October 30, 2020 • 20 mins
National polls continue to show Joe Biden in the lead over President Trump, but there has been this lingering skepticism about the polls since the 2016 election, weren’t they wrong last time? Chis Kahn, polling editor at Reuters, joins us for what’s different and why there’s more reason to trust them. Polls are doing a better job of reading Trump’s base, there are fewer undecided voters, and there is a bigger focus on state polls.
Next, a study out of Britain this week said that people with detectable antibodies for the coronavirus fell by about 27% over a period of three months over the summer, calling in to question how long immunity lasts. But health experts say this is not a cause to worry, antibodies tend to wane over time naturally. Apoorva Mandavilli, reporter at the NY Times, joins us for what to know about this antibody study.
Finally, it’s important not to lose sight of our mental health during the pandemic and as daylight saving time ends, the nights get longer and winter approaches, there could be a collision of pandemic depression and seasonal depression. Experts say it’s time to lay the groundwork to help avoid it getting the best of you. Chelsea Cirruzzo, contributor to the Washington Post, joins us for more.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's Friday oct I'm Oscar Ramirez in Los Angeles and
this is the daily dive. National polls continue to show
Joe Biden in the lead over President Trump, but there
has been this lingering skepticism about poles since the election.
Weren't they wrong the last time? Chris Kahn, polling editor
(00:21):
at Reuter's, joins us for what's different and why there's
more reason to trust them. Polls are doing a better
job of reading Trump space, there are fewer undecided voters,
and there's a bigger focus on state polls. Next, a
study out of Britain this week said that people with
detectable antibodies for coronavirus fell about over a period of
three months over the summer, calling into question how long
(00:44):
community lasts. But health experts say this is not a
cause to worry. Anybody's tend to wane over time naturally.
A Porva Mondavelli, reporter at the New York Times, joins
us for what to know about this Anybody's study. Finally,
it's important not to lose sight of our mental health
during the pandemic. And as daylight Saving time ends, the
nights get longer and winter approaches, there could be a
(01:07):
collision of pandemic depression and seasonal depression. Experts say it's
time to lay the groundwork to help avoid it. Getting
the best of you, Chelsea Sarruso, contributor to The Washington Post,
joins us for more. It's news without the noise. Let's
dive in ABC Washington Post, Their Things Trump seventeen down
(01:30):
in Wisconsin seven. Thank you, thank you. And they tried
it last time four years ago too and that didn't
work out. Joining us now was Chris con polling editor
at Reuter's. Thanks for joining us, Chris, thank you. We're
heading into election day. We've been looking at the polls
throughout this whole cycle, and Joe Biden seems to be
(01:52):
leading nationally according to most polls. When you get down
in the state polls, it gets tighter, obviously in some
of the battleground states, but Joe Biden it usually has
a lead and a lot of these one of the
big questions that comes up, and I was looking at
your Twitter and I kind of laughed at it. You
basically said, when anybody talks to you anything about pulling,
one of the first questions that comes up is like,
how can we trust these polls when they were so
(02:14):
wrong the last time. So you wrote an article about it,
kind of exploring what's different this time. So Chris, tell
us a little bit about why we can trust the
polls a little bit more this time around. So let's
back up. I cannot say this enough. There are a
lot of things that the polls got right, and there's
things that the polls got wrong in and it's worth
(02:34):
knowing them if we're talking about how to read them
this time around. Nationally, most polls, including our polled with
the routers of those polls showed that Hillary Clinton was
ahead in national popular vote our final reading before that election,
and she was ahead by about two percentage points, and
a loan behold, hillary Clinton want the national popular vote
by two percentage points. We were almost dead on with that.
The problem was, though, when you start looking at state
(02:56):
polls trying to get a better read on what it
was going to be the Democrat or the Republican in Florida,
North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, a lot of these states where
it is very competitive. And secondly, the demographics are different
from state to state. Each state is going to have
a slightly different percentage of whites, and minorities, and educated
and uneducated, etcetera. It's much tougher to model a poll
(03:17):
for each of those states and to have something that
is really bespoke and is really a true reflection of
the people in a very specific area like that. You know,
as we all know in Hilly, Clinton won the national
popular vote, but laws the electoral college. It was a surprise,
especially given the consistent reading that we were getting nationally
that year. Fast forward four years, most posters, including the
Rooter Zippis Pool, has spent quite a bit of time
(03:39):
and a lot of resources taking a look at their methodologies,
looking at how they're gathering survey responded, you know, how
they're processing the information, and they spent a lot of
time trying to figure out how can we better reflect
the American public and especially within these states. One improvement
that a lot of these polsters have implemented over the
past few years is something called an education like we
(03:59):
really lies that a lot of public opinion polls, for
whatever reason, just we're not doing a very good job
of gathering responses from people who do not have a
college degree, specifically whites without a college degree. A generation ago,
this would have been a very big issue. White without
a college degree split fairly evenly between Democrat and Republican,
but increasingly, especially in the past few years, white without
a college degree are much much more leaning towards voting
(04:22):
for Republicans, much more supportive of someone like Donald Trump.
And that was a big issue in twenty seen. They
were underrepresented in a lot of polls, and so what
do we do about it? A lot of polls, like
the Rutter's Pole instituted something called an education weight. That is,
they take a look at the latest population statistics in
an area, they find out how many people I have
a college education and how many people do not, and
they calibrate the responded polls so that you have the
(04:45):
people who do not have a college degree. Specifically, whites
without a college degree are represented to the level that
they should be represented in that poll. And so we're
really talking about apples and oranges here. It's a very
different instrument that we have now than we had in
sixteen time there was no incumbent president, was a choice
between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. This time President Trump
is there and you're either voting for him or against
(05:07):
him kind of thing. So there's a few or undecided
voters this time around. I think that most Americans made
their minds up about Donald Trump, love them or hate him,
years ago, before coronavirus, before the Muller investigation. They decided
long ago how they're going to vote. There are fewer
Americans this time around who are undecided. This is something
that we have to pay some attention thinking about for
(05:28):
a second. I couldn't say this enough then, and I
think we should say this now. In twice sixteen of
likely voters all weep into election day, we're not picking
a side. That's one out of every five likely voter
was telling us they didn't know they were undecided between
Trump and Clinton. We only found out that basically in
the final week before that election that a lot of
(05:49):
these undecided voters decided that, you know, they were going
to vote, and they cast their bows, and a majority
of them decided to lean towards a voting for Trump
over Clinton. And that really was the story of the election,
especially in these key battleground states that Trump won by
a percentage point or less. This time around, it is
much different. We're only seeing about six to seven percent
of likely voters say that they're undecided or possibly thinking
(06:11):
about a third party candidate, it's much of a smaller
and so because of that, there is just less wiggle
room here. Right now, we're looking at about a ten
percentage point lead for Biden over Trump. He already has
more than and it's just going to be much harder
for Trump to make up that ground, especially in the
national poll. And the last big thing that's different this
time around, there's a bigger focus on state polls. You
(06:34):
mentioned in your article. Routers is running thirty six polls
and six battleground states this year just to kind of
get as much information as we can, and we're looking
at tight races in Arizona, Florida, and North Carolina, and
Joe Biden maintains a lead in other places like Wisconsin, Pennsylvania,
and Michigan. We only did a handful of state polls
in sen We greatly expanded that. There's a tremendous amount
(06:56):
of resources that Routers is expanding and other outlets are
spending to get more information from these battleground states. You
can see it if you go on to a lot
of news sites, a lot of these polling aggregators, they
display all the polling that you can look at you
can find polls in Alaska, Montana, a lot of places
there really wasn't a whole lot of information in and
while these polls it doesn't necessarily increase the accuracy, it
(07:19):
does give you a lot more data to look at.
You can check for inconsistencies, you can check for a
public opinion over a longer timeframe. It really helps you
get a better picture of public opinion in those locations.
Chris Kahn, polling editor at Reuters, thank you very much
for joining us. Thank you. People who are infected with
(07:45):
the stars Kobe to virus, the virus that causes COVID nineteen,
they do mount some level of an immune response, and
this is measured to the antibody response whether these are
neutralizing antibodies, and we're learning quite a lot about a
T cell response, which are very difficult studies to carry out.
What we don't know is how how strong that protection
is and for how long that protection will last. Joining
(08:06):
us now is a Porva Mondavelli, reporter at the New
York Times. Thanks for joining us, Apporva, thanks for having me.
I wanted to talk about this English study that we
found out about earlier this week that showed that the
number of people that had COVID nineteen antibodies declined over
a period of time over the summer that they were
studying this, and you know, it calls into questions about
(08:28):
long lasting immunity from further infection. It's something that we
haven't been able to really pinpoint yet. You know, how
long are you immune from getting COVID nineteen after you
recover from it. But a lot of experts said these
worries are overblown. This is actually something that happens all
the time when we recover. Antibodies tend to go away
a little bit, and there's other mechanisms in the body
(08:50):
that keep our hopes of not being reinfected alive. So
a porva tell us a little bit more about what
we know about the study and then what the experts
are saying about it. First, I want to say, you
know what, set is absolutely right that the study is
not something to worry about. So let's start from there.
These British researchers have been trying to figure out how
many people in the population are exposed to the virus,
(09:12):
and so they've been sending out periodically these antibody tests
because the presence of antibodies tells you if somebody has
been exposed to the virus and been infected, even if
they didn't have symptoms. So they did that a few
months ago, and they've done it three times over the
course of many months, and what they found is that
from the first time they did it to this last
one in September, the percent of people who tested positive
(09:36):
for antibodies dropped from six percent to four point eight percent,
and that works out to something like a drop. So
that is what got reported and got everybody worried because
it read like a third of people are losing their antibodies.
First of all, this is a population based studies, so
it wasn't the same people, so they weren't looking at
some set of people three months ago and then going
(09:57):
back to those same people and seeing that they no
longer had bodies. This is just a snapshot of people
three months ago, a new snapshot now. So that aside.
It's also not very surprising that over time people would
lose some antibodies. And that's because when your body first
encounters a virus or bacterium, it makes anti bodies because
(10:20):
you know the infection is new and it needs all
these antibodies to kind of fight the virus. But once
that immediate infection is gone, that those huge levels of
antibodies that are produced have to go back down just
as a matter of sort of physical space, even in
your blood. You can't possibly carry high levels of antibodies
to every single virus your body has seen. COVID is
(10:41):
not the only thing you're going to fight for the
remainder of your life, basically, that's right. And you've probably seen,
you know, dozens and dozens of rhinoviruses and other seasonal
cold coronaviruses, common cold viruses means, god knows what you've
been exposed to write all of those produced anti bodies,
and so your blood just can't have high levels of
all of those. So what happens always is that those
(11:02):
levels come back down after the initial infection and they
kind of go to some sort of steady state. And
there are these memory B cells, they're called B cells,
are the cells that make the anti bodies, and some
small number of them are these memory cells. They basically
remember what the virus looks like, and if you ever
see that virus again, those memory B cells can produce
(11:24):
anti bodies pretty quickly. Within a matter of hours, So
there's no need to have anti bodies actually in your
blood because those b cells can make them again if
you need them. And that's something that the study really
didn't show. They didn't look at do these people still
have immune memory And also there are other cells called
T immune cells that can also fight the virus. There
(11:45):
are TEA memory cells, just like there are B memory cells.
There are T cells that can actually destroy the virus.
There's all kinds of basically immune mechanisms at play. We
just happen to always end up talking about anti bodies
because they're the easiest things to measure, but they're far
from the only things that your body has. Yeah, one
of the other interesting things about this study is that
you mentioned how the government was sending people these tests
(12:07):
to administer themselves. They were fingerprick tests, they weren't blood
draw tests or anything something that was done in the lab.
So the possibility that it could have missed somebody with
lower antibodies. They might have still had some maybe just
not at such high levels. And then they did also
say that there might have been something about asymptomatic people,
maybe they didn't have as high an antibody count as
(12:27):
somebody who had the disease more severely. We know that
people make all different levels of antibodies, just like they're
all different kinds of people. Everybody's immune response is just
a little bit different. Some people make a ton of antibodies,
and that's usually the case if they've been really severely sick.
Makes sense, right, You have really severe symptoms or your
body is fighting really hard, so you have a lot
of antibodies. But if you just had really mild symptoms,
(12:49):
you may not have had that many antibodies to begin with.
And so you know, when you see that decrease that
I was saying earlier is basically normal, you may go
below the level that this sort of crude test can
pick up. You know, these tests are great for looking
at population white prevalence, but in any one person, they
can actually miss low levels of aunt of bodies, the
(13:09):
sensitivities something like, which means in a hundred people who
have antibodies, it would miss sixteen people. So it's not crazy. Good.
Let's say a Porva Manda Velli, reporter at the New
York Times, thank you very much for joining us, Thanks
for having me, Because more people are experiencing these heightened
(13:37):
levels of depressive symptoms and low suicidal ideation, more people
might feel another swing of depressive symptoms as we head
into the winter. Joining us now was Chelsea Cirruso, contributor
to The Washington Post. Thanks for joining us, Chelsea, thanks
so much for having me. I wanted to talk about
mental health with regards to the pandemic. Obviously, we're trying
(13:58):
to keep our physical health and tip top shape, but
mental health has been an ongoing thing throughout the pandemic,
people on lockdown, not being able to do their normal activities.
There has been an uptick in people showing depressive symptoms
throughout all of this, and right now what we're coming
into that we're coming into the winter time. You know,
it's gonna get darker earlier, it's gonna be darker outside,
(14:19):
the weather changes, all that stuff. There's something called seasonal
effective disorder where it's just a different type of depression.
When it gets colder and people are less likely to
go outside, they show depressive symptoms. So health experts are
worried about this kind of two coming together, pandemic depression
and then seasonal depression. So Chelsea tell us a little
bit about what health experts are are worried about this time.
(14:43):
Like you said, some early studies have shown that more
people are reporting and they're experiencing depressive symptoms during the pandemic.
At the same time, as we're headed into the winter
month seasonal depression, that depression you feel when there's a light,
it's harder to get outside. Only as small percentage of
the US experience this seasonal depression, but experts are worried
(15:04):
that because more people are experiencing these heightened levels of
depressive symptoms as well suicidal ideation, more people might feel
another swing of depressive symptoms as we head into the
winter months. Especially, you know, that means it's going to
be harder to get outside and see people. You know,
in the summertime, it was much easier to see people
at a safe distance because we were able to get outside.
(15:25):
So there's that added layer of difficulty in socializing and
not isolating yourself as we had the winter months during
the pandemic. There was a recent survey that said that
US adults were reporting levels of depressive symptoms more than
three times higher during the pandemic than before it. So
it just goes to show how people have been faring
throughout the pandemic and the shutdowns and all of that.
(15:46):
And one of the things that people think is that,
you know, there's a lot of overlap between these two,
the pandemic depression and seasonal depression. It might be people
that experienced clinical depression as well, just kind of regularly
and all these overlaps, so that that's why there's a worry,
and experts are saying, start getting prepared for this, you
start laying the groundwork to help avoid some of this. Absolutely,
(16:08):
that's exactly what they were saying. If you could recognize
now that you might be a person at risk for
experiencing heightened depressive symptoms during the winter time, start thinking
about it now, you know, at the moment where you're
seeing some better days before your worst day. So if
you can prepare now if you get to that point, unfortunately,
you've already laid the groundwork to help yourself. Then. So
some of the health experts that you spoke to started
(16:30):
giving up some tips. One of those was that basically,
start lining things up, getting things ready, get your medication ready,
lifelines to your therapist, things like that, start laying that groundwork. Yeah,
that was absolutely one of them. Um, you know, today's okay,
but winter maybe hard. Lay the groundwork, said the director
of the National Institute of Mental Health. You know, that
might include making sure you have your medications, if you
(16:51):
use medication in case it's harder to get to your pharmacy. UM.
If you have a therapist, make sure you're scheduled through
the winter with them. If you like to exercise, if
you are able to exercise in door, sort of set
up your space that that's stable for you. Knowing your
triggers is another one. You know, some part of this
difficulty is, you know, when people are going through these
depressive states, it's it's really hard to mobilize. But really
(17:11):
you have to go that extra step to help yourself
in these situations, and knowing your triggers is one of
those as well. One person I spoke to, her name
was Lindsay. She told me about her experiences with suppression
and UM. One of the things that happened to her
while she was in the pandemic. During the pandemic as
we are now, she realized that she was experiencing a
manic episode and eventually had a complete depressive episode. As
(17:33):
a result, learned she had bipolar disorder and entered a
treatment program, and she learned the treatment program. If she
knew what the triggers were as she headed into a
depressive episode, she knew when to get help. So for her,
that was a lack of personal hygiene, and that was
actually a pretty common thing. Experts told me that if
you're not taking care of your personal hygiene, that could
be a sign that you are headed into a depressive
episode and you should start trying to get help. Another
(17:56):
one is people have seen these kind of lamps that
mimic sunlight or been just saying, you know, there's going
to be points of darkness throughout the day, try to
at least do some work or get out during that sunlight.
The light boxes or the s A D lamps, I
asked a lot of experts or those legit and they said, yes,
they are a very specific kind of lamp. So when
you look them up, look up light box or SAD lamps.
(18:18):
Those mimic the outdoor light. If you can spend a
few minutes in the morning while you're drinking your coffee
in front of one, it can sort of banergize you
for the day. Experts told me, especially if the carter
to get outside, or you live in an area where
it gets quite gloomy in the wintertime, those can be
really beneficial. Another big one that we've seen really throughout
the course of the pandemic is the rise of telehealth
(18:38):
virtual healthcare. You know, it's making it really accessible to
a lot of people, and this is another tool for
people that might be experiencing this type of depression to
reach out and to continue to keep those appointments with
your therapist at all. Telehealth is really resolutionized healthcare and
we can expect to see it a lot going forward.
Therapists right now we're able to use zoom or use
(18:59):
to for in types of video apps to talk with you,
you know, without having to see them in person and
putting yourself at risk. That's very possible. And another thing too,
as experts told me, if you are feeling suicidal thoughts,
absolutely reach out to somebody. The suicide Prevention lifeline is
one in hundred to seven, three, eight to five five.
Always make sure you have that number somewhere. It's really
(19:20):
important for you and for your friends. If you are
feeling like you want to hurt yourself, please call that number.
Chelsea Sarruso contributor to the Washington Post. Thank you very
much for joining us. Thank you so much. That's it
for today. Join us on social media at Daily Dive Autumn, Twitter,
(19:43):
and Instagram. Leave us a comment, give us a rating,
and tell us as far as that you're interested in
Follow us and I heart radio or subscribe whatever you
get your podcast. This episode of The Daily Divers produced
by Victor Right and engineered by Tony Sargentina. I'm Oscar
Ramirez and this was your Daily Die
It's Friday oct I'm Oscar Ramirez in Los Angeles and
this is the daily dive. National polls continue to show
Joe Biden in the lead over President Trump, but there
has been this lingering skepticism about poles since the election.
Weren't they wrong the last time? Chris Kahn, polling editor
(00:21):
at Reuter's, joins us for what's different and why there's
more reason to trust them. Polls are doing a better
job of reading Trump space, there are fewer undecided voters,
and there's a bigger focus on state polls. Next, a
study out of Britain this week said that people with
detectable antibodies for coronavirus fell about over a period of
three months over the summer, calling into question how long
(00:44):
community lasts. But health experts say this is not a
cause to worry. Anybody's tend to wane over time naturally.
A Porva Mondavelli, reporter at the New York Times, joins
us for what to know about this Anybody's study. Finally,
it's important not to lose sight of our mental health
during the pandemic. And as daylight Saving time ends, the
nights get longer and winter approaches, there could be a
(01:07):
collision of pandemic depression and seasonal depression. Experts say it's
time to lay the groundwork to help avoid it. Getting
the best of you, Chelsea Sarruso, contributor to The Washington Post,
joins us for more. It's news without the noise. Let's
dive in ABC Washington Post, Their Things Trump seventeen down
(01:30):
in Wisconsin seven. Thank you, thank you. And they tried
it last time four years ago too and that didn't
work out. Joining us now was Chris con polling editor
at Reuter's. Thanks for joining us, Chris, thank you. We're
heading into election day. We've been looking at the polls
throughout this whole cycle, and Joe Biden seems to be
(01:52):
leading nationally according to most polls. When you get down
in the state polls, it gets tighter, obviously in some
of the battleground states, but Joe Biden it usually has
a lead and a lot of these one of the
big questions that comes up, and I was looking at
your Twitter and I kind of laughed at it. You
basically said, when anybody talks to you anything about pulling,
one of the first questions that comes up is like,
how can we trust these polls when they were so
(02:14):
wrong the last time. So you wrote an article about it,
kind of exploring what's different this time. So Chris, tell
us a little bit about why we can trust the
polls a little bit more this time around. So let's
back up. I cannot say this enough. There are a
lot of things that the polls got right, and there's
things that the polls got wrong in and it's worth
(02:34):
knowing them if we're talking about how to read them
this time around. Nationally, most polls, including our polled with
the routers of those polls showed that Hillary Clinton was
ahead in national popular vote our final reading before that election,
and she was ahead by about two percentage points, and
a loan behold, hillary Clinton want the national popular vote
by two percentage points. We were almost dead on with that.
The problem was, though, when you start looking at state
(02:56):
polls trying to get a better read on what it
was going to be the Democrat or the Republican in Florida,
North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, a lot of these states where
it is very competitive. And secondly, the demographics are different
from state to state. Each state is going to have
a slightly different percentage of whites, and minorities, and educated
and uneducated, etcetera. It's much tougher to model a poll
(03:17):
for each of those states and to have something that
is really bespoke and is really a true reflection of
the people in a very specific area like that. You know,
as we all know in Hilly, Clinton won the national
popular vote, but laws the electoral college. It was a surprise,
especially given the consistent reading that we were getting nationally
that year. Fast forward four years, most posters, including the
Rooter Zippis Pool, has spent quite a bit of time
(03:39):
and a lot of resources taking a look at their methodologies,
looking at how they're gathering survey responded, you know, how
they're processing the information, and they spent a lot of
time trying to figure out how can we better reflect
the American public and especially within these states. One improvement
that a lot of these polsters have implemented over the
past few years is something called an education like we
(03:59):
really lies that a lot of public opinion polls, for
whatever reason, just we're not doing a very good job
of gathering responses from people who do not have a
college degree, specifically whites without a college degree. A generation ago,
this would have been a very big issue. White without
a college degree split fairly evenly between Democrat and Republican,
but increasingly, especially in the past few years, white without
a college degree are much much more leaning towards voting
(04:22):
for Republicans, much more supportive of someone like Donald Trump.
And that was a big issue in twenty seen. They
were underrepresented in a lot of polls, and so what
do we do about it? A lot of polls, like
the Rutter's Pole instituted something called an education weight. That is,
they take a look at the latest population statistics in
an area, they find out how many people I have
a college education and how many people do not, and
they calibrate the responded polls so that you have the
(04:45):
people who do not have a college degree. Specifically, whites
without a college degree are represented to the level that
they should be represented in that poll. And so we're
really talking about apples and oranges here. It's a very
different instrument that we have now than we had in
sixteen time there was no incumbent president, was a choice
between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. This time President Trump
is there and you're either voting for him or against
(05:07):
him kind of thing. So there's a few or undecided
voters this time around. I think that most Americans made
their minds up about Donald Trump, love them or hate him,
years ago, before coronavirus, before the Muller investigation. They decided
long ago how they're going to vote. There are fewer
Americans this time around who are undecided. This is something
that we have to pay some attention thinking about for
(05:28):
a second. I couldn't say this enough then, and I
think we should say this now. In twice sixteen of
likely voters all weep into election day, we're not picking
a side. That's one out of every five likely voter
was telling us they didn't know they were undecided between
Trump and Clinton. We only found out that basically in
the final week before that election that a lot of
(05:49):
these undecided voters decided that, you know, they were going
to vote, and they cast their bows, and a majority
of them decided to lean towards a voting for Trump
over Clinton. And that really was the story of the election,
especially in these key battleground states that Trump won by
a percentage point or less. This time around, it is
much different. We're only seeing about six to seven percent
of likely voters say that they're undecided or possibly thinking
(06:11):
about a third party candidate, it's much of a smaller
and so because of that, there is just less wiggle
room here. Right now, we're looking at about a ten
percentage point lead for Biden over Trump. He already has
more than and it's just going to be much harder
for Trump to make up that ground, especially in the
national poll. And the last big thing that's different this
time around, there's a bigger focus on state polls. You
(06:34):
mentioned in your article. Routers is running thirty six polls
and six battleground states this year just to kind of
get as much information as we can, and we're looking
at tight races in Arizona, Florida, and North Carolina, and
Joe Biden maintains a lead in other places like Wisconsin, Pennsylvania,
and Michigan. We only did a handful of state polls
in sen We greatly expanded that. There's a tremendous amount
(06:56):
of resources that Routers is expanding and other outlets are
spending to get more information from these battleground states. You
can see it if you go on to a lot
of news sites, a lot of these polling aggregators, they
display all the polling that you can look at you
can find polls in Alaska, Montana, a lot of places
there really wasn't a whole lot of information in and
while these polls it doesn't necessarily increase the accuracy, it
(07:19):
does give you a lot more data to look at.
You can check for inconsistencies, you can check for a
public opinion over a longer timeframe. It really helps you
get a better picture of public opinion in those locations.
Chris Kahn, polling editor at Reuters, thank you very much
for joining us. Thank you. People who are infected with
(07:45):
the stars Kobe to virus, the virus that causes COVID nineteen,
they do mount some level of an immune response, and
this is measured to the antibody response whether these are
neutralizing antibodies, and we're learning quite a lot about a
T cell response, which are very difficult studies to carry out.
What we don't know is how how strong that protection
is and for how long that protection will last. Joining
(08:06):
us now is a Porva Mondavelli, reporter at the New
York Times. Thanks for joining us, Apporva, thanks for having me.
I wanted to talk about this English study that we
found out about earlier this week that showed that the
number of people that had COVID nineteen antibodies declined over
a period of time over the summer that they were
studying this, and you know, it calls into questions about
(08:28):
long lasting immunity from further infection. It's something that we
haven't been able to really pinpoint yet. You know, how
long are you immune from getting COVID nineteen after you
recover from it. But a lot of experts said these
worries are overblown. This is actually something that happens all
the time when we recover. Antibodies tend to go away
a little bit, and there's other mechanisms in the body
(08:50):
that keep our hopes of not being reinfected alive. So
a porva tell us a little bit more about what
we know about the study and then what the experts
are saying about it. First, I want to say, you
know what, set is absolutely right that the study is
not something to worry about. So let's start from there.
These British researchers have been trying to figure out how
many people in the population are exposed to the virus,
(09:12):
and so they've been sending out periodically these antibody tests
because the presence of antibodies tells you if somebody has
been exposed to the virus and been infected, even if
they didn't have symptoms. So they did that a few
months ago, and they've done it three times over the
course of many months, and what they found is that
from the first time they did it to this last
one in September, the percent of people who tested positive
(09:36):
for antibodies dropped from six percent to four point eight percent,
and that works out to something like a drop. So
that is what got reported and got everybody worried because
it read like a third of people are losing their antibodies.
First of all, this is a population based studies, so
it wasn't the same people, so they weren't looking at
some set of people three months ago and then going
(09:57):
back to those same people and seeing that they no
longer had bodies. This is just a snapshot of people
three months ago, a new snapshot now. So that aside.
It's also not very surprising that over time people would
lose some antibodies. And that's because when your body first
encounters a virus or bacterium, it makes anti bodies because
(10:20):
you know the infection is new and it needs all
these antibodies to kind of fight the virus. But once
that immediate infection is gone, that those huge levels of
antibodies that are produced have to go back down just
as a matter of sort of physical space, even in
your blood. You can't possibly carry high levels of antibodies
to every single virus your body has seen. COVID is
(10:41):
not the only thing you're going to fight for the
remainder of your life, basically, that's right. And you've probably seen,
you know, dozens and dozens of rhinoviruses and other seasonal
cold coronaviruses, common cold viruses means, god knows what you've
been exposed to write all of those produced anti bodies,
and so your blood just can't have high levels of
all of those. So what happens always is that those
(11:02):
levels come back down after the initial infection and they
kind of go to some sort of steady state. And
there are these memory B cells, they're called B cells,
are the cells that make the anti bodies, and some
small number of them are these memory cells. They basically
remember what the virus looks like, and if you ever
see that virus again, those memory B cells can produce
(11:24):
anti bodies pretty quickly. Within a matter of hours, So
there's no need to have anti bodies actually in your
blood because those b cells can make them again if
you need them. And that's something that the study really
didn't show. They didn't look at do these people still
have immune memory And also there are other cells called
T immune cells that can also fight the virus. There
(11:45):
are TEA memory cells, just like there are B memory cells.
There are T cells that can actually destroy the virus.
There's all kinds of basically immune mechanisms at play. We
just happen to always end up talking about anti bodies
because they're the easiest things to measure, but they're far
from the only things that your body has. Yeah, one
of the other interesting things about this study is that
you mentioned how the government was sending people these tests
(12:07):
to administer themselves. They were fingerprick tests, they weren't blood
draw tests or anything something that was done in the lab.
So the possibility that it could have missed somebody with
lower antibodies. They might have still had some maybe just
not at such high levels. And then they did also
say that there might have been something about asymptomatic people,
maybe they didn't have as high an antibody count as
(12:27):
somebody who had the disease more severely. We know that
people make all different levels of antibodies, just like they're
all different kinds of people. Everybody's immune response is just
a little bit different. Some people make a ton of antibodies,
and that's usually the case if they've been really severely sick.
Makes sense, right, You have really severe symptoms or your
body is fighting really hard, so you have a lot
of antibodies. But if you just had really mild symptoms,
(12:49):
you may not have had that many antibodies to begin with.
And so you know, when you see that decrease that
I was saying earlier is basically normal, you may go
below the level that this sort of crude test can
pick up. You know, these tests are great for looking
at population white prevalence, but in any one person, they
can actually miss low levels of aunt of bodies, the
(13:09):
sensitivities something like, which means in a hundred people who
have antibodies, it would miss sixteen people. So it's not crazy. Good.
Let's say a Porva Manda Velli, reporter at the New
York Times, thank you very much for joining us, Thanks
for having me, Because more people are experiencing these heightened
(13:37):
levels of depressive symptoms and low suicidal ideation, more people
might feel another swing of depressive symptoms as we head
into the winter. Joining us now was Chelsea Cirruso, contributor
to The Washington Post. Thanks for joining us, Chelsea, thanks
so much for having me. I wanted to talk about
mental health with regards to the pandemic. Obviously, we're trying
(13:58):
to keep our physical health and tip top shape, but
mental health has been an ongoing thing throughout the pandemic,
people on lockdown, not being able to do their normal activities.
There has been an uptick in people showing depressive symptoms
throughout all of this, and right now what we're coming
into that we're coming into the winter time. You know,
it's gonna get darker earlier, it's gonna be darker outside,
(14:19):
the weather changes, all that stuff. There's something called seasonal
effective disorder where it's just a different type of depression.
When it gets colder and people are less likely to
go outside, they show depressive symptoms. So health experts are
worried about this kind of two coming together, pandemic depression
and then seasonal depression. So Chelsea tell us a little
bit about what health experts are are worried about this time.
(14:43):
Like you said, some early studies have shown that more
people are reporting and they're experiencing depressive symptoms during the pandemic.
At the same time, as we're headed into the winter
month seasonal depression, that depression you feel when there's a light,
it's harder to get outside. Only as small percentage of
the US experience this seasonal depression, but experts are worried
(15:04):
that because more people are experiencing these heightened levels of
depressive symptoms as well suicidal ideation, more people might feel
another swing of depressive symptoms as we head into the
winter months. Especially, you know, that means it's going to
be harder to get outside and see people. You know,
in the summertime, it was much easier to see people
at a safe distance because we were able to get outside.
(15:25):
So there's that added layer of difficulty in socializing and
not isolating yourself as we had the winter months during
the pandemic. There was a recent survey that said that
US adults were reporting levels of depressive symptoms more than
three times higher during the pandemic than before it. So
it just goes to show how people have been faring
throughout the pandemic and the shutdowns and all of that.
(15:46):
And one of the things that people think is that,
you know, there's a lot of overlap between these two,
the pandemic depression and seasonal depression. It might be people
that experienced clinical depression as well, just kind of regularly
and all these overlaps, so that that's why there's a worry,
and experts are saying, start getting prepared for this, you
start laying the groundwork to help avoid some of this. Absolutely,
(16:08):
that's exactly what they were saying. If you could recognize
now that you might be a person at risk for
experiencing heightened depressive symptoms during the winter time, start thinking
about it now, you know, at the moment where you're
seeing some better days before your worst day. So if
you can prepare now if you get to that point, unfortunately,
you've already laid the groundwork to help yourself. Then. So
some of the health experts that you spoke to started
(16:30):
giving up some tips. One of those was that basically,
start lining things up, getting things ready, get your medication ready,
lifelines to your therapist, things like that, start laying that groundwork. Yeah,
that was absolutely one of them. Um, you know, today's okay,
but winter maybe hard. Lay the groundwork, said the director
of the National Institute of Mental Health. You know, that
might include making sure you have your medications, if you
(16:51):
use medication in case it's harder to get to your pharmacy. UM.
If you have a therapist, make sure you're scheduled through
the winter with them. If you like to exercise, if
you are able to exercise in door, sort of set
up your space that that's stable for you. Knowing your
triggers is another one. You know, some part of this
difficulty is, you know, when people are going through these
depressive states, it's it's really hard to mobilize. But really
(17:11):
you have to go that extra step to help yourself
in these situations, and knowing your triggers is one of
those as well. One person I spoke to, her name
was Lindsay. She told me about her experiences with suppression
and UM. One of the things that happened to her
while she was in the pandemic. During the pandemic as
we are now, she realized that she was experiencing a
manic episode and eventually had a complete depressive episode. As
(17:33):
a result, learned she had bipolar disorder and entered a
treatment program, and she learned the treatment program. If she
knew what the triggers were as she headed into a
depressive episode, she knew when to get help. So for her,
that was a lack of personal hygiene, and that was
actually a pretty common thing. Experts told me that if
you're not taking care of your personal hygiene, that could
be a sign that you are headed into a depressive
episode and you should start trying to get help. Another
(17:56):
one is people have seen these kind of lamps that
mimic sunlight or been just saying, you know, there's going
to be points of darkness throughout the day, try to
at least do some work or get out during that sunlight.
The light boxes or the s A D lamps, I
asked a lot of experts or those legit and they said, yes,
they are a very specific kind of lamp. So when
you look them up, look up light box or SAD lamps.
(18:18):
Those mimic the outdoor light. If you can spend a
few minutes in the morning while you're drinking your coffee
in front of one, it can sort of banergize you
for the day. Experts told me, especially if the carter
to get outside, or you live in an area where
it gets quite gloomy in the wintertime, those can be
really beneficial. Another big one that we've seen really throughout
the course of the pandemic is the rise of telehealth
(18:38):
virtual healthcare. You know, it's making it really accessible to
a lot of people, and this is another tool for
people that might be experiencing this type of depression to
reach out and to continue to keep those appointments with
your therapist at all. Telehealth is really resolutionized healthcare and
we can expect to see it a lot going forward.
Therapists right now we're able to use zoom or use
(18:59):
to for in types of video apps to talk with you,
you know, without having to see them in person and
putting yourself at risk. That's very possible. And another thing too,
as experts told me, if you are feeling suicidal thoughts,
absolutely reach out to somebody. The suicide Prevention lifeline is
one in hundred to seven, three, eight to five five.
Always make sure you have that number somewhere. It's really
(19:20):
important for you and for your friends. If you are
feeling like you want to hurt yourself, please call that number.
Chelsea Sarruso contributor to the Washington Post. Thank you very
much for joining us. Thank you so much. That's it
for today. Join us on social media at Daily Dive Autumn, Twitter,
(19:43):
and Instagram. Leave us a comment, give us a rating,
and tell us as far as that you're interested in
Follow us and I heart radio or subscribe whatever you
get your podcast. This episode of The Daily Divers produced
by Victor Right and engineered by Tony Sargentina. I'm Oscar
Ramirez and this was your Daily Die
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