Covid-19 Update

According to Dr. Anthony Fauci, with almost 67,000 cases coming from Hubei province in China, more clarity is beginning to be shed on the novel coronavirus, known as Covid-19. The first 425 cases from Hubei revealed that the median age of infected persons was 59 with a higher fatality and morbidity rate for the elderly and the immunocompromised. The current predicted R₀ value of Covid-19 is about 2.2 and the case fatality rate is approximately close to 2%, although predictions believe this number will come closer to less than 1% (Fauci, Lane, & Redfield, 2020). With schools starting to close and travel bans starting to implemented, it will be vastly important to keep social distancing to blunt the growth curve of the virus. It is encouraging to see that policy is starting to really force people to take the coronavirus seriously and keep social isolation to prevent transmission. However, I am concerned with some of the media coverage of the coronavirus. I think simply saying that the youth are not impacted by the virus is misleading because it gives the impression that the youth are more exempt from practicing safe habits. We need to promote social distancing, even in youth populations, to prevent the transmission of the virus to more vulnerable populations. It is just as important for the youth to follow CDC prevention guidelines in slowing the transmission of the virus.

Specifically looking at North Carolina, according to the CDC updates, there are currently 32 cases of Covid-19 cases as of March 15 with 0 deaths. The majority of the cases are coming from Wake county, with 14 cases originating there. According to the most recent CNN news report, the number of coronavirus cases in the US has reached over 3,000 cases with 62 deaths. Recently, Governor Roy Cooper has implemented an executive order banning meetings over 100 people and closing K-12 schools until March 30^th. Additionally, we know that Covid-19 can be spread via community and has been declared a pandemic (CDC, 2020). My specific worry with Covid-19 is healthcare facilities and hospitals. Generally speaking, these are locations where a significant population of immunocompromised are held and with known community spread of Covid-19, it is important to keep hospitals as sterile as possible. I think policy restricting visitors at nursing homes and hospitals is forward thinking in promoting the idea of social distancing. Furthermore, because it is known that Covid-19 can be spread via asymptomatic individuals, I am concerned that the number of cases of Covid-19 are higher than reported numbers. As more testing becomes implemented, I expect to see a sharp increase in the number of new cases of people with the coronavirus. I think part of the problem that exists now is that it has been hard to implement tests on a wide scale in such a short time period. How can we speed up tests such that we can gather a more accurate count of those who have the coronavirus? It will require more cooperation between government agencies, healthcare facilities, as well as pharmaceutical companies.

In addition to the situation in North Carolina, the World Health Organization has warned that the lack of personal protective equipment has put healthcare workers in particular danger. The WHO has predicted that 89 million masks, 76 million gloves, and 1.6 million googles are going to be needed each month for the Covid-19 pandemic (WHO, 2020). We need to incentivize the manufacturing industry to increase supply for healthcare workers to be able to tackle the infection. I believe it is much harder to stop the transmission and deal with Covid-19, if healthcare workers do not have the necessary protective equipment to treat the infection. How do we convince the public that panic buying and hoarding actually are contributing to the worldwide shortage of PPE? How do we educate globally that healthcare workers should have priority in being able to obtain personal protective equipment in being able to treat those most affected by Covid-19? Again, national policy in the coming days will be vital in increasing manufacturing of PPE to be able to combat Covid-19.