Long Covid Impacts Millions Worldwide

You can also listen to our radio show at two pm Eastern Time on Bloomberg Radio or watch us on YouTube search Bloomberg Global News. We're gonna talk a bit about more, a little more about COVID uh Switzerland joining Spain, the UK and suggesting that the virus pandemic may be shifting to an endemic phase. You've got the White House moving to prevent future shortages of COVID night Team tests ensuring they continue to be produced in large number, crety,

A lot going on. Australia's cases are surging. It's just a reminder it's a global pandemic and until we all get through it, we're all gonna have to deal with it. Yeah, it really speaks to the fact that vaccine or I say, COVID fatigue is absolutely a factor. Here a people saying, well, you know, we're done with this, We're gonna just live our lives as normal, and in some case numbers show that maybe you can't do that just yet. Speaking of COVID fatigue, some of those who get COVID, it's sticking

around for a long time, those long haulers. Let's get to that and more. But Dr Batty Raman, Principal investigator of the Radcliffe Department of Medicine at the University of Oxford. She joins us on the phone from Oxford, England. Dr Ramen, nice to have you here with us. How are you and what are you seeing when it comes to the progression of COVID in the UK. Thanks Carol. I'd like to take this opportunity to say, UM, you know, really appreciate this invitation. UM. COVID is still very high. The

number of cases are still very high in the UK. UM. An increasing concern for many is the long term effects of COVID. As you might no long covid is um. The is a syndrome that some people may experience beyond the acute space it's a serious global health concern and UM has already affected one point three million people here in the UK that constitutes more than two percent of

our population. And it is estimated that more than fifty million worldwide will be affected by long COVID and that many will will will continue to be diagnosed with ongoing symptoms and complications from COVID. Is the normal simplicancy. We are statistic and I'm not sure if your team shared it with our producer, but is it correct that nearly one quarter of virus survivors will have some kind of long term effect? Yes, that's that's true. So roughly about

can have sometimes some type of long term effect. Touch us a little bit about one what that looks like and how you actually go about addressing it. Yes, so this is what people are commonly referring to long COVID or prosecutically of COVID or past UM. Long COVID is defined by consistent systemctings beyond three months of infection. The most common manifestation is fatigue, but people to report a range of symptoms including headaches, body pain, gas or intestinal symptoms,

brain fog. So there are multitude of symptoms that people experience. We know that it it really affects someone's ability to return to work. That more than fifty percent of people with long covids have either not been able to return to work or have returned to modified duties. It has huge implications for the economy. What can we do about it?

So I think we're still looking for answers. Um there has been some evidence that the mitochondria of the muscle, which is basically the powerhouse of all the cells, might be contributing to the symptom of fatigue. The certainly is the pre clinical studies showing that the virus might hijack the mitochondria and affect the seal's ability to fight the

infections and promote inflammatory pathways. So we're particularly interested in testing a treatment or a therapy that Accelor Therapeutic have developed. It's called the EX five, a mixture of five amino acids um which has been shown to have a beneficial effect to the mitochondria and also result in meaningful reduction in other markets of inflammation, a little fat and even incident resistance. So we talk about long COVID, just how

long is long? Are we talking about weeks, months, years, even? Yeah? So some of the patients we've seen, UM, who've who've volunteered for our study have had long COVID since we'll have had ongoing symptoms since March so UM, you know, so sorry twenty So this is we're talking about really protracted symptoms for some people. But the definition that the UK has introduced by nice refers to symptoms beyond three

months of infection. What's the what's the timeline in terms of this treatment that you talk about, um, that might help with these COVID long haulers? Uh? Is this something that will see maybe put into use later on this year? Just got about thirty seconds left here, Yeah, so we hope to have some results by mid twenty two. The study has already started recruitment as well underway. There's been a huge number of participants interested and the first patient

has been dosed with the treatment. So UM, so we've got some Uh. It looks really promising just in terms of reaching our target and finishing the study UM quite early on, UM, and we hope that there's some positive for patients worldwide. We'll look forward to hearing more on that as you guys go through the testing process. Dr Betty Rama and Principal Investigator for the Radcliffe Department of Medicine at the University of Oxford, on the phone from Oxford.

Another story I just want to mention having to do with COVID from the Associated Press u S Army for the first time offering a maximum enlistment bonus of fifty dollars to highly skilled recruit who joined for six years. The AP learning this as the service struggles to bring in soldiers into critical jobs amid the continuing pandemics with A two creating or dealing with a work shortage. This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Bloomberg Quick

Takes Tim Stinovic on Bloomberg Radio. Well, this week's Bloomberg Business Week, it's all about the year ahead. The cover story. The issue is about the biggest dangers to the economy, the global economy this year in folks, surprise, surprise, it's really not about COVID for more. Let's bring in our senior executive editor for Economics at Bloomberg, Head of Bloomberg Economics,

Stephanie Flander. She is with us on the phone in London, along with Bloomberg Business Week editor Joell Webber on the access line and Brooklyn. You know, Joel, the t I a issue. I love it. It It always looks into you know, what's going to go on maybe and what are these stories that are to dominate this year? But so much of what happens this year depends on kind of global bankers getting it right. And I'm talking about you know,

we're talking about central bankers getting it right. Yeah, and talk about a well timed story right just on the heels of of yesterday. UM. And you know, we try and gaze into a crystal ball as as much as we can in this issue. UM. We always feel like whenever we're talking about the year ahead, people are just like I want to always know what's going on with

the economy. And I think that is especially true now living through what we've all lived through, the unpresented nature of of not only COVID but also the responses to COVID. And now we find ourselves somewhere hopefully maybe on the back end, and we get to deal with, um, you know, the aftermath of all of this. UM. But you know, like you said in the top there, UM, COVID perhaps maybe not the central theme that we have to rustle with now. And we we've seen what response can can

look like and how we can manage um. So so Stephanie over to you, what what job is it that

the central bankers have to rustle with now? They have to work out whether the glabal economy is kind of especially the US economy if you're the FED, is permanently changed as a result of COVID, that they should really take seriously the idea that people don't want to go back to their jobs, you know, having trouble filling jobs, that we're really going to have inflation kind of endemic in the economy rather than just being this transitory thing, or whether actually we are all going to be going

back to normal, the economy is going to be more or less like it was in a year or so. It's time and they just need to kind of sit tight and you know, tweak a few levers and raise a few interest rates, but fundamentally they don't have to grapple with something different. And the risk is that at the end of the year it turns out that they just called that raw that for example, inflation really is

a big issue. Financial markets are losing confidence in the central banks kind of understanding in the situation and we face a big problem, Stephanie. These aren't exactly synchronized, synchronized moves. We're we're talking about central banking, and you have the PBC, for example, continuing to ease, the ECB essentially passing the FED. Even emerging market it's hiking as quickly as they can, or at least that's what the market is telling us

they're going to do. How much of that kind of dislocation across the world is a problem for the global economy because that's this is a new moment there. Yeah, I think so, And I think that was interesting. One of the things I was sort of thinking about as I wrote the piece is you have, on the one hand, a kind of familiar dynamic of, you know, if the Federal Reserve raises interest rates were emerging market economies that could face the biggest problems as a result of that.

They kind of get the long end of that story. But actually there's a whole other thing going on, which is China's already slowed down a bit, and for the first time ever really certainly in living memory, that the People's Bank of China is going to do something different from the FED. They've always had to slavishly follow the Fed because they had their exchange rate tied to the dollar.

They've kind of won their own declaration of independence from developing their economy and changing their policies, and they now have the freedom to cut interest rates just as the Federal Reserve is raising them. So that is an interesting moment the global economy viewers, and kind of staying as always a few steps behind, still waiting even for that

much inflation, let alone problem needing to raise rates. Okay, so I mean, Stephane, the fact that Chinese going one way, the US going another, but even just the fact that we have I did a bit of cross talk there,

so forgive me. But the fact that we have everyone not working in locked stop for a change that is radically different, right, And and so what what does that start to look like if you're if your power, for instance, and you're trying to control what you can control, but then there's all these other forces that could perhaps work against you. How much of that the calculus starts to

have the factor in that stuff? Well, it certainly effects the certainly way thanks the way the financial markets think, right, because you've got the urosone more or less on hold.

So you know, interesting, there is a certain amount of pressure pulling down the cost of money, pulling down long term interest rates, bond yield, even as you've got the Federal Reserve maybe four maybe five, maybe six rate rises this year, we don't know, um, So that is a different dynamic that we're not all darting to the same tune as the US. But I think it is still

fundamentally the case. The most important story is going to be what happens to inflation in the US, what happens to inflation expectations to people trust that the Fed knows what it's doing, And as a consequence of that, of course, what happens in financial markets. What's this tricky Stephanie? Right? And in the question on on your pieces, which way to normal? Do we really know what normal? Is it a new normal on the other side of the pandemic?

Isn't that part of the problem. Yeah, And that's what I found kind of curious, and it made me think about it writing this piece, and I was so glad that the editor asking me to do it just before.

But that's pout knowing your audience, Stephanie, well done. I look at the forecast and I sort of thought, it's funny because I've also written them, but had we've had economic research around the VID having boosted productivity in some areas, you know, businesses that had to bring in automation much faster than expected, everyone working from home and therefore being modiginously enabled in their work. You know that this was actually going to make us more productive weirdly and almost

produced like a COVID dividend. So there was that whole discussion, and you know, other ways in which people felt there was a fundamental change, maybe in supply chains, you know, because of what's happened in China and what happened during COVID, and when you look at the forecast, and maybe economists are just not very original or imagine people, but they're all kind of expecting despite all of what we consider to be really important changes in the micro economy, they

somehow think the macro economy is going to carry on more or less the same after this year. And that does seem like a bit of a disconnect, like who's going to turn out to be right? Is it? How are we really transformed as a result of COVID, or is this just you know a lot of this much less permanent than we think. Alright, we're gonna leave it

on that note. It's an incredible story. Joel's right, it's so timely considering hearing from j Power all and all these uh fed central bankers are fed bankers, I should say this week. I mean, this is really front and center. So an incredible story and a great read and so relevant. Stephanie, thank you. Stephanie Flander, Senior Executive editor, head of Bloomberg Economics at Bloomberg News, on the phone from London, and our thanks to Joel Webber as well, Editor Bloomberg Business

Week on the access line from Brooklyn. I love this issue. It's the year ahead. It's looking at what's ahead in the economy, what's ahead in politics, what's ahead in terms of how we consume. It's going to be all on our weekend show. But it's really a really smart issue, and it'll be on newstands tomorrow. Some of the stories already on the Bloomberg and also Bloomberg dot Com. We're coming out this week. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week

with Carol Messer and Bloomberg Quick Takes. Tim Stinovic on Bloomberg Radio. Interesting story that popped up on our raidar. It also happens to be in Bloomberg Business Weeks You're Ahead issue, which is out on newsstands tomorrow on the Bloomberg and also at Bloomberg dot com and cretty. It's about how there is still no Amazon for housing, but there's some fintech companies they're working on it. It's it's

in the works. But I mean, remember we've had a rough couple of months when it comes to Zillo and some of the other up piers. And for that, for more information on that sector, we've got to bring in the experts here, and that of course is Patrick Clark. He covers real estate for bloomber Keys on the phone from right here in New York City. Patrick, thank you for joining us. I loved your story because there's a

line that stuck out to me. Uh whereas that it made sense to order pants online, but many consumers still prefer brick and mortar grocery stores where they can squeeze the avocado and I at the steak. I guess houses are no different. Tell us more about it. Yeah, I mean every house is different, just like every piece of fruit. I guess, um, it's been the it's been the great

challenge for companies, particularly tech companies. But I guess all companies that are looking for waste to to sort of carve out a either a small or large niche in

the US housing market. Um, at the end of the day, they're really not a house is really not a commodity good even even a sort of mass produced house that looks like all the houses next to it, Like every house has a different view and every house will you know, age in different ways, and and um it's um not only did for the most part like literally to do homebuyers want to actually go squeeze the house, but they they it's just very hard to take the human element

out of out of buying and selling one. So wait, are you saying that there isn't a Carbonna approach to buying a house and we can't go to a chaosk

and say yeah, like that split level. It's you know, it's really I love that you said Carvana because it's it's how a lot of the companies, a lot of the prop teps as they call themselves prop tech companies, UM, A lot of them use the Carbonna model as an analogy, which is which is to say, that you know, UM, we started with pants or books and and and you know, slowly but surely have have worked our way up the value chain in terms of the types of um, the

types of goods that you know, we're willing to that we feel competent buying online and you know, and we have gotten to cars in a way, right and and you know the bet is that houses are next. It's just that I think, UM, I think that you know, at at at each new level of value and it's not just value when it comes to a home, UM, it's it's value and complication and there's an emotional component.

It just gets more complicated. Well, what's interesting is, and we've talked throughout the pandemic to UM real estate agents, realtors, heads of home companies where they talked about transactions during the deep throws of the pandemic back in where they did everything online, everything was a digital transaction. So it can be done. I guess right, More and more parts

of the transaction can be done digitally. And I think that the pandemic was you know, I think it accelerated acceptance both by consumers, regulators, UM that UM, you know, lenders, what have you like that that that more things can be done virtually remotely. Um. And so so I think the pandemic spit this up, no question. Um. But um, it's one thing too, you know, it's one thing to speed it up, but it hasn't solved the problem. Creaty.

I just want to get I want to get rid of that that that meeting that you have to have with everybody's lawyers and secure lawyers on one side, the sellers on another, or the part like I just want to get rid of that part of it. I have never bought a house, so I cannot relate, although I will admit I live in New York City and I look forward to the days where I can have a

white picket fence. That being said, speaking of rental properties, which is what it actually kind of comes to mind as we talked about the pandemic, because a lot of people were actually shopping for apartment these virtual walkthroughs, and then I wonder how many people actually showed up at the apartment was like, this is a lot smaller than it looked on FaceTime. I'm curious, Patrick, what's next for this? I mean, is there a solution or is there any

money making prospect when it comes to shopping for houses virtually. Yeah, I think there's two there's two main ways to think about it. One is, you know, you'll continue to have companies that improve and and sort of digitize and bring online components of the transaction. And some of these are

the things that we don't really think about. It's like it's the people in the room at the closing date who you know, you barely understand who they are, but but this guy is you know, this guy has run the title on the home to make sure that the seller you really owns it for example, right, and and so there's pieces of it that that I think can be very successfully um you know, brought into the century here and there are also there's also a move to

put more and more of these services together. So you have you know, you have brokerages that are real estate brokerages that are hiring that that are buying or building mortgage lenders internally, you have um, you know, traditional mortgage lenders who who are sparing in to offer different types of bridge finance that that would allow a buyer to

compete like a cash buyer. You have you have this idea that you can bring all of these things together and and and again going back to the this idea of the you know, the closing meeting um basically to simplify and do more of the transaction online with one company, so the consumers only dealing with sort of one interface that I think there's some promise to that. One of the challenges is it's a lot of technology, it's a it's a lot of process you have to deliver to

the customer. And so the question is one can you build it? And too can you actually make money doing it? And that's the thing that you know, hopefully we'll we'll see some progress on. I look forward to the huberization of home buyer. Hey, Pat, thanks so much. Patrick Clark real Estate Report at Bloomberg News on the phone from New York City. Check them out at Twitter at Pat underscore Clark. I'm road, yeah, I'll bet you Let me drive. No, no, no, honey, please,

I'll do the riding gravels. Let's I want to drive. It's a good question. Good drive. This is the drive to the globe well up down on bloom Bird Radio. All right, tick took everybody nine, about ten minutes left in today's trading session. We've seen some volatili this week, but certainly a lot more optimism bouncing around though today, and we are a little bit lower on those major equity averages. So let's get to it. Let's get to

the drive to the clothes. Aaron Kennon is back with us, co founder, chief executive officer at Clear Harbor Asset Management approximately a billion a little bit more than a billion in assets under management, on the phone once again from Stanford, Connecticut. Hey, Aaron, nice to have you with Creedy and me. Happy you year. How are you doing great? Thanks for having me back. Carroll, Happy new year to do both of you. Well, So how do you make sense of what we've seen so far?

It's just, you know what, five eight days in in the new year, we're trying to figure out the trend line. I think it's safe to say that it's going to be vaulatile this year, but but who knows, because I do feel like we've got some clarity to some extent from the Fed in terms of what's to come. How do you see it though, Well, you know, we're we're certainly moving into a very different um economic, monetary, fiscal environment.

We're going from peak growth which was well above trend last year, uh what five point six odd percent and based on Bloomberg consensus to probably something closer to uh three and a half to possibly as high as four percent. But you know, peak monetary stimulus and peak fiscal stimulus last year towards you know, much more normalization. Growth certainly

coming down. But but also the FED is unwinding their asset purchases and and and raising the funds rate, and so you know, this downdraft, in my opinion is is is about you know, less liquidity in the system. It's probably about more volatility. We should expect that in an environment with less liquidity, and that should be an incremental headwind two pe multiples in the equity market. Um. But but that doesn't mean that all all is lost this year.

Earnings we still believe will will prove positive, and we certainly are already seeing in the first several trading sessions of the year this sort of sector dispersion like we didn't see last year. And it's not just sort of um growth to value, right, because if you look at what's happening in the equity market, industrials are really doing nothing year to date. But but energy is up over

so it's funny that you say that. I was looking at the S and P five the members and like the top the seven out of the top ten names are your energy names, and you're talking about like some incredible gains. I think hess was up. Let me just look at my numbers. I mean each of these names. You're talking some really really strong gains. Absolutely, and that's clearly driven by the commodity which is having a very

strong start to the ear up almost ten percent. But um, now there's a real question around whether or not the FEDS posture the markets pricing and what four times for for rate hikes this year will prove itself out, or whether or not they're they're going to ultimately need to to put their foot on the brakes with that with that game plan. Um, you know, I have a hard time believing that this sort of four times this year, three times next year, UM plan is going to play

out close to that way. I have a hard time, well, I have a hard time believing. First of all, I think inflation will ultimately prove to be yes transitory UM, because supply chain bottlenecks or the cause of to a great extent of of this inflation and the headline piece of inflation we're seeing in the rising price of things

like oil and natural gas. And that's the area I think on the headline, which may remain stubbornly high, but at the core um when when we're looking at goods and services, it's it's a supply chain bottleneck UH issue that needs to sort itself out and clear clearly, Amikron, this next variant UH, that is Amicron has has sort of a Steymied clarity on on the reopening trade generally both home and abroad, and I think it's really delaying this fine of the supply chain, and it's it's keeping

this inflation question front and center for everyone. Right. So, Aaron, how many how many rate hikes are you expecting UH this year? The PO says three, Goman Sack Stapen Morgan say four. Jamie Diamonds says we need more than four. Where are you on that spectrum? Well, the short answer is, I don't know. I'm not an economist. I look at the market as as my um is my set of sort of does it matter. Does it matter to you whether it's three, four or five? No, it doesn't matter,

but it's certainly helps us informs us. So what's informing me on on on on on the market right now? Is it pertains to that question is where are long term inflation expectations? Where where our long dated treasury yields? And what has the curve done over the last several days, months, quarters, and what how does this inform us? And I think what the market is telling me is growth is slowing and is going back towards trend over the next year or two. A long term inflation is not a concern.

Short term inflation is a significant concern. And if the Fed races rates, they're going to they're going to just aggregate demand, but they're not going to solve the supply chain bottleneck issues. So it's not clear to me that this rate rise campaign of four this year, three next year solves the inflation problem. It will only exacerbate the

demand side problem, could lead us towards a recession. It kind of sounds like you're in the camp of of really what Stephanie Flanders was discussing earlier, Carol in that the week, the likelihood of the Fed getting this wrong is super super high. What are your thoughts? Well, I think there's certainly a risk, but I also think that we we've learned through Chairman Pyle that he's pragmatic, he's willing to pivot, he's not all that stubborn. And um, we we saw that just a couple of years ago.

We he was initially we thought as the market did that he was raising rates uh and too aggressively. And the market finally told him to stop, forced him to stop, and he did. And I think the market has a way of conveying these messages to not only investors, but the Fed in the loop. They'll do it again. Yeah, that is the so in that sense, I'm optimistic. Okay, I'm gonna leave it there. Hey Aaron, nice to check

in with you. Aaron Kennon, he's found our chief executive officer at Clear Harbor Asset Management, joining us on the phone from Stanford, Connecticut. Thanks for listening to Bloomberg Business Week. Download the podcast on iTunes, SoundCloud, or Bloomberg dot com, and you can also listen to our radio show at two pm Eastern on Bloomberg Radio or watch us on YouTube search Bloomberg Global News