Welcome to the Second Wave

a new outbreak. The city lockdown ten residential compounds in the northwestern Hai Dingju district on Monday after finding coronavirus cases at a nearby market. The cases are linked to the nearby shing Fati wholesale market, which has been the epicenter of the new cases. China's Vice Premier Sun chun Lan set in a meeting Sunday that the risks are high for Beijing's coronavirus resurgence to spread because so many

people have visited the xing Vati market. The US is likely to keep a ban on travel from the United Kingdom in place for months. Anthony Fauci, the top US infectious disease expert told Britain's Telegraph newspaper to expect travel restrictions to last for months and possibly until a vaccine is available. Fauci also expressed hope one or more vaccines being developed could be ready by the end of or one Close to four million UK citizens normally visit the

US each year. The US, with some exceptions, ban travel from China, the UK, and the European Union. In May, it added Brazil as cases spiked there. Finally, the US is seeing signs of a resurgence in cases in some areas. Scott Gottlieb, former US Food and Drug Administration chief, said on CBS is Face the Nation that case counts are rising and hospitalization rates are high in some states, that, along with a high percentage of positive tests, suggests there

are outbreaks underway. Gottlieb said the rise can be attributed to states loosening their stay at home restrictions and starting to reopen businesses. States like Texas, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina where you see those outbreaks right now, never really reduced the number of cases substantially. They had spread. It was persistent and now it's flaring up, and those

resurgences are today's main story. Texas and Florida, two of the most populous US stay eights, reported record numbers of new COVID nineteen infections on Sunday. The recent surge in those states and others has led public health officials to worry that reopening the economy has come at too grave a cost. Between reopening policies, weariness was staying home and large protests around the country, Americans are moving around and interacting more than they have in months. That poses a

real threat to public health. I talked to Bloomberg reporter and a court who has been covering what is increasingly looking like a second wave of the virus. Over the last week or so, we have been hearing a lot in the news about a so called second wave of this pandemic. Can you tell us a little bit about what we mean when we say second wave? The term second wave has become very polarizing. What there or not

it is a second wave? I think who you ask, you know, we'll give you very different answers about it. Is it technically a second wave? If the first wave never really went away? Is the big question everyone's asking and it doesn't really matter in my book, and I think in most people's books, because the unquestionable trend here is that we're seeing in increasing cases and there's some concerning trends in terms of hospitalizations as well in some

parts of the country. Now, of course, the increase in cases is not unilateral. Across the board, US cases overall have been rising at about you know, I think the average over the last week is about one point one or one percent. So across the board it looks fairly stable. But if you then zero in on certain you know, parts of the country, certain states in particular, we've seen some increases that you know, public health experts say are concerning.

So um, the states in particular I think that are important to zero in here are places like Florida, Texas, UM, you know, Arizona in particular. You know, we e been seen in places like California, where you know, California was really early to respond to the coronavirus, put a lot of restrictions in place, and yet you know, California's cases are are also still going up. UM. But you know, there are certain states people talk about in particular when

they say, you know, we are worried. And it's really that group of sort of Florida, Texas, Arizona that really kind of stands out to people, and is there anything that we can point to as to why these states are being hit with this surge in new cases versus others Understanding what's going on here is more complicated than it sounds. I think a lot of people are quick to rush to, well, it must be because of this or that, right. A lot of people are pointing to reopenings,

which are definitely a big factor, right. I mean, if you're in a place in your local businesses are reopening, um, you're moving around more, you're interacting with more people, like that's that's obviously a factor here, but it's not unilaterally across the board clear that that's why some places are having,

you know, these spikes and cases. You know, a lot of people ask about protests to what's the role of protests in all this, and the experts I spoke to sort of late last week said, it's a little early. We're not totally sure what's going on there, because it does take some time for people to develop symptoms after being exposed. And then if you think about it, if you're starting to feel sick. It maybe it takes you, you know, some period of time to seek out a test, right,

to figure out how to get tested. In terms of hospitalizations, that's usually lags even further. Right, So the hospitalization numbers you know that we see, you know, usually that infection started several weeks earlier, and we only see those hospitalization numbers a lot later. And so that's another reason we're tracking cases, right, because you know, cases are a thing that that are relatively easy to track and stay somewhat closer to sort of the curve in terms of of

what's happening in different states relative to hospitalizations. So it does sound like there's no relationship that we can determine yet between whether or not a state was early to lockdown or was strict in its lockdown measures or in terms of its reopening measures. Um. You made the example of California versus Arizona, and it sounds like they had very different approaches to both how quickly they locked down

and how quickly they were to open up. I think it's it would be even early to be that definitive about what's going on here. Um, But something I would sort of point to in terms of trying to make sense of this trend is you know, one thing we know for sure, UM, relative to sort of the stay at home period, the lockdown period, is that Americans are moving around more, right, They're going to more non essential businesses, They're perhaps even interacting socially more, and we know that

that's a risk factor for spreading the coronavirus. So, and the reason we know this is because, UM one really great sort of data set that that has been available to you know, journalists, researchers, public health expert is cell phone data. And so you can tell where people are moving around, and there's very clear evidence that people are moving around more than they were before. Now there are also maybe cultural norms I think playing into this as well.

If you think about, you know, how people are behaving in your area, and I think we all see this anecdotally on the street, right Are people wearing masks? Are they actually wearing them? Are they on their chin? You know? Are people handwashing our people? You know, hanging out outside of bars with take out you know drinks, you know, are they gathering in groups? Are are there restaurants where where people are all sitting inside and not wearing masks?

So you know, I think a lot of these cultural factors may also be playing playing into the spread as well, and that's a little bit less clear. You know, it's harder to measure, it's harder to get a grip on, I think, but it's obviously a part of this whole phenomenon. And we've heard public health officials and states saying we urge you to wash your hands, to wear masks, so socially distance. But you know, how well that's actually playing

out in different states is hard to know. And I was hoping you might be able to go into the details of one of these states, in particular, what about Arizona.

How is that state looking right now? You know, Arizona is an interesting one because we have seen this sort of trend in terms of the numbers there, and you know, I spoke with a doctor there who said, you know, I'm really hoping that because it's so hot outside, people will just stay inside in their own homes and air conditioners, you know, and not you know, be out and about

and potentially helping contribute to the virus is spread. But we also know, you know, there were some very well publicized things going on in Arizona around Memorial Day weekend, there were you know, bars and restaurants in in Scottsdale that were you know, packed with people. You know, obviously, like, we don't totally know at this point. I haven't heard the public health officials in that state say this is

what's going on. So um, but I did talk to a former public health official in Arizona who is now, you know, does public health kind of advocacy work, and and he said, you know, part of the problem going on the state is that after we lift did the lockdowns, things were going pretty well up to that point. But when they when they lifted you know, the stay at home orders, when they said you can kind of start engaging with life as you used to, there weren't really

restrictions place and there wasn't enforcement. So he said, you know, everything was going pretty well until that point, and then it was kind of like and I love this quote party on bro and so I think, you know, that's the perspective of someone who's who's been in that who lives in that state, who sees what's going on, you know, who says, you know, at Costco people are wearing masks, but at other places people are not. And I think, you know, that might help put some of this into perspective.

And you know, again, for those folks that perhaps are dismissive of a a second wave theory or that we're actually seeing a slow ramp up in cases, it does seem that they're pointing to that this is simply the result of increased testing in these states, that simply we are able to detect more cases, not that there are actually more cases. Can you go into, you know, the

the logic behind that approach. You do hear this point of contention raised, which is that you know, US testing has for COVID nineteen has undoubtedly expanded dramatically since the early days of the virus. And so the question is, you know, where they're just similar amounts of cases before that we weren't detecting and now we're detecting them, and

that could definitely be a factor here. It's hard to totally know for sure, but we do know that in some of these states that I mentioned before, places like Texas and Florida, the cases are rising at a higher rate than testing is rising. And so it's not a perfect measure, but it does sort of help you zero in on that argument a little bit. More, and you know, we did hear, you know, Florida's governor say this is because of increased testing, but you know, people don't really

agree with him. And I think, you know, the critical factor to consider here is even if we are testing more and we're catching more cases, the unquestionable reality is that there are still cases of COVID nineteen in the US. The more people have COVID nineteen, you know, the higher the levels are in an area or a state, the more people aren't risk of catching it too. And so this is definitely a virus that is still around, that has not disappeared. The virus is still very much with us.

And I think that's the question that we all have to really be thinking about, is you know, has it been tempting to believe that the virus has gone away if you don't know anyone who hasn't just because people are tired of what's been going on for the last several months. It's not something I think anyone is enjoying. Um. But the reality is the virus is still very much with us, and that's what these numbers should tell us. And the other reality is that public health officials have

to decide how to respond to these numbers. And this is going to be a pretty critical time in terms of seeing you know, our state's gonna put pausing reopening on the table the way that Oregon did. You know, we don't know where things are going to go right now, but we have heard you know, New York's governor, for instance, saying, you know, New York is actually right now in a really good place in terms of the virus UM. But you know, he said, we're getting complaints about behavior. If

things are bad, we can roll back restrictions. That's that's definitely an option UM. And I think that's something that you know, how this pans out, will be playing out across the United States, you know, this week and weeks to come, and potentially for a long period of time until there are better treatments and and vaccines um vaccines

at all available for for this virus. That was an accord And that's our show today and 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 Topher foreheads Jordan Gospore, Magnus Hendrickson and me

Laura Carlson. Today's main story was reported by Emma Court. Original music by Leo Sedrin. Our editors are Francesco Levi and Rick Shine. Francesco Levi is Bloomberg's head of podcasts. Thanks for listening.