Hello and welcome back coming to you with a very special episode on COVID-19. I'm Jed Wolpaw and I'm coming to you with a very special episode on COVID-19.

I was lucky enough to get in touch with Mike Scott from now from

Penn who's one of the chiefs of critical care there and he is in has been working closely with Maricio

Soretta who is one of the critical care docs there and has been in close touch

with a really wonderful physician anesthesiologist in Italy who's really on the front lines.

And so we put this together very last minute.

This all came together just in the past day.

So you'll see it's going to be a little bit helter-skelter, but really I think

important messages coming across from some of what they've been thinking about at Penn and some of what has been happening in Italy on the ground and what really they are describing as a war zone.

You'll hear some tough things about what's having to happen in Italy.

It will not be easy to listen to. about what's having to happen in Italy.

It will not be easy to listen to.

I want to have the huge, huge flag and caveat up front

to say, of course, that things are changing on a daily basis here.

What we discuss in terms of what may or may not

be good things to do may change by tomorrow.

And so I want to urge people to check

with your local hospital, infection folks figure out what the protocols

that are being put in place at your hospital are and follow those.

Please don't assume that what we're saying is advice to be taken directly into patient care.

This is stuff to think about and discuss with your colleagues, with your hospital,

with your leadership, and for everybody out there if there are lay folks

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