The Career Problem-Solver Taking on the Pandemic

by the fall. The more protective vaccine would come just in time for another round of immunizations that may be required before next winter. Andrew Pollard, chief investigator of the Oxford Trials, said switching out the genome sequence, manufacturing and completing new studies for a vaccine against variants should be fairly quick. A new study shows promising signs for the immunity of people who have been infected with COVID nineteen.

According to a report by UK Biobank, a major biomedical database, some eight percent of participants who tested positive for previous infection retained antibodies for six months. At three months, the number was The results follow other smaller studies that indicate some level of immunity for at least six months after a natural infection. Finally, Mexico's Health agency approved Russia's spot

Nik five vaccine for emergency use. That's according to Deputy Health Minister Hugo Lopez Gatell, who spoke at a press con Frinds today. The country has secured one point for million doses of the vaccine through March. Mexico is betting on close to fifty five million total vaccine doses by the end of April. The nation was the first to start vaccinating in Latin America, but fell behind others in

the region after a delay in visor shipments. And now for today's main story, Joe Biden's new COVID nineteens Are is a former business executive and Biden ally named Jeff Zience, who was little known to most Americans. Zience doesn't have a medical or military background like the two men who ran Operation Warp Speed, the Trump administration's vaccine delivery program. I spoke to reporter Anna Edney, who says the posting will test sciences reputation with Democrats and Washington as the

go to guy when things go. There's a new face to the Biden administration's policy to beat COVID nineteen in the US. But to many Americans it's not exactly a familiar one. I was wondering if you might just tell us who is Jeff Science? Sure, UM, you know, he's somebody who has worked behind the scenes UM a lot in government actually, but hasn't really been kind of the main face of some of his efforts. UM. Like he is now out in front on this COVID response for

the Biden administration. UM. But Jeff Science actually started his career on the business side. UM. He was doing some consulting and stepped into the Obama administration actually UM after a pretty successful business career, and he was Bamba's first Chief Performance Officer. UM. It was a new position that the administration had created to try and UM get government running a little more smoothly, tackle big things like the

hiring process, the procurement process. UM. Dian's ended up also doing some work at the Office of Management and Budget UM for the White House, and he had left government for a little bit very shortly, and then in healthcare dot com dot gov, which was Obama's signature domestic issue UM, trying to get health insurance to more people This was

the website that let them sign up. It launched in October, it crashed and Science was called in to come and and fix it, to get the people together to fix it. He doesn't have experience really in kind of the medical world, but he's known as somebody who can pull people together, um find the right people to do the job, get the motivate, did keep people on time, and get it done. And that's why he's been called back at this point

now that Democrats are back in the White House. You know, hearing the term covids are one might be forgiven to think that someone would need a medical background for this role. But of course, as you mentioned, Jeff Science does not have a medical background. I was wondering if you might outline some of the responsibilities he's going to be involved with in being the COVID's are so as the COVID's are he is going to first off be tackling the

the vaccine issue. I talked to Andy Slavitt, who also worked in the Obama administration and now has come back as an adviser to Biden's COVID Response Task Force, who said that vaccines are the biggest focus right now for the team. Obviously there's a lot of other things they need to work on, but getting backsineans out two Americans will be will be number one, and so science is going to have to focus on things like ramping up manufacturing. UM. You know, there's a lot of concern that we won't

have enough of the vaccines soon enough. That's been kind of a slow rollout. But there's other things that that will be looking at two, and that's testing UM sequencing of the virus because we're seeing all these variants coming. So the US is trying to check for variants that are happening UM and see if they can sequence the virus many many times a day UM as samples come in,

and so he has a pretty big task. One of the things people will be looking for is how he might use the Defense Production Act to get a lot of these things done. UM syringes are needed for vaccines, more vaccines themselves are needed. Some people have criticized this appointment because of sciences business background, specifically a group called the Revolving Door Project, an arm of the Center for Economic and Policy Research that scrutinizes Executive Branch appointees. Tell

me more about that. The Revolving Door Project took a deep dive into some of his past work UM to come onto the Biden administration. Science recently resigned from a private investment firm called Cranmere that had a health care focus, and so their their concern at the Revolving Door Project was less about Science himself and more about UM, someone who kind of has held his his business positions before.

They didn't really know as much about him per se, But we're concerned that someone with those kind of ties would not be able to kind of deal with the business community in in a direct enough way UM. And that obviously remains to be seen. But Science has been pretty adamant that he will use the Defense Production Act

to get supplies where they're needed. And I mean, is there any worry that he is he is too friendly to businesses essentially that he will not kind of force their hand in in doing something, certainly when it comes to the pandemic for for the national good um rather than state At the bottom line, Yeah, I think that's the concern that the Revolving Door Project has is he he won't want to ask companies to do things they don't want to do, or he won't want to force

companies to do things they don't want to do. Obviously, there there's a great need um for certain supplies to address this pandemic, and it's hard on companies to make a switch to making things that they don't normally make, or to take some things offline that they make a lot of money off of, to make things that they might not make a lot of money off of for the greater good. The concern is that he's he's friendly enough with businesses that he won't want to force their

hand that way. What are some benchmarks that will indicate whether or not Sciences is a success in the role? You know, I the administration has targeted closer to really more the the end of the year for everyone to be able to get their vaccines. Um access would come sooner, but just you know, given the time it would take for everyone to get one will be closer to the

end of the year. And so I think we're looking out further along those lines to see if something that if there's a return to some sort of normal before the year is out. Is probably his his main benchmark, but there are other other things, other numbers that will pop up along the way. Um the sequencing of the virus. The US was not doing a lot of that under the Trump administration, so they weren't potentially catching variants. UM. As soon as they got to know US soil they

were UM. They're now trying to increase that so you know, we can kind of track the number of samples of the virus that are sequenced on a daily basis. UM testing is another thing. You know, there's been a lot of complaints about testing times, wait times once you do get a test, so that's something that people are still keeping an eye on. That was Anna Edney, and that's

it for our show today. For coverage of the outbreak from one bureaus around the world, visit Bloomberg dot com slash coronavirus and if you like the show, please leave us a review and a rating on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. It's the best way to help more listeners find our global reporting. The Prognosis Daily edition is produced by Tophor Foreheads, Magnus Henrickson and me Laura Carlson. Today's main story was reported by Anna at original music by Leo Sigrian. Our

editors are Rick Shine and Francesco Levi. Francesco Levi is Bloomberg's head of podcasts, Thanks for listening.