Coronavirus Myths and FAQs with Dr. Amesh Adalja, Epidemiologist

Curiosity Weekly

Warner Bros. Discovery

Self-improvement, Science, Astronomy, Education

4.6 • 935 Ratings

🗓️ 18 March 2020

⏱️ 19 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Epidemiologist Amesh Adalja answers frequently asked questions about coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in this special bonus episode. Dr. Adalja is a Senior Scholar at the Johns Hopkins University Center for Health Security, and will help you understand what we know and what we don’t know as of this week.

In this episode, Dr. Amesh Amalja answers these frequently asked questions about COVID-19:

What do we know for sure in terms of transmissibility, symptoms, severity of symptoms, mortality rate, incubation period — or is our understanding about everything evolving?
What do we know about risk factors for specific comorbidities?
Why comparisons to the seasonal flu are fair to make?
If the virus isn’t as risky to children, then why are we closing schools?
What is going to be accomplished by discouraging or limiting large groups of people getting together?
Are you at a higher risk for more severe symptoms if you have had exposures to multiple different people who are carrying the virus?
Why don’t we just expose young and healthy people to the virus to build up immunity?
How much safer are we if everyone practices hand hygiene and social distancing?
Any other coronavirus myths worth discussing?
How long will it take for us to see the full impact of the pandemic and how will we reassess the extent of the damage in the future?
Will this virus die off in the summer?
What are the best medical sources to follow for coronavirus updates?

Additional resources recommended by Dr. Amesh Adalja, an expert in emergency medicine and infectious diseases such as coronavirus disease 2019:

Official website http://www.trackingzebra.com/
Follow @AmeshAA on Twitter https://twitter.com/AmeshAA
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention COVID-19 information https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/index.html
STAT https://www.statnews.com/

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, you're about to get smarter in just a few minutes with Curiosity Daily from Curiosity.com.
0:06.0	I'm Cody Gough.
0:07.0	And I'm Ashley Hamer.
0:08.0	In this special bonus episode, you'll get answers to some frequently asked questions about COVID-19.
0:13.8	From epidemiologist Amish Adulja.
0:16.0	Dr Adulja is a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins University
0:19.4	Center for Health Security,
0:21.1	and he'll help you understand what we know and what we don't know as of this week.
0:25.0	We're just going to dive straight into the interview today to get you the facts and then Cody and I will unpack what we learned at the end of our conversation.
0:32.0	We hope you stick around.
0:33.2	Let's satisfy some curiosity.
0:34.8	What do we know for sure about this whole thing in terms of
0:40.3	transmissibility, symptoms, severity, mortality rate, incubation period.
0:45.2	Is there anything we know 100% for sure or is our understanding about all of this constantly
0:50.2	evolving?
0:51.2	Our understanding is constantly evolving and we do have some
0:55.1	solid knowledge though as well. Remember that coronavirus didn't just begin with
0:59.8	this new virus, that that's a large viral family and that there are six other human coronaviruses.
1:04.5	And we can use what we know about those coronaviruses to try and understand this coronavirus.
1:09.5	There may be some differences, but viruses tend to usually have very similar characteristics as other
1:14.2	members of their family. So we do know that the incubation period probably is
1:18.2	at most 14 days but around six or five or six days for most people. We know that this transmits to the
	...

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