- Hello, I'm Dr. Ken Berry, a family physician
with almost 20 years of clinical experience.
And in this video, let's discuss the coronavirus
that I'm sure you've heard about in the news,
what you should know about this
and what you should do.
You've heard about this novel coronavirus
on multiple media outlets,
and then you've also heard from multiple specialists,
virologist, disease control and prevention specialists.
And a lot of what they're telling you is worrisome,
but they're not really giving you all the practical tips
that you need and that you can use to protect yourself
and your family.
In this video, I'm going to attempt to give you
all the information you need to know
and then all the steps you need to prepare yourself
and your family so that you guys can be protected
from this infection, whether it becomes more virulent
and more worrisome or whether it peters out and dies.
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So first, I'm gonna tell you everything you need to know
about this novel coronavirus,
and then, at the end of this video,
I'm gonna tell you the steps you can take
to protect yourself and to protect your family
from this infection or any infection.
And then, you can share this information
with the people you love to protect them as well.
This coronavirus that you've been hearing about in the news
is a virus.
It is an enveloped virus, and that'll become important
later in this video.
It's a very large RNA virus.
There are numerous coronaviruses that we know about
and that have been cataloged,
but this one is special and we'll talk about that in a bit.
Most coronaviruses exist in animals,
and there have been multiple coronaviruses
that have been documented to spread from animal to human.
But most coronaviruses end there.
There's very little, if any, spread from human to human.
That's what makes this virus different.
It started in China in 2019,
and in early 2020, it has been confirmed
that this virus does spread from human to human.
Another thing you need to know about coronaviruses
in general is that they can mutate very quickly,
and this can make them much more virulent,
which is the fear and the worry.
It can also make 'em less virulent as well.
Only time will tell what's gonna happen
with this novel coronavirus.
The symptoms of coronaviruses in humans
are typically a cold, an upper respiratory infection,
a flu-like illness, a bronchitis.
They're typically not worrisome or dangerous at all,
except to the very young, the very old,
and the very sick.
As I make this video in early 2020, in January,
it's still too early to tell just how virulent
this strain of coronavirus is,
and that's why I'm making this video
so that you can be prepared for the worst
as you hope for the best.
Now here are some key points about coronavirus
that you need to be acutely aware of.
This doesn't apply to every virus,
but it does apply to many viruses.
So first and foremost,
the coronavirus can infect a person
and that person have absolutely no symptoms
and no fever for two to five days.
They are contagious during this period
and can infect other people,
but they have no symptoms and they have no fever.
When this coronavirus is spread by coughing or sneezing,
the tiny droplets of saliva or mucus
can actually transmit this virus
up to five to seven feet away.
So you don't have to be right up against someone
or giving them a hug or a kiss
to catch this virus from them.
This coronavirus is contained in an envelope,
which protects it from the environment.
And so if someone coughs or sneezes
or touches their eye, nose, or mouth
and then touches a surface like a countertop
or a door knob or a seat back,
the virus can stay there dormant but yet alive
for up to five days.
This is another thing that makes this particular type
of virus very dangerous and very hard to control the spread.
Another key fact about this type of virus
is that you see people in Asia wearing masks,
and that's probably good.
That probably does control the spread
and protect them a little from infection.
But this virus can infect any of your mucus membranes.
So that includes your eyes,
your nose, your mouth,
your genital region, and your anal region.
Any of these are susceptible to this coronavirus.
It appears that the most dangerous place you can be
in an outbreak like this, whether it becomes
a pandemic or not, is a closed environment
with a closed atmosphere.
So a bus, a train, an airplane, a large meeting of people,
whether that's a public meeting or whether that's church,
clinics and hospitals, all these places
where there are lots of people in very close proximity
with a closed atmosphere.
So you're not outside in a pasture or walking on the street.
These environments tend to magnify the danger
of a virus like this.
Currently, there is no test for this coronavirus.
There is no vaccine to prevent it.
And there is no medication to treat it.
If you do develop this virus
and go to a clinic or hospital,
all the healthcare provider can do
is give you supportive care,
and we'll talk about that later in this video.
As I said earlier, you can be infected
and you can be contagious with this coronavirus
for up to five days and have no symptoms
or no fever whatsoever.
So currently, in airports, they are screening people
with thermography, which basically is checking them
to see if they have a fever.
But you don't have to necessarily have a fever
with this virus to be contagious.
In healthy teenagers up until about 50 or 60 years of age,
this coronavirus is likely to give you symptoms
of a severe cold, a severe respiratory infection,
even a severe influenza-type infection,
but the danger is is in the very young,
the very old, and the very sick or people
with conditions that suppress
or derange their immune system,
this can lead to much more serious infections
and even death.
Both Middle East respiratory syndrome
and severe acute respiratory syndrome, SARS and MERS,
which you may have heard about in the news
a few years back, they're both coronaviruses.
Now we don't know the virulence of this current
novel coronavirus strain, but in those strains,
they were virulent enough to spread from human to human,
and they were severe enough to kill people,
but they weren't virulent enough
to become a pandemic that the entire world
should be worried about.
I don't want you to worry about this virus.
I don't want you to panic about this virus.
But I do want you to be concerned.
I want you to be vigilant,
and I want you to be prepared.
At the end of this video, I'm gonna give you steps,
very easy, simple to implement steps that you can use
to protect yourself and your family.
Now first, I wanna give you a scenario,
an example of how you could become infected,
even though you feel like you're doing a lotta things right.
So let's say you're in a public place.
You maybe went to the store, you went to work,
and you come in contact with a person
who was infected two days ago.
They still have no symptoms, they have no fever.
They still feel fine.
They sneeze in your presence from dust
or from some pollen in the environment,
not from the coronavirus infection,
and you're standing five feet away from them.
You have just become infected
because some of the viral particles landed in your eye.
Maybe you were even wearing a mask
and thought you were protected,
but you weren't wearing wraparound protective glasses,
and therefore, it got in your eye.
You're now infected with the coronavirus.
Some of the saliva droplets landed on a door handle,
and two days later, someone else touches that door handle
to go to the restroom and then they touch their eye,
their nose, or their mouth.
They're now infected with this coronavirus,
even though they haven't been within 100 yards
of the infected person.
They touched a surface that had the coronavirus on it,
and as I said earlier, it'll live on surfaces like that
for up to five days.
So now you're infected with this novel coronavirus.
You get on a bus to head home.
Even though you feel great and you have no fever,
you infect multiple people on that bus ride home
because you coughed a little bit because you were drinking
something, you got a little choked.
The saliva droplets are spreading all over
this closed environment, and people who are not even
sitting near you can be infected.
And then the next load of people that get on the bus
will touch the seat where you were sitting.
They will also be infected,
even though they've never even met you.
Now you finally arrive home, you take off your mask,
you're still feeling fine, no fever, no symptoms,
and you proceed to infect your entire family,
even though you don't even know you have this virus yet.
Now that scenario sounds scary, but again,
I don't want you to be, I don't want you to panic,
I don't want you to be worried.
I want you to be concerned and vigilant,
and I want you to get prepared in case
this does become a very virulent coronavirus
that develops into a pandemic.
So now let's talk about what you should do
to prepare yourself and prepare your family
in case this does become a problem.
First and foremost is stay home.
Stay away from crowded areas.
Stay away from people in general.
Only stay around your immediate family.
This is the ultimate protection,
and this is something I feel like the specialists
that you're seeing on mainstream media right now,
they're just not talking about this.
If this does get worse, you need to stay home.
Number two, while you're at home, you need to discourage
and deny visitors.
As long as you keep your door closed
and there is no possible way that virus particles
riding on saliva or mucus, micro-particles can get
to your family, you guys are safe.
And so you can sit home and you can order DoorDash
and you can order stuff off Amazon
and not be compromised, as long as you're using
the universal precautions of wearing gloves,
wearing a mask, and wearing the wraparound eye goggles
any time you go outside your home.
Now let's say you have to go to work.
You're either your profession is something
that is vital to the proper function of society
or you just have no choice, you have to go outside
and you have to be around other people,
what should you do?
Number three, you absolutely should wear a mask,
but not just any mask will do.
You need an N95 or a K2 quality mask.
These are considered medical masks.
I put a link down in the show notes below
to a mask like this, not that you necessarily need
to buy that, but I want you to be aware
in case the World Health Organization
or the Centers for Disease Control do upgrade this
to pandemic status, you need to know which kind of mask
to wear because some don't really protect you at all.
Number four, you need wraparound safety glasses.
You see people in Asia wearing the masks,
and that's good, but if your eyes aren't protected,
your eyes are a mucus membrane and you can contract
this coronavirus just from a tiny invisible particle
of saliva that contains the virus landing
on your conjunctiva, or the surface of your eye.
And so wraparound glasses are a necessity
if you go in public.
Number five is some kind of latex-free
medical disposable glove.
You can buy these, they're very cheap.
You can buy 'em in bulk.
I put a link down for the glasses and the gloves down below
just in case.
But you absolutely should wear gloves
when you're in public because even if you're wearing
your glasses and your mask and you touch a surface
that has the coronavirus on it,
you're gonna take that back home on your hands.
And remember, it can live on the counter, door knob,
toilet seat, whatever for up to five days.
And so you definitely need to wear the gloves
when you're out in public and then take them off
before you go into your home.
Number five is to wash your hands very, very often
and definitely wash your hands with warm water and soap.
If you touch any surface out in public
or you come into contact with anyone who sneezes,
coughs, or is in any way in close proximity to you,
you don't know if they're infected or not.
They may be in the prodromal stage
that has no symptoms and no fever.
And then, also additionally,
don't trust antibacterial hand sanitizers.
Very often, these will kill bacteria,
but they don't kill all bacteria,
but many of them don't kill viruses at all.
And so you cannot trust them with your safety
in case this coronavirus becomes a pandemic.
Next is to try as much as is humanly possible
to avoid any crowds, any closed-in area,
any form of mass transit like planes, trains,
cars with if you're not the only occupant,
Ubers, anything like that where there's another human
with you in a closed space.
You can't tell if they're infected or not,
and so best to avoid that if at all possible.
Finally, you should avoid clinics and hospitals
unless you work there and your job is vital
to the public safety.
Or if you are a patient, you should only go to the clinics
and the hospitals if you have a life-threatening illness,
infection, or injury.
You don't wanna go, and here's why.
Say you start to come down with cold or flu-like symptoms.
Is it coronavirus or is it not?
You don't know because currently, there's no test
that can tell the difference.
Your doctor has no medicine that they can give you,
either in the clinic or the hospital,
to protect you or help you get better faster.
So what if you came down with just the regular cold virus
and then you go to the clinic or hospital
thinking it's the coronavirus.
You don't have that, but you catch it while you're there.
Also, the clinics and hospitals,
if this does develop into a pandemic status viral infection,
they're gonna be overrun with sick people.
And it's probably gonna take hours for you to be seen,
and they may not be able to help you anyway.
So only go to a healthcare provider is you have
a life-threatening injury, illness, or infection
that you just cannot treat at home.
Hopefully, this outbreak of this novel coronavirus
will be contained and will never develop pandemic status,
but again, I'm gonna say I don't want you to worry,
I don't want you to panic or freak out,
but I do want you to be knowledgeable.
I want you to be alert and vigilant,
and I want you to be prepared just in case
the worst happens.
Please share the information I've given you in this video
with everyone you care about.
Only by sharing this information will we possibly
be able to prevent this from becoming a pandemic
and prevent this from becoming a disaster for humanity.
Both the World Health Organization
and the Centers for Disease Control are very good
at managing these sorts of outbreaks,
these kind of infections, and this possible pandemic.
Watch their websites for future updates.
And this is what they were created for
is just this type of thing.
Now neither of these organizations is perfect,
but they are by far and away the best we've got
to combat such a novel coronavirus.
Please consider subscribing to this channel
for future updates.
I'm Dr. Berry, I'll see you next time.