Welcome to Public Health On Call, a new podcast from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Our focus is the novel coronavirus.

I'm Josh Sharfstein, a faculty member at Johns Hopkins, and also a former secretary of Maryland's health department.

Our goal with this podcast is to bring evidence and experts to help you understand today's

news about the novel coronavirus and what it means for tomorrow.

If you have questions, you can email them to public health question at jhh.edu.

That's public health question at jh.h. That's public health question at jh.u.edu

for future podcast episodes.

Today, Stephanie Desmond interviews two faculty

at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health,

Professor Elizabeth Stewart, and Associate Professor

Kerry Altaff, not about their day jobs. Dr. Stewart is a distinguished

biostatistician and Dr. Altaff, a noted epidemiologist. Rather, they're talking about how they

have managed the coronavirus situation as parents, neighbors, and friends. Let's listen.

I'm here today with Carrie Althoff and Elizabeth Stewart.

Dr. Altaff is an epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins, and Dr. Stewart is a professor of mental

health and biostatistics. We've been talking a lot about social distancing, staying away from

other people in order to slow the spread of the virus.

This is so hard when you have kids. I know this question is on everyone's minds. Can I let my kids

have playdates? What if they just ride bikes from the neighborhood together? Carrie? You know,

this is a hard question to answer as well. And I have to say, no, it's not a good idea

to have play dates, not right now.

...