An ER Doctor Prepares for the Worst
Slate News
Slate Podcasts
4.5 • 6K Ratings
🗓️ 16 March 2020
⏱️ 16 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Open or closed? Across the country, state governors and mayors are asking themselves that question: Are we safer staying open, or are we safer closing down?
Over the weekend, more cities and states ordered shutdowns to temper the spread of COVID-19. But we’re dealing with a threat we haven’t seen before. How are we supposed to make decisions when we’re lacking basic information about how this coronavirus works?
Guest: Jeremy Faust, an emergency medicine physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey everyone, it's Mary. And before we start the show, I just want to acknowledge things are so weird right now. |
| 0:08.5 | I'm recording this in a closet, and I'm going to send the audio to a producer who is in Georgia. |
| 0:14.8 | Everyone at Slate is working from home right now. We're trying to minimize the spread of this coronavirus. |
| 0:19.9 | If the show sounds a little different in the next couple of weeks, that is why. |
| 0:24.1 | But I've got a feeling that some of you, probably a lot of you, are finding ways to meet this moment. |
| 0:31.3 | You're looking out for each other in funny ways. |
| 0:34.1 | You're finding little incentives to get your kids to do the right thing, like wash their |
| 0:38.6 | hands. One parent I saw decided to start each day by drawing little hearts on each family |
| 0:43.6 | member's hand in Sharpie. Whoever scrubbed the Sharpie off by Days End got a prize. So I'm hoping you |
| 0:49.6 | can help me out. Let me know about what you're up to. Tell me how you are helping other people, helping |
| 0:57.1 | people in your family, just keeping healthy, getting by, even keeping each other's spirits up. |
| 1:03.5 | You can do it a couple ways. You can call and leave a voicemail. Our number is 202-888-2588. You can also just tweet at me. I'm at Mary's desk. I'll share your best ideas as much as I can, |
| 1:16.1 | because I think we all need them right now. All right, here's the show, and just a quick warning. |
| 1:22.3 | There is a little bit of cursing from the ER doctor I talked to, but he is dealing with a lot right now. |
| 1:28.9 | Okay, here we go. |
| 1:39.7 | Okay, I'm testing one, two, three, four, five. Jeremy Faust is a full-time doctor and a part-time podcaster. I'm glad I checked. What's going on with this thing? He works up at the emergency department at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. |
| 1:47.9 | I dialed him up Sunday night around five. He'd just clocked out. |
| 1:52.1 | I got delayed because my fucking headphones are like tied up in my N95 mask and I can't afford to like do what I would only do and just like cut it apart. |
| 2:00.9 | So I'm like untangling my headphones so that I don't die later. |
| 2:05.8 | Hold it. Are you having to reuse your N95 masks? |
| 2:09.4 | Yeah, that's happening nationally. |
| 2:12.9 | At Jeremy's hospital, they just built a tent out front to screen incoming patients. |
... |
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