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no bull and the aftermath.

So when we talk about underlying health conditions, that includes cardiovascular disease, that

includes diabetes, that includes kidney disease, that may include anything that affects your

respiratory system, including smoking or vaping.

And I'm hearing some reports that obesity itself can be an underlying health condition

for this too.

So we have to kind of think about what are our population risks are looking like.

Our health care system, I think, as we all know is overall very strong, but also uneven

in that not everybody has same access to care.

But even our best prepared hospitals will be unable to deal with a massive surge of

patients.

There's currently 160,000 respirators in the United States with another, I believe, close

to 9,000 that are available in the strategic national stockpile.

And if you're running the numbers in your head in the absence of aggressive social distancing

measures, that's just clearly not enough.

I'm Margaret Taylor and this is the LawFair podcast, March 17, 2020.

Dr. Rebecca Katz is the director of the Center for Global Health Science and Security at

Georgetown University Medical Center.

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