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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to the Daily Dive Weekend edition. I'm Oscar Ramirez,
and every week I explore the top stories making waves
in the news and some that are just playing interesting.
I'll connect you with the journalists and the people who
know the story and bring you news without the noise
so you can make an informed decision. You can catch
a new episode of The Daily Dive every Monday through Friday,
and it's ready when you wake up. On the weekend edition,
(00:27):
I'll be bringing you some of the best stories from
the week. On the coronavirus front, we've had some concerning
news for those with immunocompromise systems. A recent study found
that vaccines are proving less effective for them than for
those with normal immune systems. Of transplant patients had no
antibodies after two vaccine shots, and the other who did
(00:49):
develop anybody's were at lower levels. For more and why
booster shots might be needed for immunocompromised people, will speak
to Joe Barrett, Senior Midwest correspondent at the Wall Street
journ People with compromised immune systems always have a little
bit less of an uptake of vaccines from what I understand,
But it was really stark with the COVID vaccines. The
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study that came out in April showed that only about
forty six percent of people who hadn't gotten two shots
had actually gotten any anybody's and the people who actually
did get anybody's gotten less than person with the normal
immune system. So there were people out there who had
gotten two shots and basically thought they were covered, you know,
(01:32):
like everybody else but it, but it turns out many
of them aren't, and you needed to do additional testing
to figure out how much immunity you have and you know,
whether you've got any at all. There's about ten million
people in the US that take immuno suppressants for various conditions,
So that's a lot of people that might know somebody
in their lives that have an immuno compromised system. The
(01:55):
CDC has basically said that they should operate as if
they weren't even eaccinated. That's how much they don't really
know about this. And that's the big question is is
what to do? You know, they're they're trying to explore
options right now for how to proceed, how to get
them those antibodies, right. Yeah, some some people, you know,
consulting with their doctors, are going out and getting another
(02:16):
booster shot, But the CDC says that really needs more study.
I mean, they don't. They just don't want to send
people off when they're not a hundred percent sure what
what the reaction is going to be. Apparently there's sort
of a you know, theoretical risk that it could cause
organ rejection. I mean I think that, you know, theoretical
means relatively remote. But they want to do these studies
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just to make sure that it's safe for people and
then um and that you know, and that it's effective.
Is it worth it for them to actually get this
extra shot or not? Right? And obviously the way everything
works out, that organ is more important than the vaccine
would be. You know, you need to take care of
that to help complete the body system more than you
would need these vaccines. So that's kind of the tough
(02:58):
spot to be in. You did speak to a few
people who are in this situation, and you know, one
of them specifically, he was a man who went out
and got another shot and his anybody levels did shoot up. Yeah, apparently,
you know anecdotally this is this is working for some people,
but you know, they really haven't tested it enough to
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be sure that it's gonna kind of work for everybody.
But you know, they have even talked about, well if
the second, if the third one doesn't work, you could
even possibly get a fourth one if it's proving that
this is safe. There's also possible benefit from going, um,
say you had fives Room and Derna, you know, going
what they call cross platform and having your next shot
be a Johnson and Johnson like that might um spur
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a reaction that's different than what the other one did.
And so you know, there's a lot of options out there.
But but you know, sort of the CDC in its
um guidance as being you know, very cautious. And the
thought obviously is it that it is that cocktail of
drugs that is doing something to the vaccine, that's that's
causing the any bodies not to form. Yeah, people on
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you know who have had transplants. That's about five thousand
of the ten million who take immuno suppressants, they take
like more than one, and I guess some of them
are some of the immuno suppressants are stronger or make
the vaccine even less effective than other ones. Like, so
there are some people with lupus who might be taking
one of the drugs that the transplant patients take, and
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their chance of getting anybody's is just as low or
even lower than people with the transplants. Any Anyways, it's
like it's kind of a complicated picture of the transplant.
People take often more than one and UM and so
that they're sort of the biggest group that's sort of
at risk for this in one lump. So and so
has there been a recommendation for people who take immuno
(04:50):
suppressants to go and get tested for anybodies to see
what their levels are like right now? Well, I don't
think the testing is very wide available at the moment,
but they do, you know, they do recommend that people
talk to their doctors, and their doctors are certainly going
to tell them to you know where where extra ppe.
Don't you know, don't act like you can take that
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mask off yet, because you know you might not be producted.
And so it's it's not widely recommended yet that everybody
gets tested, but it kind of seems like that's the
path for overheading. And the concern is there. As I mentioned,
you spoke to a lot of people. You spoke to
a woman. I think she was seventy one years old.
She owns a bar. She has like a plastic shower curtain,
you know, dividing her from the bar and the patrons,
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and she deals with a lot of people. She's Amino compromise.
I think she got tested. She has no anybody, so, yeah,
she has to kind of operate as she's still in
the thick of the pandemic. Yeah. No, I mean she
was really hoping, you know, she could take that thing down.
She's got another section of her bar that you know
she can't open just uh, you know, for for other reasons.
(05:54):
But you know, she was hoping to be back, you know,
more or less leading a normal life like so many
other people make travel plans for the summer. But yeah,
all that stuff is on hold now because once she
heard about this news, it was like she thought she
was protected and it turned out no, she really wasn't. Yeah,
I guess the next step is doctors are waiting for
approvals right now to launch a study of all of
(06:15):
this to see if a booster shot would help. So
obviously they're looking into it, but these are all the
next steps to explore right now. Joe Barrett, Senior Midwest
correspondent at The Wall Street Journal, Thank you very much
for joining us. No problem to take care. California Governor
Gavin Newsom continues to face a recall vote, but the
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early momentum and getting the recall on the ballot has
faded and Republicans are having difficulties making some of the
attacks stick. The state is scheduled to reopen June fifteen.
There's a budget surplus, and even poles look good for
Newsome right now with opposing the recall for more and
all of this will speak to Carla Marinucci, senior writer
for Politicos California Playbook. What we're saying that the Governor
(06:58):
Newsom really seems to have have winded his back right now.
I mean, he's got the pall members in his favor,
with only forty of California voters saying they support it.
You've got the state bouncing back from the COVID situation.
The budget surplus is unlike anything California has ever seen.
With he's claiming about the seventy six billion dollars surplus
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and then twenty seven billion dollars in federal stimulus to boot.
That means Newsome is been able to give away six
hundred dollar checks and that stimulus, and you know, on
the COVID situation, he's now promising those fifty dollar gift
cards to anyone who gets a vaccine to the next
two million Californias and then a huge lottery coming in
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the middle of the month. Right now, the Republican candidates
have tried to get traction against him. You've got one
Republican candidate, John Cox, has even taken out of a
thousand pounds bear with him on the campaign trail. Kevin
Falconer is trying with you know, serious policy proposals, but
it is hard to get traction against the governor who
has got the advantage of the bully pulpit and is
(08:02):
going around the state all of doing a victory lap
with the with the COVID recovery. And you know, that's
really what kind of you know, the recall effort was
already set in motion, but that's the thing that really
gave it some energy was business closures. And at that
time it was kind of a roller coaster. They were open,
then they had a close back down, then they kind
of open and limit capacity. That's the thing that really
(08:23):
gave it energy and now we're reopening the state. So
that's a tough one to nail on right there. Absolutely,
And if you saw over the Memorial Day weekend, boy,
things were packed out there. The parks were packed, the
beaches are packed. There's no question that California is recovering
from this COVID pandemic. And the governor is using that
(08:43):
terminology California roaring back as he's describing these new programs,
the stimulus payments, the economic recovery, and it's showing, you know,
as we said in this polls right now, the latest
Public Policy Institute of California poll showed two thirds of
California residents now say they back his handling of the pandemic.
And you mentioned that's where this recall began. Is the anger,
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the frustration at those businesses closing down, at the school's
closing down. Well, right now, most of California is behind
Newsom and the way he's reopening up again. So how
do the Republicans get traction here? That is the big
issue and it's going to be their challenge, especially if
Democrats move up the date of the recall as is
(09:25):
being talked about now that gives Republicans even less time
to make an argument against Gavin Newsom. Let's talk about
some of the candidates, because you mentioned John Cox coming
out there with that huge bear. You know, I live
in California that day. I saw all the news was
kind of laughing it was it was kind of a
funny stunt. Yeah, well, I was face to face with
the bear on the campaign trail. To re tell you,
(09:46):
it wasn't that funny because there was nothing separating the
bear from the press scorep I wasn't which was going
to go. You know, other candidates like Caitlyn Jenner, who
was getting a lot of national coverage, was int thing.
But really I have not seen her do anything local,
which is where you really need to be because those
are the people that are going to be voting. Yeah,
(10:07):
forty days into her campaign, we haven't seen a single
press conferences, single public event. She's gone to the East
Coast to do a couple of very short interviews. Mostly
she's selling T shirts and hats on her website. We
haven't seen a lot of policy positions from her, so
she's gonna have to, I think, either come up with
some really detailed positions very soon and do some state media,
(10:29):
which she had done none of other thanwise, I think
she's already considered sort of a fourth place contender in
the polls only at six percent, and I think Mary
carry the porn stars somewhere in that range as well.
So what a what are supporters of the recall effort
have to do? They need some energy in this As
I mentioned at the beginning, you know, the homeless issue
in California, especially in southern California so huge right now,
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that could be something to pin Gavin Newsomon. What do
they need for their effort? Yeah, right now? I mean
you do have serious Republicans are starting to focus on that.
Kevin Kylie an assemblment from the Sacramento area, saying, look,
you need to have somebody really go down the list
of the governor's failures this year, particularly on taxation issues
and other issues that have caused major businesses to leave
(11:15):
the state. He believes in Other Republicans believe that DOS
is vulnerable also on crime issues, law and order issues,
defunding the police. Some of the more progressive Democrats calling
for that, and many Republicans are saying that is an
issue that's going to hit with voters. And you mentioned homelessness.
It is still it's sort of at pandemic levels, and
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a lot of cities here in California, Oakland, Venice Beach
is another area where people are complaining about this on
the right scale, and the feeling is that Newsom has
not done enough at least Republicans are making that case
that that is an area also where he's vulnerable. So yes,
there are issues that resonate with not only Republicans but
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independent voters here in California. And the lost of housing
is another big one. That's another issue that's causing some
California to leave the state and go elsewhere. And Republicans
are saying they have the opportunity to maybe bring along
some of those independents and discriminal Republicans and get them together.
The bottom line is Republicans are much more energized to
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vote in this recall than Democrats are. In a Berkeley
poll showed that seventy percent of Republicans have a high
interest in the recall. That's more than double the share
of Democrats. So Democrats are a little worried that they
may not kind of turn out on this election. That's
the Republican hope here that they can turn out their
voters and get across that fifty plus one percent of
the vote that they need on that first question on
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the recall ballot, which is should Gavin Newsom be recalled?
They want to get fifty plus one percent. If they do,
then it's that Katie bar the door. You've got already
sixty three candidates for governor out there. I mean, it's
gonna be a tough sell still in a deeply democratic state.
In the meantime, Newsom is going on a fundraising binge,
raising a lot of money, and that's also going to
fact you're in as we get closer to the actual vote.
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So we'll keep monitoring all events see how it turns out.
Carla Marinucci, senior writer at Politicos California Playbook, thank you
very much for joining us. Good to be with you, thinks. Finally,
for this week, many companies are debating what the road
back to the office will look like, and they better
be prepared to make more remote work part of that equation.
(13:24):
A recent survey showed that almost workers would quit a
job if their employers were not flexible about working remotely.
For more on how important remote work has become over
the course of the pandemic. Will speak to Ander's Melon
reporter at Bloomberg News. Last year, we went through essentially
this grand national experiment of making millions of white color
(13:44):
workers work from home or work from somewhere else than
then their office. And you know, the economy is still humming.
Companies are still making money and productivity is still high.
So people are looking at that and saying, why can't
we keep working from home also now? And that's happening
to an extent that some of the folks that we
talked to they have simply just left their old jobs
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and found new ones that would allow them to work
remotely full time. And we spoke to experts that say
that there's a reason to believe that this might continue
into the summer and into the fall as well of
people shifting jobs, because there's a lot of preferences to
working from home for many people, and some companies are
willing to grant those additional flexibility, and those that don't
(14:27):
might have a hard time keeping their people. Yeah, it's
definitely a curious thing. I mean, coming out of the pandemic,
a lot of people are demanding that flexibility. I mean,
that's why we're talking about this right now, but as
things do get back to normal, you know, I'm wondering
if if the companies are going to have more strength
in their position to demand networkers come back to the office.
Some of the polls that just came out, I think
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it was about that said they quit if they couldn't
continue to work remotely, and the top things that they
say why they want to keep doing that is lack
of commute and the cost savings associated with all that.
That's absolutely right. Nobody I think really wants to go
back to the commute that we had pretty pandemic, whether
that was on trains or or whether I was driving.
(15:09):
One important factor that also plays into this is the
relative strength in the labor market in terms of for
the employees. There was not a ton of movement throughout
the pandemic because of the uncertainty. So now you have
a bunch of pent up job moves that probably would
have happened last year, but that is now instead coming.
And then you add that to the trend that we're
(15:31):
starting to see the beginnings of people just wanting to
keep that remote work. And given that it is a
good job market for job seekers, there's reason to believe.
The experts said that we talked to that it might
actually be to their advantage also continuing this year, and
that companies might actually just have to start adapting or
(15:53):
risk to see some of their people leaving. Some of
the workers you spoke to also said that they of
that managers, you know, employers just want tighter controls over
the workforce as well. But what is what have corporate leadership,
what have business owners? What have they said about this?
How do they feel about having workers work remotely? So
(16:13):
it's been a bit of a mixed message. Bloomberg's being
largely focused on the financial industry. There, we've seen some
ceo is coming out quite strongly advocating for and in
office culture. Jamie Diamond of JP Morgan said a few
weeks ago that remote work does not work for those
who want to hustle, and said if you don't want
to commute, then you know, too bad. That's just how
(16:35):
it's going to be. Whereas in other sectors, including tech,
remote work and then flexibility has been you know, a
thing for years and over there more corporate leaders have
already last year came out very early and said we're
just going to be fully remote, or we're gonna give
workers the opportunity to choose how they want to do.
So it's it's a mixed landscape. And I think also
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at this point, many corporate leaders are kind of waiting
to see what everybody else is doing, and also particularly
waiting to see what their rivals are going to do,
and may have to adapt accordingly in order to stay
competitive and make sure that people don't affect two rivals.
So it's still a bit of a waiting game, and
I think a lot of it is going to shake
out over the summer, and particularly as we head into
(17:18):
the fall when summer vacations are over and people come
back from where they might hang out during the warmer months,
and call back to offices might actually be in full swing,
so to say, towards the end of the summer. Even
on this kind of hybrid model, in the way it is,
everybody's kind of falling along the same lines, at least
from what I've seen. You know, generally that the magic
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number is probably three days in the office, two days
working from home if they're going with that model, you know,
staying away from the complete remote working model that seems
to be agreeable by both sides in a lot of cases,
it does. Yeah, that's a survey that we cited by
p w C by it looked at us executives, and
(17:59):
those bosses said precisely that three days a week was
kind of the magic number. I think the larger theme
that we heard and saw in the conversations that we
had was just that people feel like last year it worked,
and when companies were forced to empower workers to work
from home and trust them that things would get done,
it largely worked, and people just don't really want to
(18:21):
give up the flexibility and and perhaps having the option
to work from home and have it not necessarily be
a big deal or look down upon or have to
ask for permission. So I think just the sense of
freedom and then greater control is really what people would like,
and not necessarily just a certain number of day in
the office. And to be clear, you know, these people
(18:41):
are very lucky. They're not everybody has that flexibility to
choose what they want to do. You know, our frontline
workers and a lot of industries have to be in
the office or at their workplace to get the job done.
So you know, they may be feeling like they can
quit their jobs right now, but who knows if that
position will hold up strong enough in the long term,
So just something to kind of look at on that front.
(19:02):
That's very true. It's a it's a very good point,
of course. This is a class enjoying, a class of
workers enjoying a certain privilege in terms of being able
to work from all more from from other places, and
many people who do jomps that make sure that society
comes along as it should don't have that. Liberty Hoder's
Melon reporter at Bloomberg News. Thank you very much for
(19:22):
joining us. Thank you. That's it for this weekend. Be
sure to check out The Daily Dive every Monday through Friday.
Join us on social media at Daily Dive pot on
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(19:43):
Radio or subscribe wherever you get your podcast. This episode
of The Daily Dive has been engineered by Tony Sargentina.
I'm Oscar rameris in Los Angeles and this was your
Daily Dive weekend edition.