Businessweek Extra- Chris Beyrer

And this week, we unfortunately saw more surges in COVID nineteen cases and deaths. We hit another daily death record. A voice to help talk us through it all is Dr Chris Buyer, Professor in Public Health and Human Rights at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. We're still seeing rising cases and of course a tumultuous day for our country, but also a record for COVID deaths

in the country. Um and we are expecting still as as we had predicted, the post holiday season surge to continue. We're in this very very challenging moment where we do have a way forward, and that of course is the COVID vaccines that have emergency use authorization now, but we're not going to be able to immunize enough people to start to really blunt this curve. And the next few weeks and probably well into February are going to be

enormously challenging. You say, we're not going to be able to You say, your doctor, we're not gonna be able to immunize enough people. Do you mean in the next few weeks do you mean this year? I mean to blunt this current enormous way. So how will we see this wave go down? Well, first of all, I think we have to stick to the basics, right Um, we have to really continue with mass wearing, with social distancing,

with handwashing. As hard as it is to say, vigilant people are going to have to try and do that. We do need to ramp up both manufacture and distribution of the two approved vaccines we have, and of course we have more vaccines in the pipeline. But as I'm sure you know, we we've really had a slow start to the immunization programs and a number of the states really faced challenges. Yeah, the bottleneck is not in the

manufacturing of these right now. The bottleneck is in the distribution we have a Bloomberg vaccine tracker, and it shows that a very small portion, relatively number of vaccines that have been distributed have actually been shot into the arms of people. That's right too, That's absolutely right, and it's it's it's an enormous tragedy really, So Dr Byro. You know, this is interesting because we've talked about this a lot at home to about you know, we saw this with

the November election. We had sports teams, you know, step up and say, you know what, use our stadiums used so that we can bring people in get the vote out. Have you know, more polling places. I'm hearing conversations about that, are already actions about that of taking some of these giant places and setting them up as vaccine sites. Is that what we need to kind of really get it

out into the system. And at the same time that makes me a little nervous about large groups of people that might have COVID going out there for the vaccine and just got about fifty seconds and then we'll come back and talk some more. Oh no, actually, I'm sorry, we can keep going my bat Okay, Well, we really need a coordinated effort um and of course we we have an allocation strategy around healthcare workers, around the elderly,

in in UH congregate housing facilities, the staff of those facilities. UM. But what we've seen, unfortunately, is that the vaccines are moving to the states and out to places where people can be immunized too slowly to unevenly. We've we've seen, unfortunately the potential for vaccines to expire without being used. That's a great loss. UH. And of course we have to remember that with these two messenger RNA vaccines Maderna

and visor UH. Viser in particular has very challenging distribution UH features because it has to be kept super cold. The low minus eight. The MODERNA vaccine is a little easier to use, but they're both challenging to use and they really do require very careful management. UM and UH. And of course, you know, what we have is not a national strategy, but fifty different states strategies, and many

of the governors are going in their own way. You saw that Florida may have the decision not to prioritize healthcare workers and instead go with the elderly, but without preparing so long lines and people waiting overnight. That's not a national strategy. So my gut says, nothing's going to change until we have a new administration. What are your hopes that from day one Joe Biden and team do

in terms of getting this out to people. Well, the incoming administration Biden Harris does have a national strategy on COVID. It's been up on their website. They have articulated that this is the principal priority. They're putting together a great team. Dr Fauci, of course, is going to stay on as a senior scientific advisor. The CDC director who's proposed for

Shell Willinsky, is an outstanding leader. Um, So I think we're we're very optimistic that this is an administration that's going to let the science lead and that is going to try and have a national strategy. But they're inheriting a rollout that's already underway and problematic, and I think it's going to be really challenging to streamline this, to make it coherent, uh and and to get it working. The President elect is committed to a hundred million people

being vaccinated in the first hundred days. So that's not a hundred million doses, that's a hundred million immunizations. About fifty million people with these two dose vaccines. Well, it was looking realistic when he made a campaign promise. With the rollout right now, I think it's going to be enormously challenge. When when do you feel like things start to get normal, When do we start to be able to kind of reopen life as we know it and

love it. We will have about fifty million vaccines available, so enough for twenty million people by the end of this month. February, March, and April are likely to still be periods where we have more people who want to be immunized than we have vaccines. What we're thinking is that by June or July one we will have enough vaccine for every American who wants one. Uh, and that that is going to mean that really by the end of the second quarter of one we should really be

seeing a change in life getting back to normal. We have trials planned for the pediatric vaccines. Right now, we only have one that's the the fisor vaccine that can go down to age sixteen. But we also really need to do that work and be sure that we have vaccines for children and infants, for pregnant women, for lactating women. So we still have some work to do, but but the fall of one should look a lot different than

the spring dr buyer. One unfortunate element that we've seen with the vaccine rollout has been skepticism of the American population. Not everybody, but people who say, including healthcare workers, that they don't want this vaccine. Have you received a vaccine yet? I have not because I am a researcher and I don't do direct patient care at Hopkins. We're we're not prioritized. Um. I'm I'm hopeful that that I'll be in one of the next groups. Uh, and I'm expecting to get get

a vaccine probably in February. How do we fix the messaging here? I think one thing that's very encouraging. You may have seen there was a recent Kaiser Family Foundation poll that showed that vaccine acceptability, at least in that poll was up around That's better than it's been, so we're going in the right direction. I think it's very important for healthcare workers, for political leaders like Biden Harris, who both have been publicly immunized, to step up and

and model the behavior that we want to see. We also, I'm working in the COVID Vaccine Prevention Network we've had a big faith based initiative to try and address these issues for African Americans in particular, that community unfortunately seems to have some of the highest rates of vaccine hesitancy and skepticism. UH and UH, and we're working hard with, for example, African American physicians and networks to try and improve uh people's positive sense of the benefits of these vaccines.

They have very high efficacy ninety four and uh, they're very safe as far as we can see so far. We're following everybody in the trials who has been in these vaccine trials for up to two years to look at longer term safety. But UH, I think you know what, what we're hopeful about is that as more and more people get immunized, the folks who are saying right now, I'm not ready, uh, will will move towards getting immunized.

For most Americans, it's gonna be probably May or June before they really can just decide if they want a vaccine. So so the folks who are hesitant should wait and look. But but yeah, that's we're seeing, you know. Well, you know, it's interesting to say this and I hate to do this. In like our last couple of minutes. But there is a story on the Bloomberg. It's an opinion piece, but it asked the question who's on the hook of vaccines

go wrong? And it's basically, you know, given the breakneck pace of production, there are very few answers about what manufacturers and governments are ultimately responsible for. God forbid something should go wrong. And forgive me because I'm an optimist and I believe in the science of this vaccine. But as you said, you guys the medical community, well, we're gonna be tracking people longer term to see if there is any longer term impact because we still don't, to

be fair, to be honest, we still don't know. Well, that's right, and we need We are accumulating safety data from the people in the trials and the people who've been immunized. Every day. We have a vaccine adverse Events reporting system that the CDC is managing. Um. Certainly everybody in the healthcare systems who are getting immunized are being tracked through those health systems. Uh, and we need to

follow this very carefully. I think it's important to remember that there are always some risks associated with any medication, any vaccine, any biomedical intervention. We all know that writing is zero risk, but the flip side of that is the risk of getting COVID. Learning more and more about this disease is that that you know this, this has the potential to really kill you or alter your life.

That was Dr Chris Buyer, Professor in Public Health and Human Rights at the John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and of course the Bloomberg School of Public Health, supported by Michael R. Bloomberg, founder of Bloomberg Up and Bloomberg Philanthropy. You've been listening to Bloomberg Business Week Extra, be sure to listen to Bloomberg Business Week Radio, air live Monday through Friday at two pm Wall Street Time on Bloomberg Radio. I'm Carol Masser and I'm Tim Stenerberg.

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