Speaker 1: Welcome to Prognosis. I'm Laura Carlson. It's day two and
Speaker 1: forty since coronavirus was declared a global pandemic. Today's main story.
Speaker 1: The city of Melbourne in Australia has undergone two strict
Speaker 1: lockdowns in the last eight months. That's brought their case
Speaker 1: count to zero. But the policy isn't without some trade offs.
Speaker 1: But first, here's what happened in virus News today. Early
Speaker 1: study results show that the COVID nineteen vaccine, being developed
Speaker 1: by Fiser and bio ent Tech, prevented more than of
Speaker 1: symptomatic infections. It's the most encouraging scientific advance so far
Speaker 1: in the battle against the coronavirus. The preliminary results paved
Speaker 1: the way for the companies to seek an emergency use
Speaker 1: authorization from regulators. They can get that if further research
Speaker 1: shows the shot is also safe. If the data hold up,
Speaker 1: the world may have a vital new tool to control
Speaker 1: the worst pandemic in a century. Separately, the novavax vaccine
Speaker 1: received a fast track designation from US regulators as the
Speaker 1: drugmaker prepares to launch a large late stage study before
Speaker 1: the end of the month. The expedited review by the
Speaker 1: US Food and Drug Administration could push the company onto
Speaker 1: a shortlist of front runners in the race to bring
Speaker 1: a vaccine to market. Meanwhile, the pandemic shows no signs
Speaker 1: of slowing, with worldwide infections surpassing fifty million. Cases in
Speaker 1: the US topped one hundred thousand for a fourth concert
Speaker 1: of day, bringing the nation's total over the ten million mark.
Speaker 1: New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy said he'll reimpose some restrictions Monday,
Speaker 1: after the state reported about five thousand new cases in
Speaker 1: just forty eight hours today. New York City Mayor Build A.
Speaker 1: Blasio said the city is coming dangerously close to a
Speaker 1: second wave of the novel coronavirus. And now, for today's
Speaker 1: main story, countries like the UK and France are locking
Speaker 1: down amid a spike in cases. They're concerned that winter
Speaker 1: will only make things worse. But if Europe and America
Speaker 1: want to see an example of how well lockdowns worked
Speaker 1: during colder months, they only need to look at Melbourne, Australia.
Speaker 1: The country's second largest city went through two lockdowns, one
Speaker 1: of which happened during its winter. Remarkable, the city has
Speaker 1: reported no new cases since late October. But at what cost?
Speaker 1: Senior editor Jason Gale has more on what the world
Speaker 1: can learn from Melbourne. Melbourne's first lockdown lasted roughly from
Speaker 1: March to May, and it was a success. It reduced
Speaker 1: the number of cases to just a handful of day,
Speaker 1: but security failures at quarantine hotels for returning overseas travelers,
Speaker 1: poor communication of critical information to migrant communities, and inadequate
Speaker 1: contact tracing allowed the virus to row back in the
Speaker 1: southeastern state of Victoria. The second state home order was
Speaker 1: only meant to last six weeks, but it turned into
Speaker 1: an almost four month affair. Yes, there's been an enormous
Speaker 1: price that's been paid. There's no doubt. This is Dr
Speaker 1: Terry Slavin. He's the chief executive officer the Public Health
Speaker 1: Association of Australia. There's been a lot of respect and
Speaker 1: regard and empathy for the people who have lived through
Speaker 1: that experience. I mean the fundamentally, the withdrawal of liberties
Speaker 1: is a pretty challenging thing for a whole community to
Speaker 1: go through. When the city went back into lockdown in July,
Speaker 1: it's five million residents would only leave their home for
Speaker 1: essential work and services, medical treatment, school or an hour's exercise.
Speaker 1: A day, but cases continued to rise. A month later,
Speaker 1: the restrictions were extended across the entire state. Melbourne was
Speaker 1: placed under a nighttime curfew. Schools were closed and large
Speaker 1: parts of retail, manufacturing and hospitality were shut down, and
Speaker 1: the city is still counting the economic and social costs.
Speaker 1: The majority of Victorians have started at home, have followed
Speaker 1: the advice and have abided by the rules, and as
Speaker 1: a result, few people have got sick and few people
Speaker 1: have died then would have otherwise been the case. And
Speaker 1: while the medicine has been really tough and really hard
Speaker 1: to swallow, it's done the job. The Australian government estimates
Speaker 1: jobs have been lost on average a day across the
Speaker 1: state of Victoria, and demand for mental health services as
Speaker 1: surged by more than the spike. Key factors working in
Speaker 1: Melbourne's favor including closed borders, an infection count that was
Speaker 1: relatively small, and a state government with strong public backing.
Speaker 1: It's still talked twice as long as anticipated to crush
Speaker 1: the curve. It's a bleak reality confronting political leaders, particularly
Speaker 1: in Europe. They have already experienced the damage wrought by
Speaker 1: full blown lockdowns and are now introducing new measures to
Speaker 1: fight a resurgence of the pandemic. In other parts of
Speaker 1: the world, that same political leadership hasn't supported the expert advice.
Speaker 1: And the truth is those communities have paid the price
Speaker 1: with their lives. The number of deaths that have been
Speaker 1: preventable in relation to this pandemic is horrendous. And there
Speaker 1: are communities that have the expertise. There are populations around
Speaker 1: the world. There are countries that have the technical expertise
Speaker 1: in the capacity to do exactly what Victoria has done,
Speaker 1: but they haven't and that's strategic. Terry says Melbourne succeeded
Speaker 1: because it's citizens worked with the government in following expert advice.
Speaker 1: I mean, the bottom line is that no police force
Speaker 1: in Australia, probably no police force in the world, could
Speaker 1: adequately enforce those laws if the majority of the community
Speaker 1: believed it was not in the community interest. It would
Speaker 1: have been impossible to meaningfully police if there wasn't community
Speaker 1: support for Victoria makes up about a quarter of the
Speaker 1: nation's gross domestic product and the restrictions have only deepened
Speaker 1: Australia's recession. The lockdown slashed about seventy a million U
Speaker 1: S dollars a day from economic activity. Business leaders say
Speaker 1: it may take years for moving to recover. The social
Speaker 1: class are also mounting. Dr Cameron Lawyer is a family
Speaker 1: doctor and the chair of the Victorian Faculty of the
Speaker 1: Royal Australian College of General Practitioners. He says demand for
Speaker 1: mental health services in Victoria jump more than thirty in
Speaker 1: September and October. Mental health has been one of the
Speaker 1: most striking impacts of the pandemic. We've seen a huge
Speaker 1: increase in the burden of mental health throughout our communities.
Speaker 1: Cameron says doctors have provided an extra seven and a
Speaker 1: half million consultations during the pandemic specifically related to mental health.
Speaker 1: I would suggest that's probably an under reporting and the
Speaker 1: number has been higher, So that's a marker of how
Speaker 1: much the community is coming to us as GPS concerned
Speaker 1: about anxiety depression for as concerns during this pandemic, says
Speaker 1: two things really concern him as people are forced to
Speaker 1: stay indoors, alcohol consumption and domestic violence. We've seen surveys
Speaker 1: from mon Ashes School of Public Health that has seen
Speaker 1: about a twenty increase in alcohol consumption throughout the pandemic,
Speaker 1: and we know that the consumption of alcohol is often
Speaker 1: associated with depression and anxiety, and alcohol is often one
Speaker 1: of those sort of self medicating behaviors. To try and
Speaker 1: manage that, and importantly of significant concern to our community,
Speaker 1: we've seen nearly ninety thousand additional family violence offenses reported
Speaker 1: to the police, so that's a that's an increase in
Speaker 1: really seven percent. This has seen the highest rates of
Speaker 1: family violence in the state's history. Terry Slavin says it's
Speaker 1: important to remember what it talked to stop transmission of
Speaker 1: the coronavirus in Melbourn. The scrambling effort to respond to
Speaker 1: this pandemic has been a great success, but that doesn't
Speaker 1: mean the games over. We don't even know if we're
Speaker 1: at halftime it alone three quarter time. We know that
Speaker 1: if we let our guard down, if there's a couple
Speaker 1: of super spreader events, if we see people becoming lacks
Speaker 1: with regard to the basics, the old fashioned public health,
Speaker 1: the hygiene, the distancing and all arrest, and then we
Speaker 1: don't pick it up in the testing. We don't do
Speaker 1: the proper tracing, we don't do the quarantining and isolating,
Speaker 1: we don't keep communicating with the community about the progress
Speaker 1: that's being made, then this thing can set off again. Recently,
Speaker 1: the state took the day off of the Melbourne Cup
Speaker 1: horse race. It was a warm spring day and people
Speaker 1: hit saying Kilda Beach. Most of the beach goers weren't
Speaker 1: wearing face masks like their requitee. Terry worries about residents
Speaker 1: slipping back into their old habits now that the virus
Speaker 1: count is down to zero. There there's a small steps
Speaker 1: forward and they're legitimately celebrated, but we don't return to
Speaker 1: behavior because if we do, we'll find ourselves in August
Speaker 1: trouble where it comes to COVID virus. So the challenge
Speaker 1: for everybody is to understand this is a long game.
Speaker 1: And when you feel like you've been sprinting for the
Speaker 1: distance of a marathon, it's understandable that you want to
Speaker 1: celebrate feeling you've gotten over the line. But I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: this is an ultramarathon and the truth is that the
Speaker 1: world has changed and it's going to be sometimes time
Speaker 1: before we return back to what we considered normal last year.
Speaker 1: Um that's not an easy message to receive. Terry says
Speaker 1: that until we have a safe and effective vaccine, we
Speaker 1: have to continue managing the coronavirus with the tools we have,
Speaker 1: avoiding congregate settings, keeping a physical distance, regular handwashing, and
Speaker 1: wearing a face mask. That was Jason Gale, and that's
Speaker 1: it for our show today. For coverage of the outbreak
Speaker 1: from one and twenty bureaus around the world, visit bloomberg
Speaker 1: dot com slash coronavirus and if you like the show,
Speaker 1: please leave us a review and a rating on Apple
Speaker 1: Podcasts or Spotify. It's the best way to help more
Speaker 1: listeners find our global reporting. The Prognosis Daily edition is
Speaker 1: produced by Top of Foreheads, Jordan Gospoure, Magnus Henrickson and
Speaker 1: me Laura Carlson. Today's main story was reported by Jason Gale.
Speaker 1: Original music by Leo Sedrin. Our editors are Francesco Levi
Speaker 1: and Rick Shine. Francesco Levi is Bloomberg's head of podcasts.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening.