Boston Celtics co-governor Steve Pagliuca has been taking an active role in helping combat COVID-19 in New England and the U.S. more generally, and has been part of a group advising the governor of the Celtics home state on how to safely re-open the economy.
Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker recently released a four-step plan directed at that goal, and Pagliuca recently appeared on WBUR Boston to discuss his role in helping formulate that plan.
As The Celtics Wire has previously highlighted, the head of Bain Capital (when he’s not helping run the Celtics) assembled a panel of healthcare leaders and business executives who presented a report to the Governor’s advisory board on the pandemic and strategies for safely ending it.
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The four-phase plan envisions key industries being allowed to return to work with proper precautions and severe restrictions on what is and is not allowed.
“As we studied the problem, the real issue is we have to keep our hospitals back in balance,” began Pagliuca. “There’s three ways to do that.”
“One is by segmenting the people going back to work, which is what this plan talks about this this in this initial phasing. So the second are treatments of therapeutics in the near term. And the third are really policies at the workplace to reduce the spread of the virus.”
“As you know, the virus has a very, very high spread factors at 2.5 exponential factor,” he added, referring to the viral disease’s highly contagious nature.
Recommending that testing and ‘contact tracing‘ (the practice of identifying individuals who may have had extended contact with an infected person in order to help slow the spread of the illness) the Celtics owner then turned to Baker’s plan.
The plan “calls for a phased in rollout where you are going to have to observe a lot of these — we’ll call new workplace norms, distancing, wearing masks, washing hands — for all the techniques to really stop that spread of the virus.”
“And so those will be, I think, really important for the public and for any businesses going back to work,” finished Pagliuca.
And which business might be first allowed to return to work?
Celtics co-owner Steve Pagliuca on front lines in fight vs. COVID-19 https://t.co/R9XDO8Zpg3 via @thecelticswire
— The Celtics Wire (@TheCelticsWire) May 3, 2020
“I’m assuming [the Governor] has stated that is businesses that don’t require large crowds and a lot of contact with people.”
That, unfortunately for Pagliuca and sports fans more generally, excludes professional sports; “I think that certainly sporting events, large gatherings, that’s a real problem with how these fires spread.”
Noting that the state won’t open events or businesses relying on crowds anytime soon, Pagliuca intimates it’s mostly likely manufacturing and other parts of the economy where social destinacing and other precautionary measures can be safely used.
What happens next depends on whether there is a second wave — and if so, how strong and long.
“Studying this virus across the world and comparing to past pandemics, they’re most likely is a second wave,” he noted. “And the goal would be to try to put everything we can possibly in place with new workplace norms.”
“Having a map progression in the transit system to doing testing and tracing, wearing masks are really critical to wear masks, the study studies we’ve looked at, show that mask is one of the key factors of reducing the outflow of the virus and therefore the spread.”
“But even with all that many, many times you see a kind of second wave, the key is to keep that second wave down as low as possible,” Pagliuca finished.
Celtics co-governor Wyc Grousbeck helping COVID-19 vaccine effort https://t.co/5KV8gZK0L2 via @thecelticswire
— The Celtics Wire (@TheCelticsWire) May 8, 2020
The Bain Capital head honcho proceeded to emphasize this plan is to “buy time until we can have a vaccine” or therapeutics that can make quotidian life safe again for most.
Asked on his level of optimism for and timetable to see the arrival of such therapeutics or vaccines, Pagliuca was upbeat.
“I would say it’s more likely next year, given the complexities of the building of vaccines, and making sure that vaccine is safe,” he began. “hoping for the best, I’m hoping it can be in the fourth quarter of this year.
“But normally, vaccines take, you know, 2, 3, 4 years. So it’s incredible what companies are doing right now. And the technology has really changed — you can you can use mapping of the genome to really enhance the vaccine development process and their parallel processing.”
Pagliuca spoke of the many efforts around the world already working on this problem from a variety of different angles, then pivoted to the challenge of scaling the effort to the billions of doses that will be needed worldwide.
Adam Silver, NBPA reps speak to players on NBA's short-term plans https://t.co/UhYSo6ri8p via @thecelticswire
— The Celtics Wire (@TheCelticsWire) May 9, 2020
“360 million doses and billions for the world,” he emphasized. “I think the Governor is right, you know that we have to be very cautious and this could be an 18 month timeframe.”
“We prepare for the cases, maybe 18 months and use these techniques to mitigate the virus and hope that therapeutical come along and are effective, but I think the over-unders somewhere around between 18 months or so.”
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