Confusion Over Antibody Tests

Week on iTunes, SoundCloud, bl Bloomberg dot com. You can also listen to our radio show at two pm Eastern on Bloomberg Radio every weekday, or watch us on YouTube by searching Bloomberg Global News. We did see Florida reporting new cases rising to the highest level since the pandemic began.

Texas saw hospitalizations surge. Two more signs at the virus outbreak is we're sitting in some U States and meantime, we at Beijing shutting at schools un concerned about new infections as China started testing all shipments of imported meat that had a fresh outbreak that was linked to another

wholesale seafood and meat market in the capital. So back with us to talk about where we are and what we need to do and how we kind of, you know, deal with what's going on, especially when you come at it from different angles when it comes to the viruses. Dr William Hazeltine, he is chairman and president of Access Health Internationally, joins us on the phone from Connecticut. Doctor Hasltin, it's great to have you back with us. Um. What

do you make of the most recent virus headlines. Well, I'm looking right now at what's happened in Florida, and in many ways it was predictable. It was averaging about five hundred, between four and five hundred up to eight hundred cases sometimes for about a month and a half, and then starting in the end of May early June, he just started to rise. A couple of days ago there were two thousand five cases, uh, and now there

may be about two thousand new cases. It's pretty serious, and what it means is that the precautions that people were taking we're eased off about two weeks ago, and we're now seeing that as spikes and newly diagnosed infections, mostly because people are getting uh, mild, lil or seriously ill. And that's happening in many parts of the country. Some other parts, like New York City, it's still relatively calm. People in New York at really scared and they know

it's important to keep social distance. But even in New York, it's people are beginning to forget. And so, what have we learned about our initial response, doctor has l ten that we can maybe put into practice now because there is this I think strong resistance on the part of both government leaders and just everyday people to go back to a full on shutdown. Yeah, I understand that. It's uh, it's fully, fully understandable. And what the way I look at is the following. We paid a price, but we

didn't get the benefit. That's because we didn't do it right. We didn't really enforced contact tracing and mandatory isolation, and people weren't particularly observant all all the people weren't observant about the precautions they were urged to take. So we never cleared the infection like a number of other countries did, or reduce it down to a very manageable level of say a half a dozen five six in the whole country. We just didn't do that, and so we we paid

a price, but we didn't get a benefit. The net result is we're now going to end up in a different situation, which is I call it back to the future. When I was born seventy five years ago, it was right on the cusp of the vaccine and antibiotic miracles. Before that time, people lived with the understanding that death could strike them at any moment. Even I remember polio, I remember being terrified of rheumatic fever. Those are things

we couldn't control. And in fact, we've built America. We've built the world in a world without vaccines and in the world without antibiotics. But you pay a price that we're beginning to understand, and that price is death. Is that your shoulder at all moments? And it seems that we're willing to adapt to that. We've adapted in the past, we'll adapt again. We have exiting the time at least for now, where we have a free ride and don't

have to worry about dying of an infectious disease tomorrow. Wow. Okay, So so how do we do this? Because you know, you're right, you know we're kind of in this interesting situation, and yes, history has shown us we can forge ahead, and we can You know build society, but there is a cost to it. So as we reopen, do we do we do it? You will pay the price. Yes,

we do do it. I I happen to agree. We don't have any choice because Americans seems to be undisciplined and we don't have either the leadership, the governments or the government apparatus that we need. We need leaders that are clear, consistent, credible, and compassionate. We need government governance that works, and we need a public health service very much like an army that has unitary command from the top to the bottom. When the President says it's up

to the governors, he's right. He doesn't have a tool he can use like he can use the military abroad. We don't have that tool. When the governor say it's up to the municipalities of the cities. I live in New York and you can see the tension between the governor and the mayor, and the mayor might even in some places as the county leader may say it's up to the local authorities. We don't have unitary commands in

public health service. If there's a lesson we learned from this, it's we need unitary command to protect us internally as we do externally. Our biggest threats in my lifetime have not come from abroad. They've come from diseases within our own country, whether it was HIV AIDS or whether there was a number of other diseases polio that I can remember. Those are the big threats, and we've not prepared for

those like we are prepared for external threats. Right, let's get back to our conversation with Dr William Hazeltine, Chair President of Access Health International. Join us on the fund from Connecticut. It's also got a new book. It's called A Family Guide to COVID And one of the things I love about this, Dr Heseltine, is it's a book that lives right now. But this is a fast moving story. So you give people access to your website because you're gonna keep updating this. Tell us what led you to

write this. I remember during the early days of HIV AIDS, so many people had questions and there was no place they could go for answers. This is even more serious than that because it's kids that are affected. If you're a parent, you have kids that are asking questions all the time. I'm a grandparent and I've got a lot of grand children asking me questions and their parents asking me, and so I decided that I would write a book

to answer questions in a very simple way. The kind of questions the kids are going to ask, our parents will ask themselves in each other heads, like what's happened mom? Why can't I go play with my friends? Or how long is this going to go on? Or will science save us? Adults are going to say things like should I really put maths on my kids when they go to play with their friends? Should they play with any friends? What's the situation today? It changes as we know. This

is a every changing situation. So this is what I call a living book in the sense that the book will change along with our knowledge. Questions will disappear, answers will change. There is no said answer of answers yet, so it's a living document. It's been a lot of fun to do, and I hope it's helpful. I have to say, you know, we just went through a conversation my daughter last night. She's seventeen, you know, getting medy

to be a senior in high school. Jason has a teenager the same age, and another one and a little one. But she was like, I just missed my friends mom and they've done the zoom thing and they do everything, and you just you do think about like, we don't know what school is going to be like in the fall, you know, uh, you know, her world is being turned upside down and and we're so happy we're healthy. But you do realize the mark that this is having, you know,

on a younger generation. Absolutely you do. And it's at a time when young people have to get out. This is what young people have to do, whether they're children, whether they're teenagers. I've talked to a lot to do this book. I talked to a lot of kids. I rounded up every grand child and a child I could find, and a lot of teenagers. You know. I talked to a teenage boy who said, this whole thing is a plot to keep me from my girlfriend. That's life. That's

what parents are dealing with. No, they are. And I think we do think a lot about as as Carol mentioned, you know, kids going off to college and being deprived of that experience. But you know, I think you provided some really good historical perspective in that regard. Dr haselteen that you know, this is this is new to to all of us and in many ways. And yet, um, you know this is something that as a society we've dealt with before and we just have to learn to adapt.

In many ways we do. But it's not going to be easy, is it? Is it safe to say? I mean, I was listening to a conversation on Bloomberg Radio earlier just about a vaccine, and I know there are some folks that are saying, oh, we could get it, you know, later this year. What's the reality and do we have to until we have a vaccine, life will not be normal. Well, you know, we lived for as I said, for centuries without vaccines, so you can live. Secondly, Uh, there are

things you can do. Other countries have shut this virus down almost completely, not completely, and it won't be gone completely. And we are going to have drugs that are temporary vaccines for anybody who's exposed. We will have drugs within a year that will prevent anybody from being exposed from falling ill. I'm virtually certain of that. Vaccines I've given at Wow. Well, Uh, as always, we really appreciate your time,

Dr William has Alten. The new book is called A Family Guide to COVID and when you pick it up, you should note just as he said, it's a living book, and so you'll be able to get into a website that will be constantly updated because the questions are changing it. As he said, the answers are changing. I mean, I think about the conversations we have now, Carol versus what

we're having a month ago, six weeks ago. I mean, we're in our fourteenth week of doing this broadcast this way, I know, right, And I think what's also interesting and crazy is that there are still so many questions about kind of getting our head, you know, our heads around it and and getting back to normal. And I think what he says is at some point, you know, you're going to have to get out there, and there will be a price to pay for it, and consequences. For sure,

We'll I'll have to adjust, all right. That was Dr William Hazeltine, chair president of Access Health International, his new book, A Family Guide to COVID. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Jason Kelly on Bloomberg Radio. All right, let's do a little bit this week economics. It's been very busy on that front. Between that blockbuster number, or at least a number that caught people by surprise.

Even as you dug down, you sort of got these elements that still made you say if you were a Carol Mass or at least WOA. So we're gonna break that down as well as what we heard from J Pow. What we've heard so far the first of a two day testimony that he has up on Capitol Hill. Uh. Let's turn to Kathleen Hayes, Globe Economics said policy editor for Bloomberg. She's anar Bloomberg and Erector Broker Studio. Elena schletivis senior US economists for Bloomberg Economics. She joins us

on the phone from Long Island. So, k H, I want to start with you, J Pow. What what do we need to know? I mean, we've heard a lot from this guy over the past few weeks. He's been tip of the spear in many ways, or certainly the FED has what's the key takeaway? Well, I the the chair I think is describing reality when he says that, yes, the economy, look at the UM employment report, look at how much jobs rose. It's definitely coming off the lows.

I think what he said today is uh, it's uh, maybe even the beginning of recovery, but still in much worse shape than it was before the lockdowns, before everyone had to shut down. And I think that's what he wants everyone to remember. Yes, it's good that things are getting better, but they're not good enough yet. So I think that's a very important point. Maybe part of the reason he's saying this is because he does want to make it clear that what the data show you is

there is still a need to help some people. Because the last thing he's going to do is tell Congress Republicans or Democrats that yes, you better get out there and and you know, renew that program, do this, do that, right, He's going to stay away from that. But by underscoring the fact that there's gonna be a lot of people without jobs even after the economy gets into recovery, I think that sends the message. So maybe that's part of the reason, But it's also how it looks. Elene is

going to get into the retail sales force. But you know, you combine retail sales and chops and a couple of things and you say, gee, maybe actually, queue Elena, can Helena come on in because you actually put out some research specifically on that retail sales report and you said,

maybe slow down, everybody, don't get too excited about it. Okay, so actually cheered Powell today made a note of that, and he acknowledged stronger than expected gain in the main retail sales, but he ascribed it to the eight coming from the measures including the Big Checks protection program basically the fiscal support uh from and and monitory policy support. Uh.

The crisis was evolving, so uh. He also said that the federally means agnostic with respect to the strength of the recovery, and that is the scene of all of his latest remarks. So what he's trying to say is that in case of retail sales, for example, that this rebound follows the significant drop in activity. So in terms of retail sales, decline over the previous three months was followed by an eighteen percent rebound, but activity remains still

remains below its pre crisis levels. So retail sales are eight percent below what we saw back in January. We'll take time for that to get back to the trend. Right. It's easy to come back from such a terrible level, and you do wonder about Okay, So what's going to be the economic momentum on the other side, Kathleen, especially when you know, we see stories about temporary jobs loss temporary job losses will become permanent ones, and you talk

about you know a lot of folks. Now, that's what we don't, right, I think, And I think it seems it seems logical, right, it seems how can we conclude that a lot of small businesses don't just feel shattered, and not not only feel shattered, they are shattered. They're not coming back. So and I think that's I think that's what I'm j Pal's biggest worries, and he's mentioned that many times, and that's such an important part of the economy, but we don't That's one thing we don't know.

And I would say, never underestimate the appetite of the American consumer. And once people can get out and go to more stores. I don't know about you guys, but on the Upper West Side of Manhattan and most of the retailers are still closed. So I just wonder myself if maybe this this rebound may continue more than people think. Because if there's one thing people do in this country, they shop and they've been locked at home. And then

I then I think the question is how long? Because you're with me right now, I'm well, I'll totally with you. But Jason, man, you need some new sneakers. He's like, I think there's a little withdrawal going on there, but I would. But I think it's a really interesting point, Kathleen, because social thing for all of us, you're seeing people, you know, when they are allowed to really get out there, I mean numbers. Notwithstanding even the conversation we just had

with the CEO of FedEx office. She basically like, look, I'm in Dallas, people are out, the malls are bumping, and you know this is going to happen. Then I want to throw on because I want to get Jake can. I just want to let Len in on this. But first I just want to mind. I want to be speaking to Rob Kaplan on Daybreak Australia today at six thirty pm. And of course he lives in Dallas. He lives in Texas. That's one of things I definitely want to ask him about. And there a phase three. So Helena,

what do you want to add? Just you know, I agree with you guys on the spirit of an American consumer, I'm eating myself to go out there and spend some money. But as long as you have this money, as long as you have the means to spend. So remember the gap is still huge between the trends, the pre crisis trends in wage income and what we're seeing at the current levels that was more than of set by stimulus

checks over the peak of the crisis. But what happens going into the second half of the year when this what gets reduced and or eliminated. So that's what I want to see. You want to see whether people actually have the money to spend. They may want to, they

may want to get out in shop there. It wouldn't be a nice surprise if all these programs that have started, including the main street lending program, actually end up getting some money in the pockets of the business owners, who then really can say, even if I'm not at full speed, I'm getting back, you know, I'm getting back online. I'm working again. I want you know, I've got to I can bring some of my employees back. I think that's

that's the X factor that nobody knows right now. Yeah, yeah, it's one of the many, many things we still don't know about what happens sex. All right, thank you both for a spirited conversation. Kathleen Hayes glow Like and Ice in policy editor for Bloomberg. She's back home in our Bloomberg Interactive Broker studio. And Elena Shall. Let you have a senior US economist for Bloomberg Economics, Jonius, on the phone from Long Island. So many questions, Jason Kelly, So

many questions. Are you answer to get out there and go shopping? Not really, not really, Like I was a little auntie too, like go, you know, have a burger, which I did and that was great. Um. But you know, I also have the benefit of the suburbs, and you know I can get out and about a little bit more. This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Jason Kelly on Bloomberg Radio. Let's talk about an aspect of the coronavirus crisis that we actually haven't spent as much

time on of late. So I'm excited we get to talk about this story concerns antibody tests and the headline in the story that will be in the upcoming edition of Bloomberg Business Week, says antibody tests are everywhere now and confusing everyone. Kristen Brown, the healthcare reporter for Bloomberg. She wrote it. She joins us on the phone from California. Joel Webber, the editor Bloomberg Business Week. He's on. He's with us from Brooklyn. So Joel, help us understand how

you got to this story and why it's important. A couple of weeks ago, UM, I call Kristen and said, UM, you know, I'm basically thinking about doing an antibody test for myself. What do I need to know? And she was basically like, uh, kind of don't bother because nobody

understands anything about what the results are. Right. I'm being a little facetist here, But like, I think the main thing that Kristen uh and I kicked around on that call and that she writes about is is that really we don't know what these antibody tests and the outcomes really mean yet, and that is adding just a whole level of confusion to the coronavirus conversation because you might have had it and tested positive for it, but this

antibody thing, we don't really understand if that actually makes you, you know, it shows you any immunity to the virus at all. Um, Kristen, what did you learn while you were reporting this? Yeah? So interestingly, I so I should disclose I actually did to have an antibody test myself because I was curious, even though I know they're worthless.

And I think that that's the really interesting thing is even if you're up on the science and you understand that we know that antibody is probably confers some immunity, but we don't know how how much immunity, So it means that the test really isn't going to change anything about your life, right, you still have to be careful, but they there's this desire to have this feeling that

maybe you have some protection against this virus. And I think there's this really interesting thing going on where testing companies, doctor's offices are now sort of preying on that that desire, that hope we all have. You know, several of our Bloomberg colleagues forarded me emails they got or text messages they got from their own doctor's office saying, you know,

book an antibody test today. We've got them. Even though the science says, and good medicine says, there's no than for an individual to get this test, because the test isn't going to change anything about your behavior. Kristen, I feel like with everything with COVID nineteen, it's not easy. It's not simple, and that includes, you know, these tests, and what's tough is there's so many out there. Feels like everywhere you look, you know, there's an antibody tests.

What's interesting is you talk about, even in your story, how people are starting to vet antibody tests. I guess to figure out which ones maybe perhaps are more reliable. But you know, I felt like this was going to be the holy grail to some extent, you know, in addition to a vaccine, to being able to reopen safely. And now what we're hearing is maybe that's not the case.

You know, I shouldn't say that. If not that the tests are completely worthless, right, there are some scenarios in which these tests can be very useful, and so it is important that test manufacturers have very good, highly sensitive, highly specific tests. Uh. Those those cases include you know, public health surveys when we're testing floss of the population to try and understand, okay, how many people have really had the virus in this community, how many people are asymptomatic.

It also includes occupations like healthcare workers or you know, even people at grocery stores, where those people have to be performing their jobs and interacting with a lot of people. And maybe it makes sense to have the people dealing with people who are sick with COVID to be people who have antibodies already, because even if we don't a hundred percent know how much immunity they confer, at least we're making a more educated guests about who is safer

to be on the front lines there. So there definitely is some value in these tests, just you know, probably not to you or me. And let's let's bring in, um, the thought of the FDA and all of this, right because these tests, um uh you know what kind of regulations are around for them right now? Yeah, so this is a really interesting thing. The FDA in March, when these tests aarted coming on the market, We're like, hey, we want you guys to get the test out there

as as soon as possible. Basically, just go ahead and do it. We're not going to intervene. And what happened, and the FDA has said this is that they had a bunch of bad actors. They had people marketing tests that they said were FDA approved when they're not. They had people marketing tests that performed really poorly, uh, marketing

those really aggressively. And so then last month the FDA had to step in and sort of walk back their earlier position and say, Okay, if you're an anibody test maker, you need to apply to us for an emergency youth authorization, which is the same, uh, the same authorization that the

diagnostic test makers have to get. So but that hot still has solved the problems because now we still have all of these tests on the markets that are you know, in the pipeline for approval but haven't gotten true boy, getting are still on the market right and as you said, there's about two hundred of them, with eighteen just getting receiving a formal emergency user authorization. It's an interesting story in just another smart story, um, and a reminder of

how complex this all is. Kristin Brown, thank you so much, Bloomberg News healthcare reporter joining us on the phone from Oakland, California. Of course, our thanks to Joe Webber, editor of Bloomberg Business Week, on the phone from Brooklyn. Yeah, and you can check that story out. It's on Blueberg dot com and of the Blueberg terminal already and you can see it in print later this week in the Remember Me

addition to Blueberg Business. We talked about like this was going to be so important and so helpful, and I have to say I talked to people anecdotally and they say it's a mess as well. So we'll see rom journal. Yeah, but you let me drive, No, no, no, please, I want to drive, just drive the questions trying job. This is the drive to the globe community. Thanks, we'll try

us down on Bloomberg Radio list. Indeed, just about eleven minutes left to go in today's trading session, and as you know, we've been bouncing around, but we're just a little bit off our highs. But nonetheless we've got more than one percent rallies on each of those major equity averages. Let's talk about the clothes with Henley Smith, senior vice president and senior relationship manager at New York based stone

Castle Cash Management. They've got two twenty two billion in the f d i C insured institutional cash deposits under advisory, and he joins us, let's get on the phone from Connecticut. Henley nice to have you back with Jason's great to hear. It's great to hear that busy traffic who poured out in New York. So things are ultimately getting back to normal. I don't know about that. It's it's slogoing certainly in

New York. Um. Yeah, tell me, you know, what are you seeing in terms of activity picking up and maybe what it tells you about you know, where the financial markets go from here. Well, you know, we've, as we've talked about before, we've kind of on the leading edge of what was gone on in the last ten weeks. As investors come into a fully insured cash management situation, they want to be in liquidity and insured principle. So

we were the benefactors of that. So we've seen a lot of institutional clients Russia too that you definitely did see a big rush into that. Oh yeah, you know, we were up over the last couple of weeks, you know, well over five billion dollars in new assets that came in because people wanted to protect interest uh principle and they wanted liquidity. So we were the benefactors of that,

UM and we continue to see that. So I think that the allocation of cash, even in these low interest rates, will continue to grow, both on the institutional level as well as the individual level. And I think that's kind of the normal now. Uh. You know, we saw that coming out of two thousand eight nine, and I think that you're going to see that was going to be with us now as people build, maintain and control rainy

day reserves for what might be happening next. Well, that whole notion of a rainy day reserve, I mean, I would imagine that becomes a little more popular in a time like this now, right, Oh, absolutely, And you would think that, you know, with these ultra low interest rates, people would be kind of running for the hills. And of course you're seeing obviously stock market prices move up and down, but for the most part moving up. But yeah,

we've seen that on the institutional level. Uh. And I was also on the high net worth individual savings rates are up. That's because, of course there might be some similar checks there. But we see um in the family office market in particular, and we've talked about this before, where cash as a part of their out other total portfolios is anywhere from you know, fift Now, are you worried about some of the turmoil that we've seen in

the past in those money market funds. Well, you know, again, I think that it just kind of exposes some of the concerns that we've had up to this point in these collective investments. So I think the real, uh, the greatest safety control can be seen through direct ownership of cash assets. I know that's tough on the retail side,

but for institutions, you've seen more of it. They've been moving out of these collective money market funds because in many ways there, you know, they are impacted by what their neighbor does and they don't want to do that. So direct ownership continues to be the way that people are going and that's what we've seen. So I gotta ask you, uh, a little bit of a turn here. It's sort of back to where we started a little bit heavy. What's it like in Connecticut? What what are

you seeing? Because you know, we're trying to get this this picture of what's going on across the country and even with the Tri state area. You know, Carol and I are comparing notes. You know, she's just outside of New York City. I'm in the Westchester suburbs, and our lives are very different. I wonder what you're seeing. Yeah, just the same as you. I mean, I think more people are getting out a little bit more. They're being courteous and kind, and they're wearing masks in public, public areas.

I'm in an office building here in Connecticut and Newtown, Connecticut, and start people are starting to come back a little bit. But you know, the offices have to change a lot of as you know, Wall Street is a lot of open uh desks, and that's going to have to change a little bit. So uh, you know, slowly we're restaurants are coming back. People are eating under tents and parking lots, which is great to see. But so yeah, slowly, but surely, I think, uh, the tone is changing to the positive

and it's great to see. Okay. And so when you see some of the headlines like a spike in Florida or Texas or China, you know, shutting down schools in Beijing because of a new market related you know open or food market related. Um, you know, round of the virus, that doesn't concern you, well, certainly it does, um, but

I think again, forearmed is or forewarmed is forearmed? Do we know a little bit more about it now we know to be expected now, So I mean, you know, ten weeks ago it kind of came out of nowhere to everybody. So now I think everyone's you know, their their awareness is much more heightened. And I think with that realization, I think, uh, you know, this is a manageable thing. Only when when do you start to think

about the elections in the November elections? You know, we get to a point where that becomes a major focal point of our market conversations and investment conversations, because we know that that can certainly, you know, change what the outlook is? Um, is it too soon? Do you think about it now? I think people are thinking about it all the time. I mean, and I think that's one of the underlying things that's been happening in this kind of uh you know, chaotic world that we now live

in which we've kind of been stumbling into. We we talked about this before, about baby black swans that happening and happening and happening. We've talked about that before. So I think the trick of this particular market cycle is that we've had these lisical undertones in it, and that's just gonna on the only supercharge what we're doing. So as we get closer to November, I think the volatility we can count on just continuing to increase. Uh So

we're just trading from headline to headline to headline. Yeah, it's a really interesting. Uh it's a really interesting time to say the least, Henley. Really nice to catch up with you. You know, always a pleasure to get your perspective on things. And you know, it's it's a unique one too. Yeah, it totally is, totally is all right, Henley, So senior, go ahead, go ahead, Henley. No, I just said, you know, cash is kind of a leading thing, and yeah, it's it's an a class that, uh is getting on

more and more important as we go along. Yeah. There there's several times this year I wish I was more cash. It's just gonna say, alright, Henley, good to hear your voice at least. A senior relationship manager at Stonecastle Cash Management, Jonius, on the phone from Connecticut. I like, you know, when we're able to talk to people at their offices, like,

that's sort of a nice sign. I mean, clearly we're not talking to a lot of people in skyscrapers in Manhattan although you know, some of our colleagues are back there in our Bloomberg Interactor Broker studio here and again I've been there the whole time, and our team obviously, um, but you know, I don't know, it's hard to get your head around this idea that kind of where we are in different states and in different localities in the cycle.

You know that part of the reason that things feel a little bit better around here is because I dare say, our leadership, our state leadership, and our local leadership like really locked it down. You know, are you messing with my governor Murphy? No? No, no, I'm saying versus Texas Service, Yes, yes, yes, in other parts of the country. I think it's just a huge, huge difference. I've never messed with Murphy. I'm not an alcohohead. You're about go ahead. Thanks so much

for listening to Bloomberg Business Week. Download the podcast on iTunes, Southcloud, Blueberg dot com, but wherever you get your podcasts, And of course you can always listen to our radio show at two pm Eastern on Bloomberg Radio or watch us on YouTube by searching Bloomberg Global News. H