Consider This from NPR - What We Don't Know About Potential Vaccines; Protest Safety

Episode Date: June 12, 2020

All week we've been hearing about rising cases in states around the country. The stock market reacted on Thursday, in part after Federal Reserve officials predicted the unemployment rate will still be above 9% at the end of the year. There's a lot we don't know about the White House's public-private partnership to develop a vaccine, Operation Warp Speed. NPR's Sydney Lupkin reports on a winnowing field of vaccine candidates. And during a pandemic, the most vulnerable newborns require even more protection. Plus, NPR's Maria Godoy shares tips to minimize the risks of COVID-19 for yourself and others if you've been out protesting.Sign up for 'The New Normal' newsletter. Find and support your local public radio station. This episode was recorded and published as part of this podcast's former 'Coronavirus Daily' format.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Support for NPR and the following message come from the Kauffman Foundation, providing access to opportunities that help people achieve financial stability, upward mobility, and economic prosperity, regardless of race, gender, or geography. Kauffman.org So, if cases are going up in a lot of states, why are they reopening anyway? I think a lot of this has been driven by consumers, by school districts, by businesses that took these actions on their own and ultimately policymakers fit policy to what was happening across the country. Former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb pointed out on CNBC today, it's not just state and local officials making decisions. Take something like pro sports.

The White House and governors did not shut down the NBA. The NBA shut down the NBA because they were reacting to what was happening and what was happening to fans and people. And so that's what's happening now in reverse, really. People are driving the reopening because they're, you know, tired of the shutdown. Coming up, what we don't know about how a vaccine is being developed. This is Coronavirus Daily from NPR. I'm Kelly McEvers. It's Friday, June 12th. This message comes from WISE, the app for doing things in other currencies.

Send, spend, or receive money internationally, and always get the real-time mid-market exchange rate with no hidden fees. Download the Wise app today or visit wise.com. T's and C's apply. All week, we have been hearing about rising cases in many states around the country. The stock market finally seemed to get the message on Thursday. That was the closing bell here on Wall Street. Again, just a massive move to the downside here for all three major averages.

The Dow lost almost 7 percent of its value. Translation, this is not something that happens in a healthy, stable economy. The worst day for stocks in three months as fears grow of a second wave of COVID-19. By the way, it's not a second wave in many places. It's the first wave that's just now hitting. For the stock market, things got a little better on Friday. But economists and the head of the Federal Reserve are warning a full recovery is still a long way off. I think we have to be honest that it's a long road. It's, depending on how you count it,

well more than 20 million people displaced in the labor market. It's going to take some time. That's Fed Chair Jerome Powell. This week, Federal Reserve officials said they expect the unemployment rate will still be above 9% at the end of the year. It could take some people years to find steady jobs again. And many will never be able to go back to their old ones. In fact, there may not be a job in that industry for them for some time.

There will eventually be, but it could be some years before we get back to those people finding jobs. I mean, when people lose a job... That's not the only reason things could get worse before they get better. Millions of Americans who have deferred payments on their rent, their mortgages, student loans, all kinds of expenses, will eventually have to pay that money back. Federal employment benefits, an extra $600 a week, those go away at the end of July. A federal ban on some evictions expires near the end of July, too. And there is no clear sign yet of any more relief from Congress.

If there were more fiscal support, you'd see better results sooner. But that's a question for Congress. You know, we're spending a lot, and that's really what they get to decide. This week, we heard more cautious optimism from Dr. Anthony Fauci about a vaccine. We could have a vaccine either by the end of this calendar year or in the first few months of 2021. We learned it looks like large-scale human trials. We're talking tens of thousands of people could begin next month. And at least one in close to maybe three or more candidates.

But there is still a lot we don't know, in particular, about how the United States is developing those vaccine candidates or who is doing the developing. On Morning Edition, NPR's pharmaceutical correspondent Sydney Lupkin talked to hostelle King about this U.S. effort. It's called Operation Warp Speed. What is the point or the goal of Operation Warp Speed? Sure. Well, in this case, the goal of Operation Warp Speed is to have a coronavirus vaccine ready by January, which is really fast. It usually takes years to research and develop a safe and effective vaccine. So they started with 14 candidates, and we'll eventually have to pare that down to just a few finalists that will get, you know, the most support. The winnowing process is already

underway, and we've learned that there are seven that have made the cut so far. Just quickly, who's running Operation Warp Speed? Is it scientists or government officials? It's both. But really, the short answer is we don't know really who is making the final, final decisions at Warp Speed or how they're deciding which vaccines to ultimately back. They haven't made their vaccine list public. But former HHS officials tell me that a lack of transparency could cause problems when it's time to actually ask healthy Americans to roll up their sleeves and get this vaccine. Here's Dr. Peter Lurie, former associate commissioner for public health strategy and analysis at the Food and Drug Administration. Let's remember that this is a product line that is mired in all kinds of controversy created by people who question the science of vaccines. And so in this case, in particular, it's important to have full public trust in the process.

Okay, let's talk about public trust and how we get it. What do we know for certain? So we know that five companies have gotten HHS contracts for development of vaccines, starting with Johnson & Johnson. And that was months before Operation Warp Speed was even announced. In all, those contracts total more than $2 billion. And the companies are mostly big names in pharmaceuticals. Moderna is really the only kind of relative unknown that got one of these contracts. And it had kind of a head start because the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which is headed by Dr. Anthony Fauci, is working with the company. That said, there are

other contracts out there beyond the HHS ones. The challenge here is that vaccine makers need to gear up manufacturing really right away if they're going to produce enough supply to vaccinate hundreds of millions of Americans next year. So they'll need to start really before we know whether those vaccines really work. And that's expensive and risky, which is why the U.S. government is helping to foot the bill. But it's also why it needs to whittle down the list. So we're kind of reading the tea leaves

until we really get told what's going on. Correspondent Sydney Lupkin talking to Morning Edition host Noelle King. The pandemic has changed so much about what normally happens in a hospital. Many elective surgeries have been

canceled, regular checkups and non-emergency visits have been happening over video, but babies are still being born. And the most vulnerable ones need even more protection in the hospital. This story is about how that works. And it starts with a health care worker in New York City. So my name is Claire Pankey, and I have been a neonatal intensive care nurse for over 30 years.

You know, we're primarily there to stabilize the baby, to do whatever care that that child needs. Because we have premature babies, we have full-term babies, we have post-term babies. From the moment a baby wheels in, really from the first minute, it's really more than just the baby. It's the whole family. And so we're helping the families through the experience, explaining things to them. There's a lot of equipment here. There's a lot of strange sounds. It's a really intimidating environment for people to walk into. Hi, I'm Jasmine. I'm Joshua's mom. Joshua's born at 29 weeks, 11 weeks early, and we've been in the NICU since the 26th of February. So we sort of witnessed the transition of the hospital from being like a bustling, sort of like lots of other

types of patients here to just like COVID being in full swing. So we're the only visitors that come into the building. And when we're in the elevators, we're with people in like full, you know, PPE, like everybody looks worn down, exhausted. Everyone's talking about how long their day has been. So we're sort of witnessing it, but we're so separate from it at the same time. I think the main thing that most health care workers realize is kind of our baseline. It's hard sometimes to work in health care. It's certainly hard to work in health care right now, but it's much harder to be a patient and it's much harder to be a family member. Come on, Bona. You ready for a bath, kiddo? Come on, you're going to help me.

We spend 12 to 13 hours a day with masks on our face. Not only is that somewhat uncomfortable breathing, but there's this barrier when you're talking to a baby who is wired from birth to look at two eyes, a nose, and a mouth. They're not wired to look at two eyes, maybe some glasses, and a big blue mask. So one of the biggest days for the families and certainly the babies in the NICU is the day they get to go home. It's also really exciting for us as staff members, and I got to speak to one of our moms, Michaela, on the day that she was bringing her baby, David, home.

My husband and I were not allowed to go into the NICU together, as only one parent was allowed at a time. So my husband and I have not been together with our son until today, which is because he's finally getting to come home. So today will be the first day he gets to see our faces and that we will all be together as a family. It's a lot. It's a lot. And that little boy wants to see your face and you want to show him your face. And how many weeks is he today? He's 35 and a half, so he's come a long way, and we're grateful to the NICU team at Lenox Hill and everything they've done. Oh, my God.

I'm so sorry. Say goodbye. Bye, friend. You're ready. Bye-bye. Look at you. Yay! Congratulations.

Thank you. I wish I could hug you. I cried coming in. Look at you. Yay! Congratulations. Thank you. I wish I could hug you. That's NICU nurse Claire Pankey at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City. Michaela King and Jasmine Moadel were the moms in that story, which was produced by Kari Pitkin at NPR member station WNYC. You or someone you know might be at a protest this weekend. If you're out in any big group, you know the common sense stuff. Wear a mask over your mouth and your nose. Social distance is important. Even three feet helps. And later, get tested for the virus.

A lot of cities are offering them for free these days. If your test comes back negative, but you are feeling a little sick, don't assume everything is okay. Diagnostic tests can give false negatives, or you might not have high enough levels of the virus to be detected. There are more tips on protecting yourself in public and after you get home from NPR science editor Maria Godoy at the link in our episode notes. Additional reporting in this episode from NPR's Jim Zeroli and editing help from Scott Horsley and Joe Neal. For more on the coronavirus, you can stay up to date with all the news on your local public radio station and you can write to us at coronavirusdailyatnpr.org. This show is produced by the wonderful team of Emily Alfin Johnson,

Gabriela Saldivia, Anne Lee, Lee Hale, and Brent Bachman, and edited by Beth Donovan. Thanks for listening. I'm Kelly McEvers. You may have noticed something at all these protests over police violence. There are a lot more white people there than you'd expect. But how long will that last? This awokening among white American voters,

how far are they really willing to go beyond dethroning Trump? Adam Serwer on race and lessons from history. Listen and subscribe to It's Been a Minute from NPR.