Tracking the Path of the Coronavirus Outbreak

Week on iTunes, SoundCloud, or Bloomberg dot Com. You can also listen to our radio show weekdays at two pm Eastern only on Bloomberg Radio. A busy afternoon ahead. They all are busy in many ways, Carol, because we are continually hearing from city and state leaders. It was interesting looking at the rundown of those press conferences earlier today,

shared by one of our producers. All the I shouldn't say all the states, but you know a huge number of states, like more than half a dozen, now holding daily briefings in many cases to update their citizens right and you can hear the stress in those governors voices. In particular, Virginia, Maryland, and Washington, d C. Now have issue stay at home orders. Virginia's stretching to June tenth uh and the San Francisco Bay Are is going to

extend its mandate to May. So this is just a reminder that when we hear these deadlines or these hopes to kind of reopen our world, um, they're they're movable dates. And we constantly see that it's based on the numbers. And you continue to see the governors, even though maybe some of the new cases numbers are going down a little bit, UM, they're still putting pressure on, you know, individuals to stay at home and keep that social distancing.

So we do want to talk a little bit about what we're hearing on the medical side of this story. Andy Pakosh is Professor of molecular micro biology and Immunology at Johns Hopkins University, Bloomberg School of Public Health. Bloomberg School of Public Health supported by Michael R. Bloomberg, founder of Bloomberg LP and Bloomberg Philanthropies. UM. Andy joining us, of course on the phone from Baltimore. Dr Pacash, so

nice to have you with us. You know, we were saying that you can feel that the world is working very very hard to figure out a medical solution to this at the mean and you know, also at the same time, we're seeing the medical community feeling stressed in terms of caring for those existing cases. Let's talk about that first, because we have a story on the Bloomberg that talks about doctors being threatened not to talk to

the press about the situation. We hear hear stories about doctors having to make choices about who gets UM necessary medical equipment. What are you hearing on that front? Well, I think there's there's a lot of stress and there's

a lot of anxiety. I think, UM when you're particularly in cities where you're the beginning of the the case curve UM, it's the unknown of how many cases are going to come in, all the public health innovation is going to work, what's the timing of the interventions that are going to work, and the and that affects planning because you really don't have firm numbers to plan for, so you try to plan for, um, the worst case scenario, hope for the best case scenario, and all of those

things are just, you know, incredibly stressful on a population of people who are let's be honest, right, these are the people that are actually going and facing these and dealing with infected individuals and you know, putting their lives on the law and every day and so Dr Pekash you one other thing or another thing. There are so

many things we want to talk to you about. But you know, one of the other things is this notion of you know, how this is playing out across the nation, because that speaks to the doctors, that speaks speaks to the stress that they're feeling, but also the way individual governments are dealing with it. Help us understand kind of this variable reaction that we're seeing and maybe some of

the implications of that. Well, you know, the number of cases that are occurring can really vary based on which part of the country that you're in, and so um um, different hospital networks are at different levels of preparation um and different hospital networks are gearing up for or a surge at different times. And so what you're seeing is that there's a very sort of user term heterogeneous response across the nation because it's all dictated by your local situation.

For example, if you don't have a lot of cases, you probably don't want to start hoarding up too many respirators and those kind of things, because obviously there are needs in other parts of the country. Yet you have to balance that with the idea that eventually you will have a surgery cases and you want to be prepared for that. So who ultimately should be making those decisions, because I mean embedded in everything you just said, there's a lot of potential conflicts there and and a lot

of wrong decisions that could be made. Yeah, so you know, UM centralized decision making is probably the best UM course of action. UM Making sure that UM supply line chains are there and that the movement of UH supplies can be done very very quickly is a second sort of logistical thing that needs to between in place. What do you think at this point is the most important treatment development that folks are are chasing really around the world.

We're seeing a lot of coordinations certainly between UM, the healthcare community, drug makers and so on researchers, But what do you think is the most important thing that is being that is happening right now that can really help us get control of this well right now, the important thing is that multiple institutions are trying to set up controlled trials to actually firmly decide whether or not a treatment will or will not be beneficial so I know here at Johns Hopkins we have a number of them

going UM this early stage of the surgeon cases at the time when we can generate some data not what is the most effective treatment and then apply that to cases that are coming down later down the pipeline. So a number of drugs are in place. We heard Johns Hopkins have been invested in using UH serum from into agels who have recovered as a potential treatment for m

new cases UM. A lot of these things are now being tested and the trials to show their efficacy are being put online and we hope in the a couple of weeks to start seeing the results of those trials. Dr Peckash, we were talking UM yesterday with one of the team up at Columbia that's working with David ho and you know, you know him better than than we do in terms of his work on a research and other things. And he was talking this doctor was talking

about sort of the collaboration that is happening. Would you echo him that that we're seeing a level of collaboration and maybe and maybe that's driven by a sense of urgency here and what does that look like on the front lines where you are I think that is that is one of the most amazing things that I've been UM experiencing over the past few weeks, people reaching out across disciplines, reaching from the clinical into the basic science, from the basic science into the clinical UM, trying to

find ways that each of us can contribute to this overall goal of helping to deal with infected patients coming through my laboratory. UM has set up a whole new wing that's devoted strictly to helping the clinical groups here in terms of essays that we can do to support them UM. And that's happened in the past four weeks. UM, and so there's been an amazing number of of of discussion and conversations really with this idea that what can we do to help our patients as soon as possible?

UM and UM, it's been fantastically inspiring. Well, let me follow up with you on that, because it's interesting as you were saying that, I thought about a question that we've been asking, you know, all the big important people that we talked to on this program and beyond, which is what do you think will change on the other side of this in terms of the way you operate as a researcher, as a physician, as a member of not just a teammate at Johns Hopkins, but in the

broader medical community. Is this the sort of thing that that could change the way you do business and do your work going forward. Um. You know, uh, it's been hard to find time to think about that and everything else. But but honestly, I really do hope that that is the case, because the like that the conversations that we've had in the appreciation of how different people coming to the table can really contribute um to overall patient management

in this case has been UM I don't think. I think on both sides um of both in the hospital as well searing the research laboratories. So I really would think that this is an example of someplace where all the best parts of of the medical complex of being

shown and and can show that they're working together. When you look around the globe, when you look around the United States, First of all, for the US, do you anticipate, um dr PA, that every state is going to be dealing with some level of crisis because of the virus. And secondly, when you look around the globe, are there parts of the world, whether it's some of the emerging markets. We've talked about India and Africa certainly on our broadcast. That makes you a little bit nervous, UM and the

impact that the virus could have on them. Yeah, So I think the US is really going to see again I'll use the term heterogeneous because I think that's the best one, even though maybe a little technical. UM, you're gonna see very different epidemics and different parts of the country really based on how how many times the virus has sort of moved into that area and how the public health measures, how effective they are, and when they were implemented. So you're going to see different reports from

different parts of the country. That's not in any way meant to minimize the outbreak or say that anybody is doing a better job and than the other, but but you're going to see different reports coming from different places about this UM and absolutely I think you know, we have collaborators in various parts of Africa, Sub Saharan Africa

and UM. I think that's a place where we're very concerned about whether there's lots of how large numbers of cases can be dealt with by the infrastructures already UM in the Democratic Republic of Congo. They just controlled an epidemic of ebolavirus that's been going on for nearly two years. Um an outstanding public health effort. My guess is they're not going to have to gear up the deal with

yet another viral disease COVID nineteen. Well and and Dr Pakasti, you know when you when you mentioned that, it brings me to another point, which is this idea that this is while that there's a short term element to this in a sense of urgency, this is also a long game in many ways. And you understand that far better

than we do. Given the research that you have done, uh and given the different diseases that you have tracked, what's the what sort of timelines do you think about in terms of obviously, there is a health crisis and immediate health crisis we have to deal with. But in terms of really getting our arms around this particular disease and coping with it for a serious amount of time going forward, how should we think about that in the

longer term. Well, look to the positive examples, and there are countries they're like Singapore, Hong Kong, Um even to some extent Korea that suffered a really large number of cases, but that have gotten those cases under control and are starting to really get far ahead of the virus. So those examples tell us that, UM, the virus can be controlled with good public health measures, and that's the most

important thing. So I think getting this under control with the public health interventions is going to be the critical thing. Trying to send the message to individuals about changing their behaviors, even though for a few weeks it's going to be very, very difficult to keep some of these things in place. UM, we can get ahead of this, and there are examples out there of countries that have been able to control lists and then restore some semblance of UH of social

order afterwards, a social opening up afterwards. All right, well, go ahead, we're gonna leave it on that note, Andy, thank you so much, really really appreciated. Dr Andy Pakosh at Johns Hopkins University, Bloomberg School of Public Health. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Jason Kelly on Bloomberg Video. I can safely say that as I look out my back window across my little suburb of New York City, here there are some kids playing

video games. I just know that It's true. Maybe they should be on zoom in a class, maybe they should be doing some class work. But they're playing video games. It's just a fact. Michael Packtor is video game technology analyst for web Bush Securities. He joins us on the phone from Long Beach, California. I'm right, Michael, right. I mean a lot of kids are playing video games. A lot of adults are playing video games right now. Yeah, I just took a break for playing video games. Yes,

everybody playing. I think you call that research, don't you. Yeah, exactly, that's your literally your job. Absolutely. So what do we know about the backdrop here? I mean there's anecdotal evidence, but I mean you've got your hands on real data here, right, Yeah, I I do. But you know, realistically, um, there's two things we're gonna do, whether we're indoors or outdoors. We're gonna eat and we're going to entertain ourselves. And you know,

it's it's intuitively obvious. If we can't go to restaurants, will eat at home. If we can't go out to movie theaters and sporting events or even engage in physical activity, we're going to do that at home. And so you know, clearly we're seeing from internet service providers that internet usages up, hoverizons set up sevent we got something yesterday from Comcast

talking about WiFi access. And so the question is just what are people doing with the Internet, And the answer is obviously they're watching a lot of video and they're playing a lot of games. I mean, Spotify just said their usages up. People are just entertaining themselves in place. Games are the most likely, you know, beneficiary of this. You can do it on mobile, you can do it on tablets, you can do it on your TV, and people are doing that. So are the supplies there to

meet the demand? The telegraph how to report that, whether it's the UK or the US, there's definitely you know, people are out there doing you know, and playing video games. It's a great escape right now, especially those are you know, feeling isolated from the rest of the world or from others. And the thing is the demand. Some of the consoles are completely sold out, so I'm just curious about supply. Yeah,

Nintendo Switch is the one that's impossible to get. And you know, obviously they didn't plan for a pandemic, but they launched a game called Animal Crossing, which is actually pretty much a single player game, really fun though. It's like a life simulation. You farm and you trade, and it's a it's a really really fun game. So that sales of that game we're off the charts, and people are trying to get their hands on switches, and I frankly think that's because there's a big demand for kids.

Uh you know, adults probably can and play on PC or phone or they have consoles. Um you're not seeing xboxes and PlayStation sold out though, so the switch is really benefiting just because it's you know, the hot item right now and they have the higher game. Well. It's also interesting, you know, you mentioned PCs because a lot of people, and I think Carol and I are both in this category, not the gamer category, but more the a lot of folks are sort of amping up their

work from home sort of set ups. I mean, I know, we boosted our internet speed just to deal not only with my needs broadcasting the show, but also in anticipation more streaming and other things that the kids are doing with their schoolwork and things like that. So I do wonder how that plays through, especially the PC gaming part

of the equation. UM PC gamers total about four million people total, and that's a lot um console gamers, more like two fifty million interesting mobile mobile gamers one point five billion, so you know, the most frequently used device as a mobile phone. And you can play games like Candy Crush on your tablet as well PC. You know, the dominant games or games like Fortnite, League of Legends, you know, so those are those are games that people

play all the time. Console tends to be things like Madden and FIFA and Call of Duty, So different types of experiences, and I think the right analogy is like going to a movie theater to see a feature link film. You know, that's what a console game is, and watching a YouTube video is what a mobile game is like. So you know, they're they're different types of activity for different types of devices, but all really engaging, and you

know people play them all day long. Is it too early, though, to to make some investment calls based on what's happening now? Does it make any sense to even think about that at this point? Michael, it's I mean beyond the pandemic. I mean, the pandemic is clearly going to drive up the use case for you know, the month of March and probably believe for the entire June quarter. Um, you'll

probably see some people one over permanently. So you're going to get some people who weren't really gamers before who find it. You know, this activity is really enjoyable. Um. I actually think that we're on the verge of expanding the market just remarkably by streaming games. And that's Google's offering something called Stadia. I think Amazon's going going to enter the fray. Microsoft and Sony each have products that allow you to play games on any device without a

console or a PC. When that happens, and I think that starts this fall, and I think it grows over the next five to seven years, it should double or triple demand for the content. So anybody who's got content is a beneficiary. Anybody who makes peripherals, you know, controllers or keyboards is a beneficiary. And you know, we're we're working with an et F called gamer g a m R that's ninety some odd stocks in the video game and video game technology s. That's the pure play, that's

the easiest way to play it. You're going to get exposure across border, across industries to a demographic that's going to expand a lot right, Embracer, you've got Zinga, You've got Glue Mobile, You've got all the names in there. Well, because also everybody other other than you know, big big, big companies like Google where gaming is not a big piece of their business but will be someday. Amazon, same thing, um.

But short of that, yes, you've got all the publishers, all the device makers, um, all the pure play mobile guys well, and even I believe, and keep me honest here, Michael, some of the semiconductor companies too. And we talk about that with our inside our internal research analyists all the time about how when you look at the videos and others of the world, so much demand it seems these days.

And I guess this was both on the PC and the and the console side, uh is especially you know there's some there's some semiconductor demand that is driven by gaming right relutely. And you know in video in particular. Um, they make the high end graphics cards. So you know that four million PC gamers they need in video cards, million console players they need in video cards. All right, Well,

thank you so much. We really appreciate it. Great context, and you know one of those things that totally makes sense when you think about how people are acting during this very unusual period. Michael Pactor is video game technology analysts for web Bush Securities. Joinius on the phone from Long Beach, California. I just think of it was mid March when we heard E three the video Game conference was canceled because of coronavirus fears, and it made me.

You know, that was one of the things, along with the sports events, when all of these things started being canceled, because that's a huge event, so crucial to the industry, but just a reminder of the lockdown that we would soon all be facing as the world and certainly the nation as we know it was shutting down. It was like a hundred years ago. That's why I had to look back, and it was March eleventh, brother journal. Yeah, but you let me drive? Oh no, no, no, no,

who's honey? Please, I'll do the body. Let me. I want to drive all Just drive, baby, good questions, keep drying. This is the drive to the Globe Commune to thanks, we'll drive us on Bloomberg Radio. All right, let's check in for the drive to close with her old pal Allan's AFRON founding partner and Cosey of I e Q Capital. Johnny is on the phone from Foster City, California, while Alan, the last time we talked to you is a very different time, and I do wonder in the interim, Uh,

what's been going on? How are you feeling, has your family doing? What's it like? Uh in your neighborhood, in your town, Jason, we're home sheltering. I gotta tell you, we're living. Uh. It's kind of interesting because what you watch on television, what you hear, is absolutely terrible. But you're sitting in your home, you're with your family. Um, when this is all said and done, it's a it's

a horrible health crisis, it's a horrible economic event. In the eyes of an eight year old, playing board games and having family meals at home, as long as they're safe, you're you're in an affluent area like Foster City, might be the best time of their life. So it's that that's the silver lining on what's clearly a dark cloud. But I can tell you people are anxious and this event, this event, Jason, is so different than I think about

two thousand and eight, because it's personal. It's personal. It's affecting everybody directly, and people know people who are being adversely impacted health wise too, and that's what makes this one really difficult. Well, and you know it's funny, not so funny, but you know, we've been having discussions about

the the longer lasting impact of the virus. And I do wonder whether it's in you know, telemedicine, or whether it's online learning, or I don't know even you know, we're all a lot of us are working from home. I do wonder or about the social nets and safety nets that are not part of our society. Um, Alan, I do wonder about the longer lasting impact. And I'm just curious if you have some thoughts on that. Yeah,

we're going to learn that redundancy is important. Um We're going to learn the importance of capital expenditures, both from a health care perspective as well from a technology perspective. I pity the business soul who thought his internet was going to work well when he got home and realized it wasn't running at the same speed of the office. We're gonna be far more attentive to the need to

not allow a pandemic like this happen again. Now, whether we have the political willpower and the economic ability to put in place those things we need to build up, uh, the infrastructure to deal with the pandemic. In the future we will see, but in the moment, it's you like, that's going to be something that's gonna be um done. What you're gonna see too, is in the financial markets, it's already playing that way obviously the way some stocks

are working. But you're going to see pharmaceutical companies, biotech companies are going to get garner greater interest from the investment community. Clearly, a large cap will balance high, high

balance sheets, strong balance sheet. Tech companies are going to be well positioned because we're just going to continue to see all things equal, certainly until this virus seems I could see if you get past if you're gonna see more of a domestic focus, more of an inward focus, more of to make sure that everyone's got their own personal safety net as well as a business having a safety net. That's kind of the big theme in the short run. Well, and that safety net point is so

interesting to Alan. And you know we're gonna talk in just a little while with Robert Rice, the former Labor secretary, as you know, and you know he's going to make a pretty strong argument I believe against you know, sort of propping up a lot of panie. Uh you know, call it a bail out, call it what you want, um.

But part of this rainy day uh point. I think it's really important to the extent that a lot of the criticism that's been leveled against companies, whether they're in the airline industry or elsewhere, is Listen, they spent this money on buy backs. They spent this money in ways

that weren't essentially saving for a rainy day. Now this is beyond a rainy day, of course, and yet I do wonder whether that behavior will change, or whether, given this stimulus is sweeping in, whether companies will be like, no, that's cool, they'll they'll uh, they'll they'll help me out if I need it. You're touching on a really important point. Unfortunately, our stock markets built on quarterly profits yum, and so

we have a mismatch. Businesses should be run for the long run, stocks should be bought for the long run. And yet we played this game matching how companies performing every ninety days and didn't match the earnings estimates and less we're going to restructure the way in WHI to calibrate and measure public company performance. I don't think you're going to see a change ultimately in corporate behavior. By backs are just another way to prop up earnings per share. UM.

I do think it is probably well suited. If the government's going to hand be allowed of business, they should put in place measures to ensure that the businesses are there to support other constituents like employees, UM and customers as much as the executive. So I understand why they would do that. UM, they have to make sure that they can still create a compensation system that attracts competent, efficient, effective managers to run those businesses properly. That's the other

side of the coin. If you don't allow those businesses to be running by people who are compensated enough for the hard work they do, you're going to create a business that doesn't operate efficiently or well, and that will also have a longer term negative economic impacts. So that

it's it's complicated. There's multiple sides to every issue. No, yeah, it is complicated, But I do wonder and again, you know, Robert Rice is going to bring up this point, but you know, Alan, as you know, I mean, when you think about influence in Washington. It's not the individual walking down the street. It's the large and deep pockets of

corporations and you know their lobbying groups. And so you do wonder whether when we do have these stimulus packages that are drafted, you know that they definitely sway um and lean, you know, on the sides of often big public, publicly held companies. I don't disagree, And the optics look terrible politically. On the other hand, I think there is an art, but it's not just optics, right, it's really

activity actions that are actually taken. Yeah, And the counter argumently in its multiple pick on the airlines, the absence of a bailout of the airline industry, I'm not sure that they could survive, which gets back to the point why were they buying back shares. But if you build this, if you've built your business with amples amount of debt and you have a cyclical business, um you're going to go out of business, in which point you're gonna have

a much greater cost of society. So we may be right, we shouldn't bail out the executives and the airlines. The problem is we've got a lot of people who are now on unemployment insurance, and it's hard to retrain them and find them new jobs. You can't win either way, so you've got to find a middle ground. But really, the the emphasis I think is to the degree if you're going to be punitive and eliminate various industries, the

economic damage could be significantly greater than we realized. We could have the sustainable the high unemployment rate, we'd be running large deficits to support millions upon millions of people, would impair our ability to borrow effectively, and would actually

create havocs the financial system. So as bad or onerous or painful to may feel to bail out some of these industries, some of them are so significant to the economy, and the absence of doing something to prop them up and support them, it caused a much greater, longer term economic damage that will take much longer to works of. Right, All right, Unfortunately, we're gonna leave it there. I feel like we're just getting worked up. Alan Zaffren. You're gonna

have to come back and hang out with us virtually. Uh, and you know, maybe before too long you'll be visiting us in New York or will be out west. Thank you. So much. Founding partner k CEO of I e Q Capital on the phone from Foster City, California, thoughtful. As always, thanks for listening to Bloomberg Business Week. You can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, SoundCloud, or Bloomberg dot com. You can also listen to our radio show every weekday at two pm Eastern only on Bloomberg Radio