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[INSPRATIONAL MUSIC] - Hi, I'm Steve Adubato.

Thank you so much for joining us.

We kick off our program with Dr. Thomas Birch, infectious disease specialist and medical director of the Institute for Clinical Research at Holy Name Medical Center.

Good to see you, Doctor.

- Hi, Steve.

It's good to join you.

- Doctor, we've had many conversations with folks from Holy Name and one of the issues that I want to jump into right away is this: Monoclonal antibody treatment.

What is it and why is the work going on around it so important connected to COVID?

- Yes, I think you've probably seen advertisements for monoclonal antibodies, so everyone's using the term right now.

Normally, antibodies may be directed at many different proteins on bacteria or viruses, but in this case, it's a single antibody.

All the antibodies are exactly the same type so that's why we call it monoclonal, like a clone.

And they're made in the laboratory and they're directed specifically against the spike protein of the COVID coronavirus.

And so they have a very high level of activity in binding virus and eliminating it from the body.

- Let me ask you this.

How, I'm curious as to who...

I'm looking at right now, there were originally 1,400 patients with monoclonal antibodies, right?

They say it's working, but my question is, who's eligible for it, who's not, and how is that evolving, Doctor?

- Well, originally, there were the patients in the studies and now we have an expanded use authorization, which is a special emergency authorization - From the FDA?

- from the Food and Drug Administration - Okay, right.

- that allows us to give the antibodies to people who are at high risk for developing complications from COVID.

So those include people who are elderly, over 65, or people who are over 55 with other conditions like hypertension or people of any age with diabetes or obesity or certain ethnic groups that are at higher risk of complications.

And we are allowed to use our clinical judgment as physicians in terms of who to treat, and so that's extremely helpful because not all of the people who have complications come from these high risk groups.

But in general, if you're older and have other medical problems and you contract COVID, it's very important to get the antibodies promptly.

- Let me ask you something, and by the way, let me share that the Holy Name Medical Center is a healthcare supporter of what we do, an underwriter of what we are doing in terms of public awareness around health-related issues.

But I'm curious about this, Doctor.

There are a lot of people that, right now watching, not just in New Jersey, but surrounding states, that just don't believe.

I hear things like, and by the way, we're taping on the 22nd of June, "Listen, COVID's in the rear-view mirror.

It's passed.

And by the way, if you get sick, you're not gonna get really sick."

And listen, for those of us who are vaccinated, (knuckles rap) A, I want to know about whether, how protected we are; B, for those who are not, what's your message to them right now?

- Well, those are quite a few good questions that you've asked there.

And much of COVID is in the rear-view mirror for the moment.

But if you look at the spike that we had in the spring of 2020, and then the spike over the winter of 2021, they both declined very abruptly when spring came and we went outdoors and we stopped being inside together.

And COVID, although it was initially not a seasonal illness, is now declaring itself as more of a seasonal illness like influenza and various other respiratory viruses.

And so the rate of decline, we could attribute to the vaccine, which is good, and I'm sure it's a contributor, but it's not the whole explanation, because last year, it declined rapidly and there are still about 25% of people who are unvaccinated and have not had COVID and, therefore, are susceptible.

That's a large enough group of people to get sick and we do continue to see them coming to the emergency department and clinics and sometimes getting admitted to the hospital.

And some people are still having severe or critical disease that lands them up in the ICU and on a ventilator.

And so this is not over.

I wish it was over and I wish we had a way to make it go away promptly.

But I think we have to confront the facts that it has changed from epidemic, which is the high and uncontrolled levels of infection, to endemic, which is sort of low level bumping along through the community, through the months of the year with your number coming up if you're in the wrong place at the wrong time or just unlucky.

So I think we have to be respectful of that.

I certainly am.

In addition, although these vaccines are outstanding and much better than we ever expected, both better tolerated and much more effective than we even hoped, or they are not 100%.

So if you look at the 95% protection against severe and critical illness that's provided by the messenger RNA vaccines, that's still one out of 20 people who get exposed, who are gonna get severe or critical illness.

That means in the hospital and maybe in the ICU.

So one out of 20 is not that great a number.

In addition, the vaccine is considered a success if you get only mild to moderate disease.

But mild to moderate disease is still COVID.

You can still transmit it to someone else, including someone else who might be quite susceptible and susceptible to the complications.

So it's important to maintain respect and do our due diligence to do the right thing.

- Real quick.

We're taping on, as I said, on the 22nd, the end of, 22nd of June.

Do you believe that the vaccine will be made available in the next couple of months, and again, this program will be seen later where we're leading into the school year, the September school year, for children under 12 anytime soon?

- I think it will.

The trials are ongoing now.

And children sometimes have complications and children are a frequent source of transmission because they're so close together in schools and at play.

So it's important to have immunity across the entire population, but we must make sure that it's safe in this group of people.

- Real quick, before I let you go.

There are some friends of ours who have daughters or just young women themselves that talk about, "I'm not getting that," say "I'm not getting the vaccine because I'm concerned about its potential impact on my ability to have a child."

Is there a direct correlation between the vaccine, getting the vaccine, and the ability to have a child?

- There is no correlation.

There's no association with infertility.

And if you look at the components of the vaccine, the mRNA lasts in the body for just a few days, two or three days, and the spike protein that is made in response to that RNA is in the body perhaps for two weeks, and then these things are cleared by normal metabolic processes.

So a woman's ova are formed at birth and they will not be altered in their development because there just isn't the protein or other RNA influence that is gonna have an impact- - There's no connection?

- There's no connection.

- Hey Doctor, that's important.

Thank you for sharing that.

We appreciate it and we'll make sure we continue the conversation with you and other colleagues in the infectious disease arena.

Thank you so much, Dr. Birch.

- You're welcome.

It was a pleasure talking with you.

- Same here.

Stay with us.

We'll be right back.

(grand music) - [Announcer] To watch more State of Affairs with Steve Adubato, find us online and follow us on social media.

- We are honored to be joined by Rosemary Steinbaum, who is a trustee of the Newark public library.

And by the way, I put my glasses on because we are doing a literary segment and I have the illusion that it makes me appear smarter or more literary.

Hey listen, what room are you in right now?

- I'm sitting in the Philip Roth Personal Library, at the Newark Public Library on Washington street, in the great city of Newark.

- All right, let everyone know, by the way, just show everyone.

I went into my library to get all my Philip Roth books.

Right, you see them here, right?

Except my favorite Goodbye, Columbus, and Portnoy's Complaint.

We talked about that before.

What does Philip Roth have to do with Newark?

And why is he part of our quote, New Jersey Leaders Who Matter whether they're with us or gone to another place?

Why is he so important to Newark New Jersey and the nation, and the world?

- Well, he wrote about 30 novels.

Many of them are set in Newark as you well know, many in the old Jewish neighborhood, but in settings throughout the city and the old Italian North Ward and throughout the city.

He's an important novelist of the second half of the 20th century and the first part of the 21st century.

Partly because of the vigor of his narrative voice, because of the ways he uses, and shifts, narration in his novels.

Which becomes kind of a primer on how to read great novels.

His sense of place, whether it's Newark or anywhere else in the world is pitch perfect.

And he offers interesting, insights into the historic events, of his era.

And I think that those portals make him an important writer.

- So Roth died in 2018, correct?

- Right.

- To what degree do you believe Philip Roth understood, how important he was and continues to be for so many Newarkers.

Not those who just happened to be Jewish and from the neighborhood he came from, but to so many of us connected to Newark.

And frankly he, spoke for so many in the city, particularly of a certain time.

Do you think he understood his importance?

- I do.

He, wanted his library here.

The last thing in the world he wanted was a shrine in upstate Connecticut, where he lived.

He wanted to return to Newark.

And not only because of his own personal affiliation with the library and the city, but because of just what you said, Steve.

Because he's important to so many people, in and around Newark.

We have visitors to this space who fly in from Chicago, through Newark Airport and detour to see the Roth library.

- You know, you saw this in the New York Times Book Review, right?

And this is what got my attention and I'm not going to get into the whole thing about the author of this Philip Roth.

The biography by Blake Bailey.

I'm not going to get into the Blake Bailey thing, but I am going to ask you as I read this and then got the book.

Roth, controversial from your perspective?

- Sure.

- And I don't want to assume your answer is a large part of what was controversial about Philip Roth, his 'relationship with women and how he wrote about them.'

- Well, that's been a huge area of investigation.

Roth was an extremely complex person.

And because of how he wrote, and because of people's interest in the author behind the writing, a lot of his complexity was just out there.

Out there in the public sphere for conversation.

I too, don't want to parse, the question of misogyny, but it's out there as a question.

I knew Roth.

I know him well.

- You did.

- Yes.

And I can tell you he was not a misogynist and I could go on about that for too long.

- No, but what personally, so you interacted with him on a whole range of situations, circumstances over several years, correct?

- Correct.

- How would you describe his personality?

Not his writing, but his personality with you.

- He was always entirely gracious, very, very funny, completely present, there wasn't a half a line that could get by him.

When you talk to Roth he'd listened to you utterly and you better be listening to him, just as carefully.

- Wow!

Do you make me wish, Rosemary that I ever had, I had a chance to over these 30 years of doing this to sit down with Philip Roth, to be obsessed by him, to read about him, to read his work, forget about me, but more importantly, put in perspective, the library you're in and how unique it is and not a whole bunch of Philip Roth libraries all over the place.

- I don't think there are a whole bunch of libraries, dedicated, to the reading life.

of an author in our time.

To enter this space is to get into the mind of a working writer.

- What's there by the way?

We're going to put up the website of the library as we speak.

What's around you right now?

It's not just what he wrote.

- All of Philip Roth's books, and all of his books with marginalia.

So that, and I'll give you one example behind me.

You're not gonna be able to see it on the screen, is a book jacket.

And the book jacket is of a book called The Nightmare Decade by a Rutgers historian named Fred Cook.

It's about the McCarthy era.

Well, you've read I Married a Communist.

You know, the McCarthy era is deep, deeply embedded in that book.

So as we opened the book we saw on the inside of the book jacket, Roth's notes for writing, I Married a Communist.

When can you get inside the writer's process in that way?

- And does, I also know there was a book written about Roth by the so-called communist he was married to, if I'm not mistaken.

(laughs) Yeah, you're laughing because you didn't think I knew that.

- I know you know what's up.

- And there was a real fight, back and forth that some people would say, what should it be private, but became very public through this literature.

And one book was a really significant book.

It was Roth that's all I'm going to say.

Hey Rosemary, let me ask you this.

Tell people right now why they should come to the Newark Public Library to the Roth Personal Library.

- It's unique.

It's a way to get under the skin of and inside the mind of, one of our era's most important writers.

If one fashions, one self, a writer hopes to be a writer.

It's a place to find inspiration, information, solace.

There's a lot here for writers to identify with, and all of us are readers and to see a person read, so publicly is thrilling.

- Rosemary Steinbaum trustee of The Newark Public Library cannot thank you enough.

You honor us by your presence and our conversation about an extraordinary author, Philip Roth.

- Thanks you for having me, Steve.

It's a pleasure.

- You got it, I'm Steve Adubato.

That is Rosemary Steinbaum.

We'll be right back.

(grand music) - [Announcer] To watch more State of Affairs with Steve Adubato, find us online and follow us on social media.

- We're now joined by our good friend, Gil Medina, who is a real estate executive.

He's the Former Secretary of Commerce in the great state of New Jersey, and yes, a trustee of our production company, the Caucus Educational Corporation.

Good to see you, Gil.

- Good to see you, Steve.

- Gil, not a lot of people, that I know, know more about commercial real estate than you do.

Describe, as we are taping mid toward the back end of summer, 2021, the commercial real estate market connected to COVID.

- Yeah, let me set the background.

Speaking of post-World War Two Europe, the French poet, Paul Valery, commented that, "The problem with our present times is "that our future isn't what it used to be," and I think that we can say the same thing about our post-pandemic world, and this is especially true about commercial real estate.

But when you speak about commercial real estate, we have to recognize that it's integrated into the economy of a region, of a state, and it's important for us to really understand and put New Jersey in perspective, because we tend to take our state and our region for granted.

But our state is part of two of the world's largest metropolitan economies.

The New York City metro is the world's second largest metropolitan center.

It's GDP stands at a whopping $1.6 trillion.

Philadelphia's metropolitan economy is the world's eighth largest metro economy.

It's GDP is $440 billion.

So just think about this, two metropolitan economies, New York, some counties in New Jersey and Connecticut, Philadelphia, some counties in Delaware, New Jersey, have an economy that is larger than all of the economies of every nation in the world, except for seven.

- So, you know, I'm, only you would come up with a quote like that and put this in philosophical terms, but it's helpful.

Gil, because you also seem to be saying that there is no "New Jersey" per se real estate, commercial real estate market.

It's not really one market.

- Well, yeah, I think that the economy of New Jersey is well, New Jersey has a large economy of its own.

Our GDP is $635 billion, which is very large, but, we have to keep in mind that we are part of a region, which is why, when Benjamin Franklin talked about New Jersey, he called it "a valley of humility between two mountains of conceit," and those mountains of conceit are important economic drivers for our state, and we have to remember that.

So now, in terms of the commercial real estate market, we also have to realize that the commercial real estate market is multifaceted, it's not one market.

Charles Dickens in "A Tale of Two Cities," contrasts London and Paris during the French Revolution.

London was prosperous, stable, and peaceful.

Paris was wracked by revolution and turmoil.

If the novel were about commercial real estate, it would be called the Tale of Several Cities, because corporate real estate has a number of components, for example, residential, office, retail, industrial and hospitality, and all are evolving differently, responding differently, to the post-pandemic environment.

- So, Gil, let me ask you.

Let me give you a concrete example.

Our production company, the Caucus Educational Corporation, that you know well, we have office space.

We've had office space for many years, you know, eight to 10 on our team at any one time.

But we're all working remotely right now, from all these different locations, and we're not sure long-term, if we'll ever go back "to the office."

We give up that office space, hopefully someone rents it, and the owner can make a buck, but if not, as more and more of us in the workforce do this, what does that do to the commercial real estate market?

- So, yeah, that's a good question, and corporations throughout the world are grappling with that.

You know, can we, and how can we bring people back to the office?

Many companies, most companies, believe that there's a value of having their employees together in one place, because it promotes collaboration, it promotes - culture.

- And the challenge though, however, is how do you now entice the workers back into the office after this period of time, where we learned really how to function to a very high degree remotely.

So it's gonna be a challenge, that every industry is gonna come up with a different answer, every company, actually, is gonna come up with a different answer.

In your industry, your audience probably doesn't even notice that we're in a studio or not, so you're gonna have the ability to basically maintain a virtual operation much more effectively than perhaps other companies will.

- But we're not, okay, but we're not, I don't even know if we're not the norm.

I just know there are so many other people when they ask, "Well, where are you doin' the show, "because it looks like you're in the studio?"

Yeah, we do, it is a studio.

It's just not in the studio we've been in for a long time, and to our friends at WNET and NJ PBS, we hope and pray that we can get back into, we all can get back into the studios we've been in for years, but we don't know that.

But here's the other part of this.

Do you believe, Gil, with your expertise in commercial real estate and economics and markets, et cetera, that a significant amount of commercial real estate space will be converted into non-commercial real estate space to be utilized in some other form because the market won't support it?

- That's probably more true about office than other forms of real estate, and, in fact, we are already seeing that in New Jersey.

New Jersey's commercial office space was, almost 80% of it was built out in the 1980s.

A lot of that space was suburban based, these major suburban campuses that were isolated from everything.

The reality is that those locations, and the design of those buildings, are obsolete, so in terms of office inventory, New Jersey has one of the highest suburban vacancy rates in the entire country.

We already are seeing that, as land prices for industrial uses and residential sites continue to rise, that many of these obsolete suburban properties are being, and will continue to be, redeployed for industrial or mixed use developments.

- Okay, real quick thing on taxes.

You know taxes well, as well.

Former Secretary of Commerce in the state.

So there are friends of ours who live in Northern New Jersey, but their office operations have been in New York for many years.

But they're working out of home and being "taxed," the New Jersey state income tax, your federal income tax, and the New York tax, and some of them are saying, and this is not just anecdotal, it's happening in a lot of cases, "Hey, wait a minute, if I'm 'not in New York,' "how could you be taxing me for being in New York, "when I'm doing my work out of my home in New Jersey?"

Is that a non-issue or something that's gotta be resolved?

- It's an issue, and what happens is, that a lot of jurisdictions are just very aggressive about who they tax, and when they tax, and for what activity they tax.

- They want their money, but if it doesn't make sense, it's not fair.

- That's correct, they should not be taxed.

That's, the reality is, that they should not be, they probably know it, but they figure that they'll collect the taxes and let, if you're aggrieved, you bring the issue to the proper authorities through the proper processes.

And how many of us are gonna go through that?

- Wow, hey, Gil, listen.

There are a lot of questions.

We're taping this on the 20th of June, the data will be up throughout this segment, 'cause we always try to let people know that, as things are evolving around us, we're trying to put things in context.

We're not the news, check out NJ Spotlight News, check out Metro Focus with our partners in public broadcasting and find out what's happening on a regular basis and also the analysis of that.

Gil, come back and join us late fall into the winter, and we'll give an update on the commercial real estate market.

That is Gil Medina, a very smart real estate executive, Former Secretary of Commerce in New Jersey, and a trustee of the CDC.

Thank you so much, Gil.

- Thank you for having you me.

- You got it.

I'm Steve Adubato, thank you so much for watching, and we'll see you next time.

- [Narrator] State of Affairs with Steve Adubato Is a production of the Caucus Educational Corporation.

Funding has been provided by PSE&G.

Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey.

Bank of America.

NJM Insurance Group.

Summit Health Johnson & Johnson.

New Jersey Sharing Network.

The Healthcare Foundation of New Jersey.

And by The Fidelco Group.

Promotional support provided by Meadowlands Chamber.

And by New Jersey Globe.

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