TheCDC reportsthe “potential public health threat posed by COVID-19 [a.k.a.
coronavirus] is very high, to the United States and globally.”
Two ways major outbreaks have spread in the past are airborne contraction and via bodily fluid contact.
CONTAGION, Jude Law, 2011. ph: Claudette Barius/©Warner Bros/courtesy Everett Collection.Credit: Everett
Airborne viruses, Madad tells EW, spread rapidly, like what we’re seeing now with the coronavirus.
Diseases transmitted through bodily fluid contact tend to be less widespread but more deadly, she notes.
“Two diseases come to mind,” Madad says.
“One is Ebola and then the coronavirus we are facing now.
In 2014, over 28,000 people were infected with the Ebola virus disease.
That’s not a significant number versus what you see from the coronavirus disease, a respiratory virus.
You haveat least 80,000documented confirmed cases in a matter of two months.”
There is, however, still a more long-term worry according to our experts.
The World Health Organization is responsible for alerting the general public of an imminent threat like coronavirus.
The problem, then, is what governments actually do to take the proper precautions, a.k.a.
having their own 10th man.
“The technical public health advice is usually very timely,” Caroll says.
The mission: isolate the man at all costs.
This scenario is likely playing out at this very moment, Caroll says.
There is one thing that the scene doesn’t get quite right.
“In this sequence, you would have probably trackedeveryonethat was on that bus,” he says.
“You would want to begin making sure that they were a part of your contact tracing.”
A quarantine of the city has been ordered, but not everyone is ready to follow the rules.
Why isn’t there a quarantine here?
It might come down to democracy.
“I think that the approach that our government is going to take will be very different.”
And as for the timing of it all, Caroll is quick to dispel any kind of conspiracy.
