Good afternoon Dr. Siegel, Although the CDC has resources online to cover basic facts about the virus itself and the outbreak in general, a lot of what people ask about are the fundamentals. We've included some of those commonly asked questions.
Q: Is Coronavirus just another version of the flu?
A: NO - CORONAVIRUS is a respiratory virus that is generally found in mammals and sometimes in humans. Like SARS and MERS, this appears to have started in bats before jumping species and finally ending up in humans.
Q: Speaking with Fox's Shannon Bream, you noted coronavirus has "a higher death rate than the yearly flu" but not more than the Spanish Flu at the beginning of the 20th century. Does that represent a scale and, if so, where is COVID-19 on that scale?
A: IT IS MUCH CLOSER to the seasonal flu end than to the Spanish Flu, especially when you consider all the thousands of mild or even asymptomatic cases we aren't diagnosing yet. Take South Korea for example: An advanced health care system which has tested over 100,000 people and discovered over 5,000 cases. There, they are finding mild cases, so the death rate is much lower, less than 1 percent, like the flu.
Q: How deadly is the coronavirus?
A: WE ARE DETERMINING THAT(see above), but we know the death rate is clearly very, very low for young healthy people. Almost all of the deaths have been among elderly people or those with chronic health conditions.
Q: Does this potentially become a bigger drain on resources, create more work absences, for example, than the annual flu?
A: IF THIS SPREADS through communities, I expect it to be - at worst - equal in magnitude to the impact of the flu, but not greater. We are nowhere near that yet. This year the flu has already infected over 30 million people in the U.S. alone.
Q: Can the coronavirus itself get worse? Is there a concern it becomes more virulent, communicable, or deadly?
A: IT COULD CHANGE, but most likely it will just become more adapted to human spread and not get worse, per se. Most likely not more virulent or deadly. It will change more subtly than that, no massive change or shift.
Q: What would you tell families with children worried about the scary coronavirus news on TV every day?
A: KNOW THAT THE PURPOSE of all this public health attention is not because you are in grave danger, but as a way to slow the virus itself before it can become entrenched here.
Q: Is the United States doing what we need to do with regard to the coronavirus outbreak? I don't have to tell you that the response itself has become a bit of a political issue, but the real question is whether the proper and best steps are being taken
A: THE BEST THING we can do is to put politics aside and back public health leaders and measures taken. The research into anti-virals and vaccine research is proceeding at a rapid pace under Dr. Anthony Fauci 's guidance. We need to keep masks to proper uses (health care professionals and those who are sick). Vice President Mike Pence is pushing for more test kits and they are becoming more available. Physicians need them to calm the fears of those who don't have the virus and isolate those who do.
Q: Lastly, Dr. Siegel, I'd like to ask you about press coverage. Are the global headlines and press too much? Is there an undue attention to the outbreak?
A: THE ATTENTION IS GOOD if it leads to more support of public health. It is bad if it creates hysteria which disrupts lives and doesn't help fight the virus.
Q: Again, thank you so much for your time. Lots of people are seeking clarity about this... pandemic? I know, I'm tacking on another question. Let's think of this as sort of a closer. Would you call this a pandemic?
A: IT ISN'T A PANDEMIC YET, BUT IT'S CLOSE
It isn't a pandemic yet, but it's close, and will be soon if we continue to see sustained spread in different regions.
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Dr. Siegel is a Professor of Medicine at New York University School of Medicine, a practicing internist, and a a FOX News Medical correspondent.
