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June 5, 2020
Bloomberg AssociatesCOVID-19 ResponsePublic Health

Follow the Data Podcast: Lights, Camera… Action?

As mayor of New York City, Mike Bloomberg diversified the city’s economy by expanding film and television production in New York.

The entertainment industry has grinded to a halt as a result of the coronavirus crisis.  Film and television production is speculated to resume in the fall at the earliest, and live theaters are bracing for a six month shutdown – yet the entertainment community has adapted to continue creating during this time.

Michelle King, the co-creator of “The Good Wife” and “The Good Fight;” Brooke Kennedy, executive producer of “The Good Wife” and “The Good Fight,” actress Christine Baranski, actor Brian Stokes Mitchell, and Joseph Benincasa, President and CEO of The Actors Fund, joined Bloomberg Associates’ Katherine Oliver for a conversation around how productions are transitioning to Zoom, how we can keep casts and crews safe, and how The Actors Fund is helping people in performing arts and entertainment in need.

This episode of our series on coronavirus response efforts is borrowed from a Bloomberg Philanthropies event.

You can listen to the podcast and past episodes in the following ways:

For more from our coronavirus series:

Our most recent episode, “How Freetown, Sierra Leone is Responding to COVID-19,” features Freetown Mayor Yvonne Aki-Sawyerr in conversation with Bloomberg Philanthropies public health program lead Dr. Kelly Henning about how the city is responding to the pandemic, how global mayors are sharing information during the coronavirus crisis, and what’s keeping mayors hopeful right now.

Rose Gill Hearn, a Principal at Bloomberg Associates, sits down with Steven Kobre, a Partner at Kobre + Kim, to discuss the role of monitors in reviewing the use of federal funds, emerging cases that involve fraud, and how city leaders managing COVID-19 federal aid can mitigate risks in a recent episode entitled, “The Cost of Recovery for Our Cities, Part 2.” Rose also joins Jerry DeLoach, the Head of the Cost Recovery team for the City of Atlanta, to discuss how the city is responding to COVID-19 while tracking expenditures to maximize federal reimbursements and recovery.

In “A Promising Treatment for COVID-19,” Dr. Arturo Casadevall, an infectious disease expert and Bloomberg Distinguished Professor at Johns Hopkins University who is developing a convalescent serum therapy to treat COVID-19 using blood plasma from recovered patients, joined Dr. Jessica Leighton from our public health team to discuss how blood plasma has been used to treat infectious diseases in the past, what makes blood plasma treatment different from a vaccine, and how donating your blood plasma could help your community.

Amanda McClelland, the Senior Vice President of Prevent Epidemics and Resolve to Save Lives at Vital Strategies, and Dr. Jennifer Ellis, who works on our public health program, discuss why it’s important to prioritize slowing the spread of the coronavirus in low- and middle-income countries, how the Box It In strategy reduces transmission of the virus, and how the coronavirus differs from other recent outbreaks in “Slowing the Spread of COVID-19 in Africa.”

“The Cost of Recovery for our Cities, Part 1,” is the first episode in our two-part series about how cities can best navigate, access, and deploy federal aid. Adam Freed, a Principal at Bloomberg Associates, sits down with Natasha Rogers, the Chief Operating Officer of the City of Newark, and Brad Gair, a Principal with Witt O’Brien’s, a national emergency management consultancy, to discuss how cities are using data to drive decision making in response to the pandemic and how cities can engage and get support from the state and federal government.

The coronavirus poses a challenge for city transportation departments, who need to run transit systems while keeping their own staffs safe. Janette Sadik-Khan, a Principal at Bloomberg Associates, joins Corinne Kisner, Executive Director of NACTO, and Mark de la Vergne, the Chief of Mobility for the City of Detroit, to discuss creative actions city transportation officials are taking in response to the pandemic and how cities can provide safer, healthier transportation options going forward in “The Intersection of COVID-19 and Transportation.”

“Behind the Scenes of the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Map” was adapted from “Public Health On Call,” a new podcast from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Dr. Josh Sharfstein, the Vice Dean for Public Health Practice and Community Engagement at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School for Public Health, and Beth Blauer, Executive Director of Centers for Civic Impact at Johns Hopkins, discuss how the global COVID-19 tracking dashboard was made, what new features have been added, and how data can help individuals and officials make informed decisions for COVID-19 response.

Dr. Sharfstein also appears on “Responding to a Pandemic Crisis.” He joined Dr. Jessica Leighton from our public health program for a conversation about the phases of crisis response for public health disasters and how the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health is tackling the coronavirus from every angle.

Darren Walker, president of the Ford Foundation, one of Bloomberg Philanthropies’ co-funders in the NYC COVID-19 Response & Impact Fund, sits down with Megan Sheekey, who leads strategic partnerships at Bloomberg Associates, in “How to Help Nonprofits Hit Hard by COVID-19.” They discuss where the greatest needs are, the roles of foundations in supporting these groups, and how listeners can get involved.

The first episode of our coronavirus series, “World War C – Us Against the Microbe,” focuses on the global response to COVID-19. Dr. Tom Frieden, the President and CEO of Resolve to Saves Lives, and the former Director of the CDC, joins Dr. Kelly Henning, who leads the Bloomberg Philanthropies Public Health Program and serves as the former Director of the Epidemiology for the City of New York, to discuss our Coronavirus Global Response Initiative and how we can keep our cities running and safe.

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