Virus Hunting With the 'Pirate CDC'

Prognosis: Misconception

Bloomberg

Health & Fitness, Science

4.1 • 838 Ratings

🗓️ 26 May 2020

⏱️ 17 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Knowing how many people are being tested for coronavirus is essential for getting an accurate picture of the spread of the virus. But the government hasn’t readily provided this data. Instead, experts, media outlets and even the Trump administration have turned to a surprising source for these numbers: A volunteer effort by a team of journalists, called the Covid Tracking Project. Emma Court reports on what we're learning from the project.

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0:00.0	What could you do if your data was working for you and not against you? With Bloomberg delivering
0:07.3	enterprise data directly to your systems, you get easy access to the details you want, optimized for
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0:24.0	Our data is made for more, so you can show the world what you're made of. Visit Bloomberg.com slash enterprise data to learn more.
0:34.7	Welcome to Prognosis. I'm Laura Carlson. It's day 76 since coronavirus was declared a global
0:43.0	pandemic. Our main story? The U.S. seems to have finally gotten its testing operation on track,
0:51.3	but it's still hard to find data on just how many tests are being done.
0:57.3	So a volunteer group of journalists took up the challenge.
1:01.5	Now, the group produces reports that are so reliable, even the White House depends on them.
1:08.8	But first, here's what happened today.
1:18.2	The U.S. drug giant Merck revealed its plans to develop a pill that will treat the coronavirus.
1:25.7	The company is also working on two vaccines. Merck bought the rights to develop
1:31.5	a promising antiviral drug that was discovered at Emory University. Over the past century,
1:39.5	Merck has pioneered inoculations for diseases from Ebola to diphtheria.
1:45.9	The company pledged that if they are able to make a coronavirus vaccine, they will work to make
1:51.3	it accessible to anyone in the world who needs it.
1:56.4	Wuhan, the epicenter of China's coronavirus outbreak, said it tested nearly 7 million people in 12 days.
2:04.7	That's after a handful of infections prompted fears of a second wave and spurred a campaign to test the entire population.
2:14.4	The 6.8 million nucleic acid tests uncovered 206 asymptomatic cases, according to Bloomberg calculations, based on daily numbers released by the local health commission.
2:28.8	And finally, researchers may have found a small piece of the puzzle about whether people with COVID-19 later become immune.
2:39.0	An early draft of a study of hospital staff in northeastern France found that almost all doctors and nurses who got mild forms of COVID-19
2:47.9	produced antibodies that could prevent reinfection.
	...

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