Improving COVID-19 Contact Tracing, Jobless Claims

Business Week on iTunes, SoundCloud, blo 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. Amid all of this talk about how we get back, maybe eating outdoors, maybe getting back to the office. We know that life is going to be different, and one of the key elements of how we continue to get back is can we test,

and maybe more importantly, can we trace? Contact Tracing has been a term of art that we have all learned. Emily Gurley is with us. She is Associated Scientists at John's Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health. She joins us on the phone from Baltimore. As you might be able to tell by the name of the Bloomberg School of Public Health, it's supported by Mike Bloomberg. He is the founder of Bloomberg FLA frees and Bloomberg LP, the

owner of this radio station. Emily, Really nice to have you with Carol and myself. Oh, it's a pleasure to be here. Thanks for the invitation. So tell us what's going on, because I feel like contact tracing is one of these things that if I go back and I've lost all sense of time and space at this point, you know, working at home for twelve weeks, but it feels like a few weeks ago. This really came to the forum. We said, okay, this is what we need to do. But this is what we need to do.

Is a complicated process, or at least a fairly ownerous process of just standing this up, as they say, help us understand how it works and where we are sure. So contact tracing is not is not new departments to do this every day across the country. So it's not that we don't know how to do contact tracing or

that we're not doing it. The problem is that contact tracing for COVID requires us to do contact tracing at both a scale and speed that are really unprecedented and way beyond what we need for other diseases UM that we currently UM track with with this program so UM. So the big lift is getting our programs up to speed, which requires huge resource investments if we're going to do it right. So and what what what's involved emily in

doing it right? So doing it right means making sure so it doesn't stand alone from testing, it links up with testing. In fact, when someone is diagnosed with COVID nineteen, that's where the whole chain of events starts. So it's important that folks, you know, as soon as they develop any signs and symptoms, are able to get a test, get it quickly, and get results quickly UM. And then

from there a number of things happen. So that person will be contacted by the health department about their diagnosis. They'll be asked to isolate themselves from others so that they don't uh transmit the infection on UM. That's a big ask. There's a lot to sort out there in terms of the logistics of your life. If you're not going to have contact with other people while you're sick, and so they help people come up with a plan,

they make sure they know where they can get medical care. Um. And then the next part is identifying the people who they may have already infected, the people who they may have exposed. And one of the difficult things about this virus is that people can be infectious and infect other people before they themselves know they're sick. Right, so up to two days before you get sick, you could infect somebody else. And really, you know, on the day the first day you start feeling ill is probably one of

the days when you're when you're also very infectious. So um. So the person from the health department who calls who calls the patient, we're calling them contact tracers, uh, and this example, they would try to identify who may have been exposed to that patient and then they get the contact information of those people so that they can let

them know that they've been exposed. Because what you want to try to do is ask those people to change their behavior also to quarantine themselves so that they don't unknowingly infect someone out because again they if they've been infected, they could become infectious before they know that they're sick. So this is so it's a it's a program facilitated by contact tracers to notify people who have been exposed

so that we can try to stop change of train submission. Right. So, just I'm going to be a voice of skepticism here a little bit because for it understanding how this works. You know, it feels like one of the tough links in this chain, as it were, is that ask that you just described. Hey, you're getting a call from a contact tracer because at some point along the course of the last few days or whenever it was, you've been exposed.

Do you have any sense of how receptive people are to that of saying, all right, now I've got to take two weeks off of work or two weeks off of you know, being around my family or whatever. That is what evidence do we have in in terms of candidly like how people will sort of adopt this behavior? So I think, well, so adoptive behavior in terms of change their behavior and quarantine. Yes, exactly. Yeah. Um, I think that there are a couple of ways to think

about this. Um. I it's it's a difficult thing to do, as you say, um, and there will be some people who will be unwilling to do it um I UM. I believe, however, and I think that the data we have so far shows that people are willing to do it because what's the alternative. The alternative is that you infect people that you know, that you love, that you work with. Um and as we all know, most of us have people within our world that are at high

risk first year disease. That's a really good point, Charlie mentioning some of the latest from Johns Hopkins, which has been closely tracking everything to do with the virus. We've got with us right now. Emily Gurley still still with us, Associate scientist at Johns Hopkins University, Bloomberg School of Public Health. As we mentioned earlier, the Bloomberg School of Public Health supported by Michael R. Bloomberg, founder of Bloomberg LP and

Bloomberg Philanthropies. One thing I wonder, Emily, is I got a couple of questions. Corporations, Well, they I don't know, what are you hearing? Well, they ultimately play a big role in contact tracing and might get to a point where they kind of demanded of workers to make sure that everyone is keeping and staying safe. UM. Well, I think if we're if we're going back to work. If we're reopening our societies, there's no no risk life. Um, So everything we do have to function around reducing risk

wherever we can. Um. So workplaces are you know, that's where people spend time. So UM, I think it just makes sense that corporations are thinking about, you know, in their own particular context, what are the vulnerabilities that they face, where could um, where could infections take place? What are they doing to prevent that? Uh? If someone is infected, Uh, there you would want to know, and you'd want to

let workers know that they've been exposed. Again, for all the reasons that we've already discussed, no one would want

to unknowingly infect someone else. I think that you you know, you should also think about if um, you know, just your systems, then if someone is infected, um, you know, how many contacts have they had, it might be worth while to rearrange workflows or how you do business so that if one person is infected, you don't have everyone else quarantining because they've all had close contact with that person.

All right. Uh, that's really an an interesting point. So are you seeing like different areas or different places or different institutions who are sort of doing this. Well, what what are the role models that we should be thinking about here, Emily, Um, I think we're all still figuring this out. UM, so we're still in learning mode. I think it's important that uh, you know, anyone who's doing this be reporting out how it's worked, ging what's working,

what's not, um, just for everyone's improvement. I think that there are some really low tech, easy things that we can do, particularly from the business side, that just make a lot of sense, including making sure people know that they should and can stay home when they're sick. Even if you're just feeling a little unwell, it's worth it to stay home and this context and that will go a long way. So simple, right, but it's just common sense. UM. One last question, what do we learn from HIV contact

tracing that can help us here? So contract tracing for HIV is similar, doesn't have to be done again at the scale and speed as COVID. UM, but we do have a few things that are important. One is, um, you know, stigma doesn't help, It doesn't help prevention efforts, It doesn't help people who are infected, so UM, you know, so we should do everything we can to avoid that. UM.

The second thing is it works. Um, if we can find people, help them change their behavior so they don't spread it onto others, we're doing a service to our whole community. Um. So I think those are the two major things. Yeah, and that's a really important one. And I'm glad that you framed it the way that you did in the earlier part of the conversation that you need to remind people. And I do think we're doing a better job of this, and I hope it continues

to resonate that. You know, even in the controversy around well, I don't want to wear a mask, people essentially say, listen, you have to do this because this isn't just about you. This is about the community. And I think you put it really well, Emily, that this is about people that you care about. You know, people in your family, people

who you work with, your friends, your your close circle. Uh. You know, even if you can't get your head around, uh, the good of greater society, you know, you think about the people that you love in many cases. All right, Emily, girlie, thank you so much. Associate scientists JOHNS. Hopkins University, Bloomberg School Public Health joining us on the phone from Baltimore. It is you, it is me, it is everyone. It's like one of those situations, right, you really need to

think about your community the greater good. Uh, And putting on a mask is so simple. So uh, certainly great to hear from her and responding. And basically, if you're told like you've been exposed, then you need to do something to take yourself out of it right in many ways, and let everybody that you expose know about it, right exactly. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and

Jason Kelly on Bloomberg Radio. All right, so let's talk a little bit about the world of economics, because clearly it is top of mind the back half of this week given all the jobs and jobless data that we are getting, and we also are coming to understand the crises that we're facing our economic in many ways at their core, and we're going to talk about that throughout the course of the show. Let's continue the conversation right now with Steep Blitz, He's chief US economist, with Ta

Lambard joining us on the phone from New York City. Steve, it's nice to have you with Caroline. Myself, I do wonder as you look at the data that continue to come out, you know, you see the market reacting and as our own Michael McKee, who I know, you know who said earlier, Uh, it's quite a day when we say, oh, one point nine million jobless claims. Okay, cool, better than I thought it was going to be. I mean that it's still is hard for me to get my head

around it. And yet you look at this market with a clear eye. What do you see out there? What are the important things we need to be zeroing in on? Well, I think the important things we need to be zero you know. First of all, Hello, everybody, how are you? We're doing okay? I hope you are too, Yes, yes, yes, what we are? Um? So the thing to really key on is this, you're looking for two things. You're looking for whether or not there's a broadening of unemployment beyond

the initial firms that we're shut down. And when you look and reading the paper and Bloomberg reporting this company, that company is starting to report layoffs that are you know, second, third, fourth degrees away from you know, the local store that gets shut down. That's what you're looking for. And when I looked at the ADP numbers yesterday, and admittedly employment

is a lagging indicator. UM it began to tell me that one the two million a week in initial unemployment claims is not just an administrative backlog, which we know it does exist, but it's also telling us that there is a broadening of unemployment. So what you want to see in the weekly claims numbers is is that number of continuing claims starting to go down. Right as the economy reopens, people get called back. PPP is supposed to put people back on the payroll. There was a big

jump and last and that's really two weeks last. By week two weeks ago, we saw a big drop in continuing claims. That was great. We saw small and small increased and increase about six thousand this week. So that's probably and then what should really if I'm in the equity market's what I should really be focused on, because the equity markets obviously is a forward discounting mechanism. As we all know. UM of the people who said they lost their jobs last month said it was temporary. That's

an extraordinarily high number. And that's one of the reasons why forward expectations by consumers and business has been that this is sort of a three month bank holiday. I want to know tomorrow it's gonna be a horrendous number. The unemployment number rates are gonna be higher. And I and and I get all that, we're gonna see that,

and that's going to be the headline. But what really look at is has that number shifted as people have people begun of view, they are on their jobs that were lost no longer being a temporary loss, but a permanent loss. Well and and well and Steve, we know, right, permanent becomes our temperate, temporary excuse me becomes permanent, especially if there isn't demand on the other side of this, like we don't. We don't really know what growth is

going to be like on the other side. And maybe we can watch Asia for some ideas, you know, as they come back from the virus. They're ahead of us, certainly, but we just don't know. And if a business doesn't have demand, they're not going to hold onto workers, They're not going to bring in new workers. I mean, we've

we've seen that. We've talked to CEOs who thought we're gonna hold out of workers, you know, they you know, back when when this all started, and then they've had to let folks go right exactly, And that's why that number is so important. The most extraordinary aspect was a lot of extraordinary aspects. But one of the extraordinary aspects of this whole downs aren't is that usually ex current expectations and forward expectations by consumers and I'm really looking

at the conference board numbers drop this time. The current expectations dropped, the forward expectations never did. And if you look at the Philly Fed Survey of manufacturing, their current business numbers dropped as they would normally would in a recession, the forward expectations did not. If those numbers start to slip, the equity market has to slip with it, because that forward expectations is also what's built into the equity market, and liquidity works to boost the equity market when the

forward expectations are strong. But when those forward expectations starts a week, you know a lot of money can go into cash too. And so is that a and how soon will we kind of get a really good picture of whether that is the case. Is it measured in weeks or is this something that we're gonna have to watch for the balance of this year. Steve, I think July August, if we are not seeing some real improvement

or the numbers, that we will see improvement. I mean, I do think the unemployment rate is gonna go from say percent down to ten percent, and that's gonna feel great. But eight ten percent in this country is a severe recession.

And by August you're gonna see we should begin to see whether or not the unemployment rate is settling into Not only is that it's settling the eight to ten percent range, but who's unemployed moves up from the low skills, you know, low wage worker to It's exactly what Carol you were just talking about, which is it starts to move up the food chain, so to speak, as a terrible word to say, it's wort that just came out live, but moves up the income chain to people who to

higher skills hire income workers. And that's going to change the political tenor as well, which is what our Bloomberg Economics they've done a lot of work on this. We talked with Lena Schliteva about it yesterday, that it's you know, that second wave is not blue collar, it's white collar. So it really definitely changes the dynamics it's all bad. Whether you're blue collar or white collar, it's not good. Steve Blitz, thank you so much, Chief US economist at

TS Lombard on the phone in upstate New York. This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Jason Kelly on Bloomberg Radio. Jason Kelly, Yes, we actually have had some IPO activity as of late. We have, indeed, uh coming back slowly, but it's been a little bit. Yeah, I mean it's interesting. You know, I was listening to a conversation David West was having with a banker, uh, an adviser, I believe, right before we came on the air, and you know, talking about M and A activity, I

P O activity. I mean certainly, Look, bankers don't get paid if they don't get deals done. But you do wonder about the kind of the shape and the substance of these deals, both companies going public and M and A activity out there. We know that private equity deals are continuing to happen in some form of fashion. We have the KKR Cody deal. Yep, that's our daily mention of Cody. But I'm sure you'll mentioned in the stocks too,

do um. But uh, you know, you do think about how money gets deployed, because as we know, there is this wall of capital that needs to be put to work from a private equity perspective. And look, we have a stock market that is very healthy, and so why wouldn't you go into that market at this point? If it's very simple too when it comes to initial public offerings, companies do not bring companies public, or bankers don't bring companies public. Companies don't. Startups don't want to go public

if the market isn't warm and welcoming. And so when you start to see activity, that's optimism about the business environment. Warner Music of course, just going public. And then of course today we had a big one zoom Info. Don't be confused with zoom the virtual and cloud based video conferencing company UM, which has also been out there, but zoom Info of the tickers z I it I p oed at twenty one dollars to share shot up UH in its first day of trading. And lucky for us,

we actually have Henry Shack. He is the founder and CEO Assume Info. He joins us on the phone from I Believe, Vancouver, Washington. UM Henry, first of all, congratulations. UM on the I p O. I gotta ask you right out of the gate, though twenty one dollars at prices at its shot as high as forty dollars, do you kind of feel like the banker's miss price this one? Uh,

thank you for having me on. Um, you know, I don't. Look, I I we brought together the best advisors in the world with JP Morgan and Morgan Stanley and Credit Swiss and Barclay's and b of A, and so we feel like we we feel like we bought the best brains in the world to this. And look, I'm not looking at the price today. The stock will do what the

stock does today. We're building value for long term shareholders who will be with us five years from now and longer, and so I'm focused on building a business that creates value for them. I have the same business today that I had yesterday, and the stock market doesn't really affect what we're building. So Henry talked to us about this process. I mean, and I think probably from a Bloomberg You're gonna hear more about the nuts and bolts than than anything,

because you know, our audience are people. Are the folks who put these sorts of deals together. And I do wonder, you know, giving your experience and your expectations, what it was like to do a deal like this in a world that is still very much at home. Yeah, I mean we did our We did the road show completely from home. Um. We obviously we spent the last year meeting with investors across the country and getting them familiar

with our story. I think it would probably be pretty difficult to do this and if we hadn't already done that, And so by the time we came up to running a virtual road show, uh, you know, the big contingent of the ssters we were talking to had met us, what would they had understood the story, they understood the management team, and so being able to do do this virtually was actually, you know, some blessing in a lot

of ways. You know, ending a day after eight or nine or ten meetings and being able to walk out the door to my wife and my four year old daughter is a lot more interesting than finishing the day having dinner with a banker and then sleeping in a random hotel room in New Yorker San Francis breaking it down at the hotel bar at the Marriott in midtown, you know, trying to you know, make small talk with a banker. Yeah that your wife, Your wife and daughters

say thank you very much. They're very appreciative that you said that. Um, listen, you know, as we kidded at the top, you're not zoom the one that we've all been zooming with our families or having, you know, after our cocktail parties are having lots of meetings more likely, UM with it this hour? What exactly do you guys

do your sass company? Right? Yeah, So, we're a staff company that helps sales and marketing professionals today over two of them at fifteen thousand different companies find their next best customer. We do that through a mix of technology, data and analytics. But if I'm a B two B salesperson or a B two B marketer and I need to go to market in an effective and efficient way, we make that possible through our platform, through our data,

through our insight. Are you worried because I know some of your customers in retail, restaurant, hotels, airlines, these are obviously industries that we know have been impacted severely by the pandemic. Are you a little nervous about the business outlook, No look, I think for a little less than for about four percent of our businesses and heavily impacted industries. I think what we're most excited about is what we're seeing in the SMB segments and our business, and what

we're seeing in the enterprise segments of our business. In the SMB, what we're seeing as companies pivoting their business models and using our platform to do that. There's a great story in our s one about a company called tent Craft that makes outdoor tents for events, and as a pandemic hit, literally every event on the space of the year disappeared, and Tencraft came to us and said, I think we can use these tents for COVID nineteen

testing for hospitals and healthcare facilities. Can you help us figure out how many hospitals there are in the United States, where they're located, who who the decision makers are at those hospitals, And we were able to give them access to our platform, and last month they had their biggest revenue month in history, going from a place where they had no business left to the biggest revenue month of their history, all powered by the Zoom into platforms, and

there you go, yeah, all right, Well we're eager to keep in touch with you. See how it goes. Congratulations, Hopefully you're breathing a little bit of a sigh of relief. Uh go have a drink. Founder and CEO of Zoom And he's there. He's already there. He just has to walk outside the journal. Now let me drive. Oh no, no, no no, no, honey, please out of the riding revels. I want to drive. Just drive by the questions, trying the drive to the globe community. Thanks, we'll try us

on Bluebird radio. All right, it's time for the drive to the closed. Delighted to have back with us. It's been too long. And Milletti head of a active equity easier for me to say, wells Fargo Asset Management. They look after about five eighteen billion dollars. That's half a trillion, Carol Masser. She turns on the phone. Good round there, Jason Kelly. Nice. That's why you know, I have no business, uh really talking about any of this stuff. But Anne

Milletti does. She d on the phone from Mnominee Falls, Wisconsin. So, and it's really nice to have you with us. First of all, how are you doing I'm doing well. How are you guys doing? We're doing okay. I mean it's been a you know, we're putting together our weekend show earlier today, and I think candidly just revisiting all the conversations we've had this week. I don't want to speak for Carol, but I will. Um, it's heavy, like it's very heavy. I think what what we're all going through?

And I do wonder, Um, you know, we've spent some we spent a lot of time with you over over the years, and I feel like you are a person who is acutely aware of others. I know you're an active volunteer, and you know, someone who really brings their own experience to bear on all this. And I do wonder what you think in a time like this in your community and as you're talking to your family and others. Well, thank you for asking. And I do feel like I have to give a special shout out to all of

my friends and people in New York. Um, you all have been hit so hard over the last few months, um, with really three crisises. And it's been the healthcare crisis and an economic cr system certainly now a social crisis.

But um, as I focus so much on the market, I do think it's hard to ignore the pain that's going on and taking place in all of the communities that live in And while I live in the Midwest, UM, we we can't escape our own been in the Midwest, don't escape the pa that happens when we see tragedy, tragedies like we saw in Minneapolis. UM. But but we're

all impacted by it. And I think at Wells Fargo, I'm lucky enough to work for a company that really does push its employees to dedicate time in their communities. And UM as a company, we've we've volunteered just under two million hours to projects in our communities, and UM the foundation has, you know, put grants aside to focus specifically in community. But I personally have been involved in an organization called Secure Futures and it's it's really been

one that focuses on financial literacy. Mostly important to me is that it focuses at a young age, and it's with high school kids. And when you touch people at a young age and tell them both the pros and cons of how to deal with finances, why you may not want to go into a check cashing store um, you know, trying to teach them from maybe your own personal mistakes you made when you were young, but also

the mistakes of others. And despite where I am today, I've lived through um my own challenges in life, and they're not the same as some of the students I've talked to. But I think by sharing our own experiences, that's something that kids can relate to. And no one teaches you in high school what a credit score means and why you shouldn't go into a chack hashing store. And many of the students, you know, believe that banks are for rich people and that they were unattainable, that

they couldn't go into them. And so teaching financial literacy is something that can unlock power in students at a young age and something that can help them more for the future. It's a small thing, and it is just a small um difference that I think I can make. But if it's one person doing one thing, hopefully we have we have many other volunteers. As they said earlier,

it's not just me, Um, it's it's actions. I know, actions speak louder than words, and I hope we're all doing some of that as business leaders in our communities to make a difference. And I do wonder. No, I think you bring up a good point. And I think education, you know, more equal education for everyone will provide more equal access to you know, becoming part of this system. UM. You know it's really important. But and I do wonder

about specifically. You know, you talk about programs at Wells Fargo, but I do wonder about the role. We keep talking to some great voices throughout the week, you know, money talks and whether you're a company that puts money to programs that UM then do contracts with minority owned businesses, whether you make sure when you're doing an internship program you bring in minority you know, UM interns. I mean,

there's ways to really change the system. And I do wonder how the conversation might be changing it well as far ago as a result of this week. Yeah, it's interesting. I just got off the phone earlier this afternoon with UM, the CEO of our asset management business, and we were having a conversation about our about our hiring processes. And although we've focused for years on diversity, UM, he would still like to make a bigger difference and why don't we Why is it so why is it so tough?

Why don't we we because we've all had programs in place for a long time. I'm curious what you guys are observing. Yeah, you know, I really, Carol, it's it's it's been it's been a question that's been presented to me for a long time, and it gets back to you. I think we we all, um, we all go back to the same pond to fishing right for the talent. And if you think about being in finance, you go to some of the same schools to recruit, to some

of the same programs to recruit. And when I came into this business, I was lucky to come into it at a time, you know, more than twenty years ago, where a lot of these programs did not exist. You could come in with a liberal arts background, and you know, you were trained by other people that were in this business, and you know, yes, there's still are licensing programs and you still have the cf A and other programs to

make sure people are well qualified. You could go to business school after, but I think we can't bring in We can fish in different ponds and bring people in different ways and train them right, but we'll get We'll get more diverse pools if we fish in bigger ponds and different ponds than we just do. Yeah, all right, well we'll leave it there. We didn't get to talk about the market, but I dare say we had a

more interesting conversation with the Annimaletti. Always thoughtful, We really always enjoy our time with her head of Equity Active Equity. I still can't say it well as Fargo Asset Management joining us on the phone from a nominee falls and there's a clear line, and I think you were alluding

to it, Carrol. Between what Anne just said in Wisconsin, what we heard from John Hopebryant earlier in Atlanta, that this is an economic crisis, this is a crisis of poverty, This is a crisis of education to a large extent, and what Anne was just talking about when it comes to financial literacy and just getting folks, getting young people that basic understanding of candidly how money works, how this

system works, really is at the heart of this. So I feel like a theme is emerging here, right, and they understand how it works, that they can be part of the system right and be part of the masses. Thanks so much for listening to Bloomberg Business Week, Download the podcast on iTunes, Southcloud, Bloomberg dot com, or 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