123 - Meet Dr. Kelvin Baggett, Dallas's COVID Czar

Public Health On Call

The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

News, Health & Fitness, Medicine

4.6 • 644 Ratings

🗓️ 27 July 2020

⏱️ 12 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In May, the mayor of Dallas appointed Dr. Kelvin Baggett as the "COVID Czar." Now, amidst rising cases across the state, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health alum Baggett is tasked with reducing harm and suffering from COVID-19. He talks with Dr. Josh Sharfstein about his work as COVID Czar, how the city is addressing disproportionate impact on minority communities, and how the pandemic may be helping to elevate critical conversations around health disparities.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Season 2 of Public Health On Call, a podcast from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
0:13.6	I'm Joshua Sharfstein, Vice Dean for Public Health Practice and Community Engagement,
0:18.8	and a former secretary of Maryland's Health Department.
0:21.9	Our goal is to bring scientific evidence and experience to the public health news of the day
0:27.3	through informative interviews with scientists, community leaders, policy experts, public health
0:32.7	officials, clinicians, and more. If you have ideas or questions for us to cover, please email us at
0:39.8	Public Health Question at jhhhu.edu. That's public health question at jhhu.edu for future
0:47.2	podcast episodes. Today, I speak to Dr. Kelvin Baggett, the COVID-Zar for the city of Dallas, Texas.
0:56.5	Dr. Baggett is a graduate of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and a former
1:00.7	leader of large health systems who now works in alternative investing and private equity.
1:07.6	We speak about the role of COVID- czar and the situation in Dallas.
1:12.6	Let's listen.
1:14.6	Dr. Bagot, thank you so much for joining me.
1:17.6	You are the COVID czar for Dallas, Texas.
1:22.6	What is a COVID czar?
1:25.6	Thank you, Josh, for having me.
1:28.3	I must say that knowing some of Russian history, the term czar struck me as not being
1:34.9	something that I wanted to necessarily attach to myself.
1:38.6	But Mayor Eric Johnson of Dallas asked me to take on that title because he wanted to convey not only the magnitude
1:45.7	of this particular situation, the COVID-19 pandemic, but also to convey that I had the full
1:53.4	support and authority from his office. And so that's why we came to that czar term.
2:02.0	My responsibility is to use my skills, experiences,
	...

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