23.840 --> 0:14:26.720 don't think it would have been warranted, certainly once we 0:14:26.960 --> 0:14:29.160 knew that there was very dense spread in cities like 0:14:29.240 --> 0:14:32.000 New York, we should have implemented the mitigation they stay 0:14:32.000 --> 0:14:35.280 at home recommendations earlier than we did, so we were 0:14:35.280 --> 0:14:37.240 a week or too late doing that in cities like 0:14:37.280 --> 0:14:40.120 New York. But the bigger problem was that we didn't 0:14:40.120 --> 0:14:42.960 have the ability to actually diagnose the inspection. We didn't 0:14:42.960 --> 0:14:45.360 have a diagnostic test employed at scale. It was it 0:14:45.520 --> 0:14:47.880 was something we could have done if we had proper 0:14:47.920 --> 0:14:50.920 planning um And because we didn't have a diagnostic test, 0:14:51.000 --> 0:14:53.640 not only did we not know how much spread was underway, 0:14:53.680 --> 0:14:55.720 so we were lying to the scope of the spread, 0:14:55.720 --> 0:14:58.360 and we didn't know the true nature of the threat 0:14:58.400 --> 0:15:01.000 and that's partly why we shut down own late. But 0:15:01.040 --> 0:15:03.040 we didn't know where the virus wasn't there were parts 0:15:03.040 --> 0:15:06.120 of the country where COVID wasn't spreading yet, where we 0:15:06.120 --> 0:15:08.520 didn't have to implement the population wide mitigation, where we 0:15:08.560 --> 0:15:10.680 could still use testing and tracing if we had a 0:15:10.720 --> 0:15:13.360 test employed to try to contain the spread rather than 0:15:13.360 --> 0:15:15.600 telling everyone they had to stay in their homes. Um 0:15:15.680 --> 0:15:18.320 So that the lack of the ability to actually figure 0:15:18.360 --> 0:15:20.600 out where the virus was but also where it wasn't 0:15:20.920 --> 0:15:23.680 led to the wrong policy decisions. Who made the right 0:15:23.720 --> 0:15:26.360 policy decisions at the time, What countries led the way, 0:15:26.360 --> 0:15:28.160 what countries are still leading the way. What's a good 0:15:28.160 --> 0:15:30.960 example of what we should have done. Yeah, at the time, 0:15:31.040 --> 0:15:35.000 South Korea, I think UM had probably the best initial response. 0:15:35.040 --> 0:15:37.200 I mean, every country has gone through waves of infection 0:15:37.240 --> 0:15:39.840 and made mistakes along the way. UM. The US has 0:15:39.880 --> 0:15:42.800 been disproportionately impacted by this. This has been an asymmetric 0:15:42.880 --> 0:15:44.400 risk of the United States. I think We've made a 0:15:44.400 --> 0:15:46.800 lot of a lot of mistakes along the way. But 0:15:46.840 --> 0:15:50.480 South Korea, early on when the virus was first identified 0:15:50.480 --> 0:15:54.119 in China, got together their private industry, their their diagnostic 0:15:54.160 --> 0:15:57.400 manufacturers and promised them in a very efficient process if 0:15:57.440 --> 0:16:00.160 they got into the market, started to manufacture diagnos two 0:16:00.200 --> 0:16:02.880 kids at scale. They promised that they would be purchased 0:16:02.880 --> 0:16:06.040 by the government UH and they also stood up testing sites. 0:16:06.120 --> 0:16:08.360 They started to lay the foundations testing sites, and they 0:16:08.360 --> 0:16:11.160 actually pioneered the use of drive through testing sites. The 0:16:11.200 --> 0:16:14.040 first dry through testing sites were in South Korea, and 0:16:14.080 --> 0:16:16.520 because they were able to deploy diagnostic testing at a 0:16:16.600 --> 0:16:19.840 massive scale, they were able to identify their early infections 0:16:19.880 --> 0:16:23.440 get people isolated, get people in quarantine, uh, and keep 0:16:23.480 --> 0:16:26.520 the country from becoming epidemic. The the epidemic really never 0:16:26.600 --> 0:16:28.640 took off in South Korea. I mean they had subsequent 0:16:28.680 --> 0:16:30.840 waves of perfection one D and one seven, and eventually 0:16:30.840 --> 0:16:34.160 a delta variant started to spread later on. But South 0:16:34.240 --> 0:16:36.280 Korea was on a similar trajectory of Italy and was 0:16:36.320 --> 0:16:39.120 able to contain it. Dr Gotli, Why didn't we treat 0:16:39.160 --> 0:16:41.280 the warnings of a global pandemic that have been out 0:16:41.320 --> 0:16:44.120 there for years, so much so that there was a 0:16:44.120 --> 0:16:48.240 pandemic playbook conceived of during the Bush administration. Why wasn't 0:16:48.240 --> 0:16:50.280 that already in place. You've been on the inside, You've 0:16:50.320 --> 0:16:52.640 been involved in government on and off, I think since 0:16:52.760 --> 0:16:55.880 roughly two thousand three. Why didn't we have the follow through? 0:16:55.920 --> 0:17:00.680 And I'm curious the conversations that you had about this. Look, 0:17:00.720 --> 0:17:02.680 we had a pandemic playbook, and you're right, we had 0:17:02.720 --> 0:17:06.719 prepped um a pandemic contingency. In fact, the government had 0:17:06.800 --> 0:17:10.679 run a stimulation called Crimson Contagion just before COVID struck, 0:17:10.720 --> 0:17:13.639 which was a simulated pandemic. The problem is we had 0:17:13.640 --> 0:17:16.240 always prepped for a pandemic involving a flu. We never 0:17:16.359 --> 0:17:19.040 envisioned that a pandemic could be caused, certainly by a coronavirus. 0:17:19.119 --> 0:17:23.000 We never envisioned anything but influenta And the playbook that 0:17:23.040 --> 0:17:25.399 we had written for flu wasn't fully applicable to a 0:17:25.400 --> 0:17:28.359 coronaus coronavirus or many things that were different about this 0:17:28.520 --> 0:17:32.399 virus and about any coronavirus that don't make the kinds 0:17:32.400 --> 0:17:35.720 of continguencies that you developed for flu um widely applicable 0:17:35.760 --> 0:17:38.879 for so for example, flu has a short incubation period, 0:17:38.920 --> 0:17:41.240 meaning that when you're exposed to it, you get sick 0:17:41.240 --> 0:17:43.640 from it pretty quickly, and typically you're not compagious until 0:17:43.680 --> 0:17:46.800 you develop symptoms. So trying to diagnose people who are 0:17:46.880 --> 0:17:50.400 asymptomatic carriers of the flu isn't as efficient. First of all, 0:17:50.400 --> 0:17:53.639 they're gonna, once they're exposed, are gonna become sick very quickly, 0:17:54.119 --> 0:17:56.520 and you're gonna be all identify them because they're gonna 0:17:56.520 --> 0:17:59.680 have symptoms when they're contagious. They have symptoms with a coronavirus. 0:17:59.680 --> 0:18:01.879 With a on the incubation period, there's more of an 0:18:01.880 --> 0:18:04.960 opportunity to guess someone diagnosed before they go on to 0:18:04.960 --> 0:18:07.119 spread the virus. And we also know that there's a 0:18:07.119 --> 0:18:10.240 lot of asymptomatic transmission with with the coronavirus with COVID, 0:18:10.440 --> 0:18:12.879 so it's more important to have a diagnostic test deployed. 0:18:12.880 --> 0:18:15.520 We're screening the population. So a lot of the things 0:18:15.520 --> 0:18:19.400 that we thought about that we planned for flu weren't applicable. 0:18:19.440 --> 0:18:23.080 We also tried to stockpile certain materials like respirators and 0:18:23.160 --> 0:18:27.280 mass um, which didn't which we found out the stockpiles 0:18:27.280 --> 0:18:30.080 weren't well maintained, so we didn't have the equipment that 0:18:30.119 --> 0:18:31.639 we needed. But I do want to push you a 0:18:31.680 --> 0:18:35.320 little bit, Dr Gottlieb about what were the internal conversations 0:18:35.359 --> 0:18:38.600 you were having at your time uh in in the 0:18:38.640 --> 0:18:41.399 government when it comes to hey, folks, we gotta do 0:18:41.440 --> 0:18:43.320 something more serious. We gotta make sure we've got the 0:18:43.359 --> 0:18:46.240 right things in place. Yeah, at the time that I 0:18:46.280 --> 0:18:48.119 was in government, we really didn't have our eye on 0:18:48.160 --> 0:18:52.479 anything but influenza. So how did we miss it? How 0:18:52.520 --> 0:18:54.359 did we miss it? Especially that since there's a lot 0:18:54.400 --> 0:18:56.840 of vaccine hunters that are out there that we've talked 0:18:56.880 --> 0:18:59.199 to a bunch here at Bloomberg, they've been looking at 0:18:59.200 --> 0:19:00.800 this and seeing things are out there that could be 0:19:01.040 --> 0:19:04.159 a significant problems. Yeah, certainly, back in two thousand and 0:19:04.160 --> 0:19:06.480 five when the pandemic planning first began, that's when I 0:19:06.480 --> 0:19:08.280 was involved with it. We were really worried about a 0:19:08.280 --> 0:19:10.760 bird from each five M one. At that point, coronavirus 0:19:10.800 --> 0:19:14.320 has really hadn't emerged. But after Stars and mirrors both emerged, 0:19:14.359 --> 0:19:16.920 we should have had the awareness of the coronaviruses were 0:19:16.920 --> 0:19:19.000 on the march, they were becoming more pathogenic, they were 0:19:19.000 --> 0:19:22.600 starting to threaten humans, and that a more contagious variation 0:19:22.720 --> 0:19:25.280 of stars could come along and threaten the entire globe. Really, 0:19:25.280 --> 0:19:27.600 what we should have been focused on is a broad 0:19:27.640 --> 0:19:31.159 category of viruses. Viruses that replicate through RNA, because the 0:19:31.240 --> 0:19:34.000 virus that replicates through RNA means that it can undergo 0:19:34.119 --> 0:19:38.040 rapid mutation, and viruses that could spread through respiratory droplets 0:19:38.119 --> 0:19:41.080 or aerosols. So those two features, viruses that replicate through 0:19:41.080 --> 0:19:44.120 OURNA and spread through aerosols or what make of give 0:19:44.160 --> 0:19:47.199 a virus the qualities that could create global contagion. And 0:19:47.240 --> 0:19:48.960 if you're looking at it through that lens, you're looking 0:19:48.960 --> 0:19:52.040 at that broad category that includes inuenda for sure, but 0:19:52.119 --> 0:19:56.080 it also includes coronaviruses include nippavirus. It broadens the universe 0:19:56.080 --> 0:19:58.280 of the potential threats that could be the next pandemic. 0:19:58.480 --> 0:20:02.000 Still with us is Dr Scott, former FDA Commissioner, resident 0:20:02.000 --> 0:20:06.240 fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, viser, and Alumina board member. 0:20:06.760 --> 0:20:10.280 He is also a special partner with the venture capital 0:20:10.320 --> 0:20:12.760 from New Enterprise Associates. And let's not forget the reason 0:20:12.840 --> 0:20:16.040 he's here. He's got an interesting and comprehensive new book. 0:20:16.080 --> 0:20:19.439