Speaker 1: Welcome to Prognosis. I'm Laura Carlson. It's day eighty five
Speaker 1: since coronavirus was declared a global pandemic. Our main story.
Speaker 1: Public health officials have been working hard to reopen the US,
Speaker 1: and social distancing has been the guiding principle and how
Speaker 1: to get there. But no one could have foreseen the
Speaker 1: densely packed protests after George Floyd's death in police custody.
Speaker 1: The tragedy has plunged the country into a painful re
Speaker 1: examination of racism and police brutality, and it has brought
Speaker 1: tens of thousands of people into close contact on the streets,
Speaker 1: all in the wake of months of mounting evidence that
Speaker 1: the pandemic has taken a disproportionate toll on minorities and
Speaker 1: people of color. Could the protests now set off a
Speaker 1: new wave of infections? Michelle Cortes spoke to scientists about
Speaker 1: just that, But first, here's what happened today. The fight
Speaker 1: terrain in the pandemic continues. The US now says it
Speaker 1: is developing a test that can simultaneously check for seasonal
Speaker 1: influenza and COVID nineteen that could help health authorities determine
Speaker 1: whether there may be a second wave of the coronavirus
Speaker 1: later this year, and in the latest sign that many
Speaker 1: people are trying to get back to normal life, American
Speaker 1: Airlines said it would boost July flights sev as US
Speaker 1: travelers freed from shelter and place orders begin to return
Speaker 1: to the skies. July's planned four thousand daily flights would
Speaker 1: nearly double this month's take off and landings. Still, that
Speaker 1: would amount to only about of the traffic flowing July.
Speaker 1: Even his, conditions in the pandemics epicenter New York City
Speaker 1: continue to improve, and the city makes plans to gradually reopen.
Speaker 1: Elsewhere around the globe, the news is not so good.
Speaker 1: Iran reported its highest number of daily cases yet, and
Speaker 1: Mexico and Brazil each had a record increase in deaths.
Speaker 1: And now our main story mass protests and the coronavirus.
Speaker 1: Though it will take weeks for any impact of the
Speaker 1: protests to show up in the data, US health officials
Speaker 1: are concerned chanting, singing, and prolonged exposure impact conditions may
Speaker 1: be a recipe for spreading the virus, especially when some
Speaker 1: protesters aren't wearing masks. I spoke to Michelle Cortez about
Speaker 1: this latest worry. Over the last few weeks, the US
Speaker 1: has not only continued to be in the grip of
Speaker 1: the coronavirus pandemic, but also has seen dozens of protests
Speaker 1: in cities throughout the country. Just to start off very broadly,
Speaker 1: how is one affecting the other? So we had gotten
Speaker 1: to the point with the coronavirus outbreak that things were
Speaker 1: starting to warm up, people were getting outside more. We
Speaker 1: flattened the curve by following social distancing guidelines, and public
Speaker 1: health officials thought we could do this in a very
Speaker 1: controlled and careful way, that we could test people now
Speaker 1: that we have tests, track their contacts, and make sure
Speaker 1: that the virus doesn't get out of control again. The
Speaker 1: problem is is that with these protests and these masses
Speaker 1: of people coming together, any sense of control is just
Speaker 1: out the window. And so as health officials are watching
Speaker 1: these protests happen from a health perspective and in the
Speaker 1: context of the coronavirus, what has been their response to
Speaker 1: the protests. Public health officials were immediately concerned about the
Speaker 1: coronavirus outbreak some people because of what they do with
Speaker 1: their day to day jobs. They realized as soon as
Speaker 1: they started seeing these images that there could be lasting
Speaker 1: and devastating effects from the protests on the protesters themselves.
Speaker 1: I talked to Bill Schaffner, who is an infectious disease
Speaker 1: expert at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, and he laid it
Speaker 1: out really beautifully. Oh, the moment I saw the demonstrations,
Speaker 1: I was concerned because I thought that the COVID virus
Speaker 1: might have joined the demonstrations. It's a lot of people
Speaker 1: brought together for prolonged periods of time. There's a fair
Speaker 1: amount of chanting and shouting, so they're, you know, inhaling
Speaker 1: and exhaling a lot. And sure, so that's an environment
Speaker 1: where the coronavirus can spread fairly readily from person to person.
Speaker 1: He realized right away that these protesters were putting themselves
Speaker 1: at risk, perhaps knowingly and willingly, but nonetheless there's the
Speaker 1: potential harm to themselves personally from being in such crowded conditions.
Speaker 1: And is there a way to know or when will
Speaker 1: we know whether the protests that we've been seeing over
Speaker 1: the past week have caused new outbreaks of the virus.
Speaker 1: The virus itself doesn't immediately cause symptoms or cause any
Speaker 1: outward signs of impact when you first pick it up.
Speaker 1: The way a virus works is you you bring it
Speaker 1: into your system, it lodges itself. It's it has a
Speaker 1: hook that spike protein that it uses to attach to
Speaker 1: a healthy cell. It gets into the healthy cell and
Speaker 1: then starts replicating itself over and over and over again.
Speaker 1: It explodes that cell and goes on to the next one.
Speaker 1: And this takes a few days. In some people, it
Speaker 1: can actually take a few weeks, and we don't know
Speaker 1: at what point you start showing the symptoms. So the
Speaker 1: issue when it comes to being at a protest is
Speaker 1: that the people who are there who are infected might
Speaker 1: have no idea that they're causing any kind of risk
Speaker 1: or harm to anyone else. And the people who actually
Speaker 1: get infected at any of these kind of events also
Speaker 1: won't know for days or weeks that they are infected.
Speaker 1: So public health officials are telling protesters that in a
Speaker 1: week or two, maybe they want to get tested, even
Speaker 1: if they're showing no symptoms, just to make sure that
Speaker 1: they didn't get the virus. They're also asking those people
Speaker 1: to perhaps avoid going home to their families, and it
Speaker 1: is a it is a real concern other people say,
Speaker 1: it's too soon to know if you're infected. If you're
Speaker 1: not showing symptoms, you don't need to go out there.
Speaker 1: But they're suggesting that you take different approaches to protesting
Speaker 1: that might lower your risk. So I would advise anyone
Speaker 1: who's going to these demonstrations and people really have it
Speaker 1: in their hearts to participate, then wear a mask by
Speaker 1: all means, try to keep yourself as separate as possible
Speaker 1: from others. And rather than yelling and chanting, how about
Speaker 1: holding up the sign. What are super spreader events and
Speaker 1: is there a risk that some of these protests could
Speaker 1: become these events. We don't really know a lot about
Speaker 1: who becomes a super spreader, but we know what a
Speaker 1: super spreader is. That's a situation where you just get
Speaker 1: one person who has the virus, who's infected. Perhaps there
Speaker 1: they have symptoms, they're coughing, but we're not really even
Speaker 1: sure about that piece. And what happens is that person
Speaker 1: somehow is able to very efficiently spread that virus to
Speaker 1: dozens of other people. So that person might be coughing
Speaker 1: and not have on a mask. That person might be
Speaker 1: eating or chanting, and they are essentially spraying viral particles
Speaker 1: and everyone in their vicinity picks them up at a
Speaker 1: very high rate. And then those people, of course don't
Speaker 1: realize for a few days that they've been sick, and
Speaker 1: then they go out and they bring it back to
Speaker 1: their communities and start spreading it to other people. Most
Speaker 1: of what we know about super spreader events come from
Speaker 1: dramatically smaller gatherings and generally inside. Right, we have the
Speaker 1: case of a choir in Washington State that gathered. There
Speaker 1: was about, you know, sixty five sixty sixty five people
Speaker 1: at that event, and fifty one of them became infected.
Speaker 1: And if you think about what they're doing, it's a choir,
Speaker 1: so they're singing and talking. And certainly we're seeing a
Speaker 1: lot of that in these protests where people are all
Speaker 1: chanting together, and they're singing together, and they're yelling together.
Speaker 1: So you have more than one person who's doing it
Speaker 1: in different areas. But then it's outside, and are there
Speaker 1: other concerns regarding the risks of exposure to coronavirus with
Speaker 1: regard to the protesters the communities involved in these protests.
Speaker 1: Thinking back to how hard black communities and other communities
Speaker 1: of color have been hit by the virus. The challenges
Speaker 1: that minorities and people of color face isn't just limited
Speaker 1: to things like, you know, police brutality or other kinds
Speaker 1: of systemic disadvantages that we are that are being protested. Now.
Speaker 1: We have seen over and over again in healthcare that
Speaker 1: being a minority does put you at increased risk. But
Speaker 1: we have already seen with coronavirus that Black Americans and
Speaker 1: minorities are much more strongly hit, much higher risk of
Speaker 1: developing coronavirus and getting very sick from it. I talked
Speaker 1: to Bill Schaffner from Vanderbilt about that as well. Obviously,
Speaker 1: many of the participants were from communities of color, and
Speaker 1: those communities have already been disproportionately affected by COVID, and
Speaker 1: so I was distressed that perhaps folks might pick up
Speaker 1: the virus at one of these demons rations, take it home,
Speaker 1: spread it to their family and friends and neighbors. Now,
Speaker 1: of course, the protests have occurred roughly at the same
Speaker 1: time as many states are starting to loosen their their
Speaker 1: lockdown restrictions, their stay at home orders. Is there any
Speaker 1: way to know if we do start to see a
Speaker 1: spike in new cases in a week or so, maybe
Speaker 1: two weeks, whether or not this is an outcome of
Speaker 1: these losening restrictions or from the protests. I think that
Speaker 1: we never are going to know. It's very difficult to
Speaker 1: be able to tell what is causing the virus to spread.
Speaker 1: As you point out, we are opening up, and not
Speaker 1: only that, we've already seen a very steady rate and
Speaker 1: in some cases increases in infection rates in certain areas
Speaker 1: where there has been an opening. Now having other folks
Speaker 1: joined together in these protests, if that's an accelerant, how
Speaker 1: do we know exact a how widespread the virus is
Speaker 1: going to be in the absence of protests. There are
Speaker 1: certain things that epidemiologists will be able to do. Looking backwards,
Speaker 1: we'll be able to look at areas where the protests
Speaker 1: were really widely held. We might be able to look,
Speaker 1: to some extent in different groups how widely spreading the viruses,
Speaker 1: perhaps in black and minority communities, although in all honesty,
Speaker 1: there has been a lot of of white people attending
Speaker 1: these protests as well, so they could be bringing the
Speaker 1: virus back to their communities if they're coming from communities
Speaker 1: that aren't as diverse. So it's going to be very
Speaker 1: difficult to tease these things out. That was Michelle Quartets
Speaker 1: and that's our show today. For coverage of the outbreak
Speaker 1: from one bureaus around the world, visit Bloomberg dot com
Speaker 1: slash coronavirus and if you like the show, please leave
Speaker 1: us a review and a rating on Apple Podcasts or
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Speaker 1: our global reporting. The Prognosis Daily Edition is produced by
Speaker 1: Topher foreheads Jordan Gaspore, Magnus Hendrickson and me Laura Carlson.
Speaker 1: Today's main story was reported by Michele Portez. Original music
Speaker 1: by Leo Sidrin. Our editors Our Francesca Levie and Rick Shine.
Speaker 1: Francesca Levie is Bloomberg's head of podcasts. Thanks for listening.