The NPR Politics Podcast - Treatment Research Continues As Phased Reopening Begins

Episode Date: April 30, 2020

The original White House social distancing guidelines are lapsing, with a phased plan for reopening that delegates more control to states taking their place. And a drug originally developed to combat Ebola shows early promise in lessening the severity of some coronavirus cases.This episode: congressional correspondent Susan Davis, White House correspondent Franco Ordoñez, and science correspondent Joe Palca.Connect:Subscribe to the NPR Politics Podcast here.Email the show at [e-mail] the NPR Politics Podcast Facebook Group.Subscribe to the NPR Politics Newsletter.Find and support your local public radio station.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Hi, this is Dan Culling from Jackson Heights, Queens. That sound you're currently hearing is the residents of Jackson Heights celebrating our local hospital workers and first responders and everybody on the front lines. This podcast was recorded at... 2.07 p.m. on Thursday, April 30th. Things may have changed by the time you hear this. We will still be stuck inside

and still be cheering like maniacs out our window every day at 7 p.m. Thanks again to everyone putting themselves at risk to help us during this incredibly difficult time. Here's the show. Woo! Yay! I will never get tired of hearing that.

I just love that. That's really nice. Always one of the best uplifting tales that have come out of all this is the cheering for the health care workers. Absolutely. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Susan Davis. I cover Congress. I'm Franco Ordonez. I cover the White House. And we're joined today by the great Joe Palka from NPR Science Desk. Hey, Joe. Hey, and I cover everything science, everything. Well, we are glad to have you on it today because I have questions. Okay. Today marks the end of the

White House's social distancing guidelines that were put in place six weeks ago. Franco, the president has already said they will not be extended. So what happens tomorrow? Yes, they are expiring, but some of those things are actually being incorporated in the new guidelines that the president is giving to the governors. The president says that many of the existing social distancing recommendations are already being applied by the governors themselves. They'll be fading out because now the governors are doing it. I've had many calls from governors, Governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, many, many governors, Tennessee, Arkansas. We're speaking to a lot of different

people and they're explaining what they're doing. And I am very much in favor of what they're doing. They're getting it going. So this is essentially allowing states, as we already have been doing, but it's basically saying it's up to states and regions to determine their next steps. Yeah, absolutely. And look, I mean, the Vice President Mike Pence, he said on Thursday that many of the things that were already in place are being incorporated into the new guidance that was given to the states, you know, the three phase guidance that includes if states have the capacity to treat patients, if they can test health care workers for the coronavirus, if they can trace people who have been exposed. But it also includes guidance on masks, avoiding groups of more than 10 people, you know, not doing any unnecessary travel.

And those were things that, you know, were in existence for the last 30 days. I mean, one of the things about this phased approach is you're supposed to meet certain criteria before you move on to the next phase. It's even hard to know if you've met the criteria. I mean, there are charts that say, you know, the number of cases is going down, but we're learning that there's a lot of people who may be infected and asymptomatic. So, I mean, maybe the state's numbers are going down, maybe they're not. It's very hard to say because the testing has just not been adequate. So at the beginning of this, I think the phrase that we heard over and over was that it was all about flattening the curve. Are you saying that based on how little we know, we don't actually

know where we are on that curve? Well, actually, I'm you saying that based on how little we know, we don't actually know where we are on that curve? Well, and actually, I'm not saying that because flattening the curve, the idea was to actually to spread out the number of cases so that they didn't all come piling into the hospital at the same time. And that does seem to be happening. It doesn't mean there are fewer cases, though. In fact, flattening the curve in a way makes the epidemic last longer, but it's not as intense, or the pandemic lasts longer, but it's not as intense in a given area. Franco, earlier this week, we had a whole podcast on Georgia and their reopening plan and the risks going on in that state. But what are other states looking to do right now? Yeah, I mean, look, I mean,

governors are really struggling with, you know, the competing interests of reopening their economies while also keeping their communities safe. You know, a handful of states have taken steps to relax their social distance guidelines. You mentioned Georgia. There's also Alaska, Tennessee. But other states like North Carolina and Michigan have extended their restrictions into next month and looking at longer. So it's a real dilemma for many of these states. Joe, this may seem like an obvious point, but it seems clear that the risk is if we reopen too fast, the chances of new spikes and new hotspots seem like they could happen really quickly. Yeah, or or slowly, which is also bad because you might think, oh, everything's fine. And then you go to the next stage, because you've just happened to time it in a weird way,

where the infections that you are getting haven't been seen yet. And suddenly, you've got a lot of cases when you thought you didn't have any. So the public health people, I think, are very nervous, because they know that there's a lot of unanswered questions about this virus and how it behaves still. Franco, most of us have been stuck in our basements for the better part of the last four, six, eight weeks. But you are one of the NPR reporters that's been able to get out of the House. Yeah, I've traveled with the vice president to Colorado for the Air Force Academy graduation ceremony and also to Wisconsin with the vice president to visit a factory building ventilators. I mean, the White House is trying to send a message. I mean, presidential travel,

vice presidential travel is always about signaling something. Part of these trips is about pushing back on criticism for the slow response in medical supplies. But the administration is also looking to send a message that they are, you know, turning a page and trying to get back to normal. The president himself has said several times about how he wants to get traveling again. I mean, he's really raring to go. Yesterday, he announced he'll be flying to Arizona to visit a plant making those special N95 masks that healthcare workers use. And he said later that he's going to go to Ohio. You know, he keeps repeating that it's time to start getting things back to normal.

All right, let's take a quick break. And when we get back, we'll talk about new treatment research. Hey, it's Guy Raz from NPR's How I Built This. And each week on the show during this unprecedented crisis, I'll be asking some of the top founders and builders how they're dealing with the economic impact of the coronavirus and hear about some of the ways they're pivoting to fight it. Subscribe or listen now to How I Built This. And we're back. And, Joe, there was some potentially good news this week about a drug that could be useful in treating coronavirus. That's right. There's a drug that was actually originally developed to treat Ebola, and it didn't work out so well for Ebola. There were

better drugs, but the drug is called remdesivir. It's made by Gilead Sciences, and there was hope that it would work to reduce the worst of the symptoms, And they found that there was a signal of a benefit, that the people were getting out of the hospital after 11 days as opposed to 15 days. That doesn't sound like that big of a deal to me. 15 to 11 days, but you're still hospitalized, you're still facing serious health consequences? Yes. And I think that's okay. There's two answers to that. One is this is not the wonder drug. I mean, clearly you don't take this and go dancing out of the room. So it's not a perfect drug. At the same time, doctors who have been treating this tell me for fewer days in the hospital is a really good thing. Being in the hospital, being in intensive care, it puts a tremendous burden on you as a patient.

And when you get home, you're home from the hospital, but you're not better. In fact, my neighbor across the street is home from the hospital, and he tells me he's exhausted all the time. So four days, you know, to us, we're lucky so far. Knock on wood, we haven't been infected. But for people who have and have developed on wood, we haven't been infected. But for people who have and have developed serious illness, this is a big deal. So there's this new drug treatment, and that's great. But I think the big question hanging over all of this is the conversation around a vaccine or a possible vaccine.

What are your sources in the science community telling you is realistic in terms of the vaccine timing as we know it today it's a difficult question to answer with certainty because the sources as you call them are are people who are trying to develop the drug and obviously when they start they're optimistic people who are old hands at this are a little more skeptical that something will be available as rapidly as the people who are developing them right now think. But this again with the case of vaccines, I mean, there was a vaccine developed within weeks of the first cases being identified in China. Astounding speed. But there are some things you just cannot speed up. You can't say, we're going to give someone a vaccine

and see if it protects them from infection for two weeks or six weeks or a month or two months without waiting some of that time. You just don't know. So to some extent, the answer is it's going to take a while to find it. And, I mean, the bigger problem is that, well, not bigger, and another problem is that, well, not bigger. And the another

problem is you have to be able to manufacture this because if you get something that really works, you're not going to give it to 10 people or 1000 people or 10,000 people, you're going to give it to 10, you know, five or 6 billion people, which is an astonishing number. I kind of wanted to ask you about that, Joe. I mean, the president was asked today whether his team was overpromising the results based on reports that the team's predicting maybe 300 million doses by January. I mean, how realistic is that according to the people you're speaking to? And once they develop a vaccine, what happens next? Well, the interesting thing is 300 million doses of what?

Because there is no vaccine to make 300 million doses of at all right now. And that brings the interesting question in terms of capacity. The government is actually helping to pay for manufacturing facilities for vaccines that may never work. So they're going to be specially built manufacturing facilities that may never turn out anything, at least anything related to this outbreak. In terms of getting it to people, well, I mean, it depends on what kind of vaccine actually turns out to work. I mean, there's one that's being developed that you take as a pill. Oh, okay, that's not too hard to get to people. There's others that you have to not only inject, but then you have to zap the injection site with an electrical pulse to make the vaccine work. Well, it's going to be

pretty tricky to get that every place. I mean, never mind electrification, just getting all the equipment to where it needs to go is going to be a problem. So making the drug, supplying the drug, it's a big lift. The conversation around the vaccine is always sort of couched as a matter of when, but is it also a matter of if they can find a vaccine? Well, yes. And I mean, that's an interesting point. The people who are building vaccines now say, look, we've had experience with coronavirus, other coronaviruses. We actually made vaccines against SARS and MERS. And then the outbreaks petered out and there was, you know, really nobody to give the vaccine to and there was no money to continue to develop it. So there's

optimism based on past experience, but this is a new virus. And inevitably, every new virus throws new curves at researchers who think, oh, we understand that. And then it turns out, well, why are we seeing this? And they have to scratch their heads and go back to the drawing board. So there is optimism, but I guess they'll maintain their optimism until they have to turn pessimistic. But they haven't turned pessimistic yet. All right. We'll leave it there for today. Joe, thank you so much for joining the pod.

Oh, you bet. It was a thrill. And today we did something new and special for our listeners on the NPR Politics Facebook page. We answered your questions live. If you missed it, you can see the Q&A on the NPR Politics page. Please check it out. I'm Susan Davis. I cover Congress. I'm Franco Ordonez. I cover the White House. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.