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 talks to Tom Frieden, former director of the U.S. Centers for Disease

Control and Prevention, and former New York City Health Commissioner. They talk about the criteria

that must be urgently met now in order

to eventually reopen society in the next phase of the COVID-19 response. And they talk about

his greatest fears as we move forward. Let's listen. Dr. Friedan, thanks for joining me.

Thank you.

I knew a lot of people who are self-isolating, social distancing, are wondering how much

longer we're going to have to do this. So talk to me about how those decisions will be made.

It's understandable that people are asking the question, when can we go out again? I think it's important

that we get clear that the more important

question is, what do we have to do right now so we can go out as soon and safely as possible?

And there, I think, there are important things, particularly for governments to do.

We have to make sure that we have better eyes on the virus,

that we're understanding where it's spreading,

how it's spreading, and how much it's spreading.

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