A March 16, 2020 TV interview (OAN) in which Graham Ledger speaks with Dr. Anne Truong, MD about early U.S. responses to COVID-19. They discuss Dr. Fauci’s suggestion of a possible 14-day shutdown to avoid overwhelming hospitals, U.S. ICU capacity and isolation-room shortages, CDC guidance recommending avoiding gatherings of 50+ people, the spectrum of COVID-19 illness (many mild or asymptomatic but severe risk for elderly and immunocompromised), limited testing availability leading to undercounting, comparisons to seasonal flu, and South Korea’s low observed case-fatality to date.
Questions this video answers
"a little more than 100,000 ICU beds"
Avoid gatherings of 50 or more people
"32 million cases thus far, 18,000 dead"
"61,000 dead"
"81,000 cases in South Korea, only 75 people dying"
Chapters
Joining me now from Washington D.C. owner, operator of Truong Rehabilitation center for Regenerative Cell Therapy and Daily Ledger contributor, Dr. Ann Truong, MD. Doctor, are you in favor of what they're talking about right now? And again, this has not been issued officially from the White House or from the CDC or anyone. But Dr. Fauci has floated what amounts to a 14 day shutdown of the United States of America. Is that something that we need to seriously look at at this point?
Well, I think he's looking at it from the perspective of not overwhelming our hospital system because if, if the hospital system cannot handle all at once a lot of people that needs critical care. Because currently in the US we have about a little more than 100,000 ICU beds and we don't have a lot of isolation room. And so if we have a mass of coming to the hospital to want to get tested, we don't have enough kids. And if we have a lot of people overwhelming the hospital, there isn't enough room. And then that will take the time and the staff from the hospital to care for those that may take time away from the one that really do need it, which is the elderly and immunocompromised and the one that has cardio and pulmonary disease. So I see where he's coming from in that you want to stop gathering of a lot of people and, and conduct social distancing. So that way it's not so much as protecting the people that are under 60, is that they, they can get the disease and they come out, out of it mild. But it's really to, to prevent the spread of the disease to the elderly or the one over 60 that are immunocompromised. So it's really taking away carriers and vectors of infection that may affect other people that are more susceptible.
And that makes sense. But then you have to ask the question somewhat rhetorical, somewhat not, at what price, at what cost? You know, are we in the continuum of this virus, are we in the end going to be overreacting to something that may harm fewer, far fewer people than the strain of the flu this season or H1N1. But the CDC is issuing centers for Disease Control is issuing some new guidelines and that is effectively in groups of 50 or more. Forget about it. Now, 50, doctor, is kind of an arbitrary number. They've got to pick a number. You know, initially in California it was I think, 1,000. The governor said, hey, 1,000 or more, you can't do it. And then they dropped it to 250. Now the CDC. This is a national alert, a national guideline. It's not a law. You won't be thrown in jail if you're 51 people gathered together. But again, 50 is somewhat of an arbitrary number. What are they really trying to say? What is the CDC really trying to say here?
Well, I think what they're trying to say is to, you know, do social distancing. They're trying to say stay home and don't and don't gather in large groups. And they're trying to slow down the spread of the disease. I mean, the bottom line is it's out of containment and we just need to stop the spread of the disease at this point. So they're trying to decrease the number of people that are carriers, like I mentioned last week, that you can be infected and not even know you're infected because the spectrum of the disease ranges from asymptomatic, when you have no symptoms and you are infection, you may not even know it, and then to the spectrum of severe to fatal. So you may not know you have disease, but then you gather with other people. You can really spread it to a lot more people than you know. We know that the virus can actually live on surfaces that are smooth for several days. So it's not only is the person is the one that can infect, but when they leave the, the aerosol or their droplets can stay on surfaces that can affect other people. So they're trying to tell people to, you know, essentially do not, you know, gather in masses. And I, what I did was I just sound to social distance. Stay at home, go outside, go hiking, go walking, do housework and exercise, take care of yourself. But it's really a way to distance yourself and not infect others.
Exercise.
You don't know that you're infected.
Right. Exercise. But you can't go to the gym in some cases. Some gyms are staying open, some gyms are shutting down. I hope mine stays open. The current flu season is rather Mild. The current one. 2019, 2020. 32 million cases thus far, 18,000 dead. The previous flu season, 61,000 dead. You just mentioned that many people in this case with corona. So I'm trying to compare here the flu and, and other viruses to corona. You just mentioned that a lot of people can walk around asymptomatic. Right. How does that compare to other viruses? Say for example, the garden variety flu that we're experiencing this season or some of the other strains that we've experienced in the past H1N1 any of these variety of viruses, do they act like what we know so far about corona? In other words, can they live on surfaces for a couple of days in an aerosol form for a couple, three hours?
Well, that's a good question. We, the thing that's concerning about corona is that it's new and it mutated since the beginning of the year and we're still finding out about it as compared to, you know, the virus that H1N1 or swine flu in the past. As you know, swine flu killed a lot more people. So the concern about this is that it's new. We're still trying to find out what, what is its characteristics and, and how long it live, but it's just that we just don't know. There's a lot of unknown too. I also want to bring up the fact that you know, that the cases in the US may be different in the case in the world as well because our, our, the U.S. food and Nutrition, everything may be different. And you know, we have different nutrition and exercise and lifestyle. So the way we respond to the disease and its manifestation may be a little bit different than people versus in China, in Japan or Italy. So we just have to wait and see what, how the course goes. But we know that there are a lot more people that are infected. We just don't know because right now we don't have enough kit to test everyone. I talk to my colleagues in the er, you know, of nearby and far away. There's not enough kits available to test everyone. So they have to turn people down that go to the ER and want to get tested that do not meet the criteria for a person under interest. And they often tell, you know, my colleague tells me if you have symptoms of, even of a fever and a cough, isolate yourself and just presume that you may have it. If you're under 60, the symptoms are mild. You're going to get over this. Yeah. There's good things about corona is that we know that there are just 80% of the cases are mild.
Right.
And that there are about 13, 13 times more cure rate than death rate.
Right.
So that's good. And that we're working on and we now have a test to kit and we're working on more tests to test the more kids to test this faster. So there's a lot of movement to really recognize this. But like I said, there are probably more cases than we know of people just self quarantining right now that do have the symptoms. Where I'm at five, five miles from my office there's two positive cases already. You know, locally where I'm at, and.
You know, South Korea might be the model here and the way they handle it. And it seems like the United States is kind of following the South Korea model. They took some draconian measures that we haven't taken yet, but we appear to be on that glide path. 81,000 cases in South Korea, only 75 people dying from it. That's a death rate of under 1%. That might be how this coronavirus finally shakes out. Dr. Thank you.
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