Coronavirus: INTERVIEW. An expert in Discovery Channel's 'Pandemic: Covid-19' documentary, Christine McDaniel, talks about what the world needs to know now - and how it might change afterwards.

by Thinus Ferreira

Discovery Channel (DStv 121) has added a quickly produced documentary special, Pandemic: Covid-19, that will be broadcast this Sunday night, 29 March 2020 at 20:55 and that will take viewers back to the beginning to show how, within a matter of weeks, the virus spread through China and the world.

The hourlong documentary special is filled with scientists and experts all sharing their insights about the novel coronavirus which has now become the defining global health crisis of our lifetime.

Seemingly overnight Covid-19 has changed not just South Africa and African life but the lives of people globally, right down to the personal way people used to interact with each other.

Christine McDaniel is one of the experts who features in Pandemic: Covid-19 and is a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center, whose research focuses on international trade, globalisation, and intellectual property rights.

She has held several positions in the United States government, including that of deputy assistant secretary at the Treasury department and senior trade economist in the White House Council of Economic Advisers.

She has also worked in the economic offices of the US. department of Commerce, US Trade Representative, and US International Trade Commission, and has spent 3 years in Australia as deputy chief economist in Australia's patent office.

TVwithThinus got on the phone to ask her a few questions.

Just like a communicable disease that can spread you also have fear that spreads from person to person - you see it in society like now with the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic and in economic and financial markets. 

What has been interesting or noteworthy for you about how the market fears spread this time?

Christine: The Discovery Channel documentary, Pandemic: Covid-19 goes inside the fight to try and contain the pandemic, with the latest on how governments are coordinating and trying to treat patients and how to prevent the further spread.

In terms of how scared people are the fear factor is why the market dived in early days. We don't know the future. Markets are really good at managing risk but they're not very good with uncertainty. In the early days of the pandemic the markets went from being in very good shape to all of a sudden this hugely uncertain world.

The lack of data made it impossible to weigh the costs and benefits of different strategies. Once we saw that there was this global recognition that all these countries are in this together, that the central banks are ready, I think that did help to calm down people a bit but there's definitely a fear factor and uncertainty that is driving, and that continues to drive, market volatility.

With a global disease like Covid-19 what sections or places in the economy or global economy will benefit, for instance TV ratings in America as well as in South Africa are increasing as more people and kids are staying home for longer. 

There are also data showing that pollution levels are decreasing rapidly in cities and territories worldwide as manufacturing output dropped. What and who will benefit in the short term?

Christine: Businesses that help people to connect digitally seem to be doing very well, for instance Zoom's stock price just just an all-time high.

Video streaming services and entertainment will do well as people are forced to stay inside. But up until a point - and then as unemployment skyrockets then at some point they will stop their subscriptions. For now as places are putting a short-term pause on economies you will see a surge in those services that help people stay connected digitally and keep people entertained when they can't leave the home.

With parallels to 9/11 how airplanes changed and fortified cockpit doors and a limit of liquids - now it's decades later and some systems and how we're required to behave changed permanently. If you look into a crystal ball what changed might there be in human behaviour and how we live, work and travel and the world and economies once the Covid-19 crisis passed?

Christine: Looking into the future, suppose we have a vaccine people will have gotten back to a new normal, we will still have at-risk groups forever - people who are a bit more exposed and a bit more vulnerable that what they were before - living with more caution that what they did before.

We might see different segments of the population acting differently because of that. 9/11 was a different crisis; a different event. This is really more about how this Covid-19 virus is spreading across borders invisible. And we live in a globally connected world. This might cause governments to rethink how prepared they will be in the future for another global pandemic. 

If you listen to the experts, as you'll see in the Pandemic: Covid-19 documentary, many of them have been warning for a long time, many continue to warn about possible pandemics in the future, so you might see governments start to really rethink and increase the amount of resources they put in to prepare for the next pandemic. 

I found it fascinating, I saw one of the British companies who build ventilators gave their intellectual property away by making the blueprints available to other manufacturers. What do you make of this and if a company finds a vaccine should the formula be given to every pharmaceutical?

Christine: That's a really interesting question.

It will depend on the products and services. I've seen several businesses being extra generous with the way they handle their goods and services and make things available. While they're not making extra money off of that, you have to realise that for many businesses their value is their brand.

They know that how they deal with this Covid-19 crisis will be remembered in the future. So it is in their interest to be generous now if they have any hope of surviving the downturn. 

On the intellectual property of pharmaceuticals - the government, depending on the country you're talking about, the government can step in and require pharmaceuticals to take over because of a public health emergency, to take over a company and take over production.

It's really in a company's interest to work with the government in the interest of society. Companies are doing this presumably because they're "good people" but also in the interest of saving their own company. 

What was an interesting observation for you in the making of Pandemic: Covid-19 that either you yourself didn't know, or that you want people to know or why they should make sure that they watch it?

Christine: Two things. Firstly in the immediate term is the urgent need to contain the virus. The one thing that you'll heard from health experts is how quickly, exponentially the virus spreads and once you get to a certain point it becomes nearly impossible to contain.

For economists, we study human behaviour and it's really made us think about human behaviour at a more fundamental level. We're reminded that we wake up every morning thinking that our day is going to be pretty much what it was yesterday. 

When you look at human behaviour through that lens, you can understand why it has taken most societies such a longer time despite what health experts have been saying, to adjust to the reality we're living in now. 

Then I think another thing that came out of it for me was just at the end of the day how humans are social creatures and how we need each other. 

Pandemic: Covid-19 was executive produced by Ian Russell and Sarah Jane Cohen and will broadcast in South Africa on Discovery Channel (DStv 121) on Sunday 29 March 2020 at 20:55 with a repeat on Monday 30 March at 21:45.