WEBVTT - Pandemic Reality Check... Things Are Trending In the Wrong Way Again

0:00:00.080 --> 0:00:03.960
<v Speaker 1>It's Tuesday, July. I'm oscar A Mirrors from the Daily

0:00:04.000 --> 0:00:07.360
<v Speaker 1>Dive podcast in Los Angeles, and this is reopening America

0:00:08.480 --> 0:00:11.600
<v Speaker 1>pandemic reality check. We are getting further away from the

0:00:11.720 --> 0:00:14.159
<v Speaker 1>end than we should be. To be clear, it is

0:00:14.200 --> 0:00:16.000
<v Speaker 1>nowhere near as bad as it was at the height

0:00:16.040 --> 0:00:18.720
<v Speaker 1>of the pandemic, but once again numbers are trending in

0:00:18.760 --> 0:00:22.480
<v Speaker 1>the wrong way. Infections are going up, hospitalizations and debts

0:00:22.480 --> 0:00:24.960
<v Speaker 1>are going up, and in some places like l A County,

0:00:25.320 --> 0:00:30.000
<v Speaker 1>mass restrictions are being reimposed. Joel Achenbach, science reporter at

0:00:30.040 --> 0:00:33.320
<v Speaker 1>the Washington Post, joins us for more. Thanks for joining us, Joel,

0:00:35.479 --> 0:00:38.200
<v Speaker 1>I wanted to talk about a series of reality checks

0:00:38.240 --> 0:00:40.599
<v Speaker 1>that I think we need for what's going on with

0:00:40.640 --> 0:00:43.879
<v Speaker 1>the COVID nineteen pandemic. The sad news is that it

0:00:43.920 --> 0:00:46.559
<v Speaker 1>seems that we're further away from the end then we

0:00:46.600 --> 0:00:51.080
<v Speaker 1>should be. We've been seeing rising cases, rising hospitalizations, and

0:00:51.159 --> 0:00:54.200
<v Speaker 1>debts unfortunately, and you know, a lot of it has

0:00:54.240 --> 0:00:57.400
<v Speaker 1>to do with vaccination rates. You know, we're not completely

0:00:57.440 --> 0:00:59.800
<v Speaker 1>there where we should be. But Joel tell us a

0:00:59.800 --> 0:01:02.480
<v Speaker 1>little bit more about what we're seeing out there. Yes, so,

0:01:02.920 --> 0:01:05.679
<v Speaker 1>just a couple of months ago, I wrote a story

0:01:05.760 --> 0:01:10.160
<v Speaker 1>in the Post saying, hey, everyone, it's now okay to

0:01:10.440 --> 0:01:13.840
<v Speaker 1>discuss as a concept the end of the pandemic. And

0:01:13.840 --> 0:01:16.760
<v Speaker 1>that's because there were models coming out showing that the

0:01:16.840 --> 0:01:20.080
<v Speaker 1>numbers might get really low in the summer in terms

0:01:20.120 --> 0:01:23.360
<v Speaker 1>of the number of infections and hospitalizations and bests and

0:01:23.400 --> 0:01:25.800
<v Speaker 1>all that. And the numbers did go that direction for

0:01:25.880 --> 0:01:29.920
<v Speaker 1>many weeks there, and including globally that things were trending better.

0:01:30.680 --> 0:01:34.920
<v Speaker 1>But the delta variant did not help at all. It

0:01:35.040 --> 0:01:39.360
<v Speaker 1>is definitely more transmissible. And what happened with the vaccinations

0:01:39.360 --> 0:01:41.240
<v Speaker 1>that they kind of ran out of some of the

0:01:41.319 --> 0:01:45.240
<v Speaker 1>momentum as people who are reluctant to get vaccinated for

0:01:45.240 --> 0:01:48.280
<v Speaker 1>whatever reason have not gotten those shots. And so what

0:01:48.440 --> 0:01:50.800
<v Speaker 1>you have is you have a very still a very

0:01:50.880 --> 0:01:53.800
<v Speaker 1>large cohort of people who are susceptible to the virus,

0:01:54.040 --> 0:01:57.560
<v Speaker 1>and you have a more contagious virus. So the picture

0:01:57.600 --> 0:02:00.400
<v Speaker 1>here at the you know, in late July, is not

0:02:00.520 --> 0:02:02.720
<v Speaker 1>as good as as I thought it would be, and

0:02:02.760 --> 0:02:04.840
<v Speaker 1>as some experts thought it would be just a couple

0:02:04.840 --> 0:02:07.080
<v Speaker 1>of months ago. And so we've got to kind of

0:02:07.120 --> 0:02:09.720
<v Speaker 1>reframe where we are in this pandemic. Yeah, definitely, I

0:02:09.800 --> 0:02:12.320
<v Speaker 1>totally agree. You know, I live in Los Angeles, so

0:02:12.520 --> 0:02:14.919
<v Speaker 1>Los Angeles County this past week announced that they had

0:02:14.960 --> 0:02:19.520
<v Speaker 1>to reinstate indoor mass requirements for everybody. This is regardless

0:02:19.639 --> 0:02:22.240
<v Speaker 1>of what your vaccination status is. And you know, these

0:02:22.280 --> 0:02:24.120
<v Speaker 1>are the things that nobody wants to go back to

0:02:24.120 --> 0:02:27.320
<v Speaker 1>you and nobody's arguing for much more than that right now,

0:02:27.400 --> 0:02:30.360
<v Speaker 1>it seems like, but the public health officials say nothing

0:02:30.520 --> 0:02:32.160
<v Speaker 1>is off the table. You know, that's always kind of

0:02:32.160 --> 0:02:33.920
<v Speaker 1>the thing, and and that's kind of one of the

0:02:33.919 --> 0:02:36.799
<v Speaker 1>troubling spot. There's people that have been vaccinated say well,

0:02:36.800 --> 0:02:39.120
<v Speaker 1>I don't want to go back to it because people

0:02:39.160 --> 0:02:41.720
<v Speaker 1>aren't getting vaccinated. But these are the worries, these are

0:02:41.720 --> 0:02:44.560
<v Speaker 1>the precautions that health officials take, and that's what we

0:02:44.680 --> 0:02:47.799
<v Speaker 1>don't want. But we're starting to see it again. Yeah, look,

0:02:47.840 --> 0:02:50.959
<v Speaker 1>it's you know, putting the mask back on as a drag.

0:02:51.280 --> 0:02:53.320
<v Speaker 1>No one wants to do it. You know. The problem

0:02:53.360 --> 0:02:56.600
<v Speaker 1>is we're still in the middle of a public health emergency.

0:02:56.639 --> 0:02:59.720
<v Speaker 1>I mean, the emergency definitely got dialed down once we

0:02:59.840 --> 0:03:02.680
<v Speaker 1>got the vaccines out to a large part of the population.

0:03:02.919 --> 0:03:05.400
<v Speaker 1>Let's not exaggerate the fact that I mean, all the

0:03:05.520 --> 0:03:07.880
<v Speaker 1>things are trending in the wrong direction. It's just a

0:03:07.919 --> 0:03:10.480
<v Speaker 1>lot better than it was in the winter, you know,

0:03:10.560 --> 0:03:13.520
<v Speaker 1>better than it wasn't in January. There is a lot

0:03:13.560 --> 0:03:15.600
<v Speaker 1>of truth to the idea that we have kind of

0:03:15.840 --> 0:03:19.600
<v Speaker 1>two parallel pandemics. We have a bad pandemic for the

0:03:19.680 --> 0:03:25.760
<v Speaker 1>unvaccinated and one that is less threatening to life for

0:03:25.800 --> 0:03:28.760
<v Speaker 1>the rest of us. So I've been vaccinated and I'm

0:03:28.760 --> 0:03:32.760
<v Speaker 1>not concerned that I'm going to get COVID and die.

0:03:32.800 --> 0:03:35.680
<v Speaker 1>And I think people who who have some immunities some

0:03:35.760 --> 0:03:40.040
<v Speaker 1>protection should understand that the worst case scenario is less likely.

0:03:40.080 --> 0:03:42.480
<v Speaker 1>You know, there's no guaranteeing in life, and people who

0:03:42.680 --> 0:03:45.920
<v Speaker 1>are vaccinated, some people still do die of COVID. They

0:03:45.920 --> 0:03:48.520
<v Speaker 1>may have an under lane condition. The long term scenario,

0:03:48.600 --> 0:03:50.800
<v Speaker 1>which we tried to get into in this article is

0:03:51.240 --> 0:03:55.080
<v Speaker 1>that you can build up immunity in a population and

0:03:55.280 --> 0:04:00.520
<v Speaker 1>a virus like stars COVIE two should over time actually

0:04:00.680 --> 0:04:04.520
<v Speaker 1>become more like the flu or even a bad cold,

0:04:04.720 --> 0:04:08.920
<v Speaker 1>which is what happened with the influenza virus. But we're

0:04:08.920 --> 0:04:13.400
<v Speaker 1>not there yet. It's still circulating in a population that

0:04:13.480 --> 0:04:16.480
<v Speaker 1>has many many people who are have no immunity. There

0:04:16.520 --> 0:04:19.240
<v Speaker 1>are people who may have had some immunity from the

0:04:19.240 --> 0:04:22.200
<v Speaker 1>initial wave of infections more than a year ago. How

0:04:22.440 --> 0:04:25.279
<v Speaker 1>much immunity do they still have. I mean, I we

0:04:25.440 --> 0:04:29.920
<v Speaker 1>don't know, but reinfection is a possibility. Other coronaviruses, after

0:04:29.960 --> 0:04:33.520
<v Speaker 1>a year, you can get reinfected. There. Antibody's wane, and

0:04:33.600 --> 0:04:35.960
<v Speaker 1>so I think we're going to be dealing with us

0:04:35.960 --> 0:04:38.720
<v Speaker 1>for a while. And the one thing that like every

0:04:38.760 --> 0:04:42.680
<v Speaker 1>single health official has said to me is, you know,

0:04:42.720 --> 0:04:45.680
<v Speaker 1>we need more vaccinations out there. We need to do

0:04:45.760 --> 0:04:49.520
<v Speaker 1>better at the population scale and then at the individual scale. Yeah,

0:04:49.880 --> 0:04:51.720
<v Speaker 1>I think some of us are going to have to

0:04:51.760 --> 0:04:55.120
<v Speaker 1>rethink whether we want to eat indoors in a crowded place.

0:04:55.400 --> 0:04:58.040
<v Speaker 1>You know, how do we feel about events with lots

0:04:58.040 --> 0:05:01.120
<v Speaker 1>of other people there. You know, personally, I'm okay if

0:05:01.160 --> 0:05:04.640
<v Speaker 1>it's outdoors. But you know, even though I'm vaccinated, with

0:05:04.720 --> 0:05:06.839
<v Speaker 1>the numbers going up, I think it's time to be

0:05:06.839 --> 0:05:09.840
<v Speaker 1>a little more cautious and to be prudent about it. Right,

0:05:09.880 --> 0:05:13.160
<v Speaker 1>and even for those that are vaccinated, right, everybody says

0:05:13.200 --> 0:05:15.560
<v Speaker 1>that's kind of the key that we're hoping to get

0:05:15.560 --> 0:05:18.200
<v Speaker 1>those rates up. There have been some breakthrough infections, but

0:05:18.279 --> 0:05:22.440
<v Speaker 1>thankfully for those people they're spared the most severe cases

0:05:22.480 --> 0:05:24.720
<v Speaker 1>of this, and that you know, the CDC I think,

0:05:24.839 --> 0:05:28.200
<v Speaker 1>is only tracking these breakthrough infections if it gets bad

0:05:28.279 --> 0:05:29.920
<v Speaker 1>enough where you have to go to the hospital. So

0:05:30.160 --> 0:05:32.760
<v Speaker 1>the majority of people aren't getting it that bad after

0:05:32.760 --> 0:05:35.039
<v Speaker 1>they've been vaccinated. At least that's the that's the good news,

0:05:35.720 --> 0:05:40.279
<v Speaker 1>that's right. And so that's another really big wild card here,

0:05:40.400 --> 0:05:43.039
<v Speaker 1>which is those of us who are vaccinated, what are

0:05:43.080 --> 0:05:48.560
<v Speaker 1>the odds that we will get infected anyway and infected

0:05:48.800 --> 0:05:52.720
<v Speaker 1>enough that we actually are symptomatic and symptomatic enough that

0:05:52.760 --> 0:05:56.679
<v Speaker 1>we need hospitalization. I think people need to know that

0:05:56.920 --> 0:06:01.800
<v Speaker 1>the vaccines are great, but they don't make you totally bulletproof.

0:06:01.880 --> 0:06:05.160
<v Speaker 1>I mean they vaccine has you know, some of these

0:06:05.279 --> 0:06:08.960
<v Speaker 1>these variants, they can evade some of the antibodies. I

0:06:09.000 --> 0:06:11.960
<v Speaker 1>think the delta that is more contagious. I mean there's

0:06:12.000 --> 0:06:14.799
<v Speaker 1>the delta, there's the data, there's the gamma. The data

0:06:14.839 --> 0:06:18.080
<v Speaker 1>and the gamma, I know, have some mutations to enable

0:06:18.160 --> 0:06:21.000
<v Speaker 1>it to evade the antibodies a little bit. I'm not

0:06:21.040 --> 0:06:23.480
<v Speaker 1>sure about the delta, but it's you know, there's this

0:06:23.600 --> 0:06:26.720
<v Speaker 1>is going on. You want to be prudent, even if

0:06:26.760 --> 0:06:29.120
<v Speaker 1>you've been vaccinated, I think because also you don't want

0:06:29.120 --> 0:06:31.120
<v Speaker 1>to You don't want to be a vector for spreading

0:06:31.120 --> 0:06:34.360
<v Speaker 1>the virus as someone else who isn't vaccinated who could

0:06:34.400 --> 0:06:36.920
<v Speaker 1>have a bad outcome. Yeah. Well, you know, these are

0:06:36.960 --> 0:06:39.839
<v Speaker 1>the reality checks that are happening right now. Things have

0:06:39.920 --> 0:06:42.440
<v Speaker 1>gotten so much better than at the height of this

0:06:42.480 --> 0:06:44.720
<v Speaker 1>whole thing, but it's not over yet, so we still

0:06:44.720 --> 0:06:48.000
<v Speaker 1>need to keep pushing forward on all of this. Joel Achenbach,

0:06:48.240 --> 0:06:51.039
<v Speaker 1>science reporter at the Washington Post, thank you very much

0:06:51.080 --> 0:06:56.640
<v Speaker 1>for joining us. Thanks for having me. I'm Astar Ramirez

0:06:56.680 --> 0:06:59.880
<v Speaker 1>and this has been reopening America. Don't forget that. For

0:07:00.000 --> 0:07:01.720
<v Speaker 1>today's big news stories, you can check me out on

0:07:01.760 --> 0:07:05.040
<v Speaker 1>the Daily Dive podcast every Monday through Friday. So follow

0:07:05.120 --> 0:07:07.840
<v Speaker 1>us on iHeart Radio or wherever you get your podcast.