the corona virus pandemic where new life
as we know it to a near grinding halt in
the US cases and deaths on the rise as
federal and local governments shut down
schools restaurants and entertainment
venues one New Jersey town asking every
one of its 41,000 citizens to self
quarantine after a new cluster of cases
is discovered we will only get through
this if we depend on one another and we
take care of one another and we look out
for meanwhile the White House Task Force
warning it could be months before life
returns to normal as I've said many
times and I repeated the worst is yes
ahead for us the CDC also recommending
no gatherings of more than 50 people
take place for the next eight weeks but
the president is trying to call the
nation on edge relax
they're doing great it all will pass
however the unprecedented situation
leaving Americans with so many questions
this hour our medical experts will
answer yours
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welcome to our live special corona virus
pandemic questions answered i'm harris
faulkner we're going to get to your
concerns coming up we want to begin
though with more on where the situation
stands right now corona virus cases have
spiked all around the globe the entire
country of Spain is on lockdown with the
fourth highest number of cases now
surpassing South Korea there are more
than 160 4000 confirmed cases nation
knate worldwide I should say with more
than 6,000 deaths and here in the United
States more than 3,700 confirmed
coronavirus cases with at least 68
deaths
officials are taking drastic measures
now to try to contain the pandemic one
of those steps is affecting millions of
our children and so many families across
the country at least 64 thousand schools
are closed today
across America including the two largest
school districts New York City and Los
Angeles New York City Mayor Bill de
Blasio says the closure may last until
the end of the school year to say the
least this is a very a very troubling
moment a moment where I am just
distraught at having to take this action
but I became convinced over the course
of today there was no other choice we
may not have the opportunity to reopen
reopen them in this full school year all
right let's get right to it talk about
the questions dr. sapphire I seen you
sticking your mic on yes dr. mark Siegel
professor of medicine at NYU Langone
Medical Center dr. Nicole sapphire
board-certified physician great to see
you dr. Siegel I'm going to start with
you with what I'm seeing is the leading
question all over social media that I
was manning this weekend or womaning I
guess we could say and and that is has
the virus mutated to the point where it
is more destructive to the body than
ever we're seeing a few things happen
more deaths that sort of thing in the
it states and age groups are changing
we'll get to more of that in a minute
but just your first thought on it that's
a really important question but you
first need to know that this is an
unstable virus it's a single strand of
genetic material it doesn't repair
itself and it can change but usually it
drifts meaning that it changes slightly
and that's what we saw back in China we
saw two slight variations of different
strains not even that different I would
not really be willing to believe that at
this point it's mutated in any large way
I just think we're seeing a different
spread of cases because it's a different
environment or maybe we didn't have the
full information from China I think what
we're seeing is pretty consistent though
with what we saw there which is a very
contagious virus that can also be pretty
deadly that affects people with a
certain kind of pneumonia and then
people with severe underlying conditions
that hasn't changed I'm not surprised
that we're seeing more patients that are
a little bit younger I don't think it
shows that it's mutated to Harrison oh
oh that's interesting so what you're
also pointing to is the fact that that
necessary information in the beginning
for China from China was something we
didn't get I was reading an article over
the weekend about how Taiwan was able to
very early on
send scientists in and and they said
admittedly we don't have the best
relationship with China but we had
people who were succumbing they let us
in for for just what they would let us
see and that was enough to determine
kind of where we were going they've been
able to contain it pretty quickly in
Taiwan dr. Siegel yes and and and won
Taiwan and in Hong Kong and in Singapore
and also South Korea we've been using as
a model of this the other thing that
they did in China finally and the
problem with China was more the
political structure than the scientists
but they actually published the
structure of this virus online so
everybody could look at it so I'm pretty
confident that our scientists here that
are continuing to look at it under the
electron microscope and its structure
would let us know if there was anything
like a major change all right before we
broaden this out doc Siegel I'm gonna
stay with you with another question this
from Dan Walsh and I kind of used that
first question as an amalgam of all the
ones I'd heard this more specifically if
you do contract the virus at what point
is the virus not transmissible from the
infected patient
well that's a really important question
the answer is we don't know that but
it's important to know that viruses are
transmissible before you get sick but
most of the transmissibility occurs when
you are sick and then for a few days or
so even several days afterwards they do
what's called shedding you continue to
shed virus but you know I can't give an
exact timeframe it depends on the
patient but I'd say for several days
after oK you've recovered so you and I
have talked and I should say my
follow-up question to this is reflection
of what we talked about what you and I
have talked about is the fact that you
might think you're testing positive if
they check you a couple weeks later but
you said that this lives for a while and
the body particularly the stool
yeah then actually dr. Sapphira said the
same thing that it's found both in the
respiratory tract and in the stool and
and there's even some chance that it
spreads that way both ways and you know
the tests we're doing is a very good
test for it but it can continue to be
positive for a while and it the fact
that it's still positive doesn't
necessarily mean you're not over it you
may be over it can you still give it to
somebody else yes but you could yes but
as you get better the chances of you
giving it to someone else diminishes
with each day dr. sapphire sara.a asks
best-case scenario if people do what
we're supposed to do when is the corona
virus outbreak predicted to end when can
we live normally that's an excellent
question and one that we don't
necessarily have answers to but the more
strict we are right now the shorter
we're going to have this disruption to
our daily life so as we keep seeing the
school shutdowns the bar the restaurants
these curfews I think now that they're
being strict and we're increasing our
testing it's going to shorten our time I
would imagine probably the next four to
six weeks we're gonna be kind of going
back to normal life hopefully even
shorter than that I really hope it's not
gonna be longer than that but I would
say about four to six weeks I follow you
up on Twitter and I saw you dr. sapphire
saying look the longer that cuz you know
people were posting their spring break
pictures and there were literally
hundreds and thousands of people out and
about in certain parts of the country
breaking and what you said was well
the longer it looks like this the longer
we're gonna look like this like you know
sequestered basically that's wrong all
right Elizabeth H if one spouse or
person in my family tests positive to
coronavirus do they need to distance
themselves from the rest of the family
ie sleep in another room use a different
bathroom etc so for Sapphire what we're
all doing right now is we're kind of
isolating ourselves but we're not
actually in isolation the people who
test positive for or in quarantine but
the people that test positive actually
now need to be isolated from everyone in
the house so you go from kind of the
self quarantine to an actual isolation
they should absolutely be in their own
bedroom use their own bathroom when it
comes to eating they should not be
joining the rest of the family you can
actually bring them food on a tray let
them take the tray eat it put it back
out and then you have to clean that
because we don't we don't necessarily
want hurt immunity to be taking place in
the house just because one person has it
we would still like to avoid everyone
getting it interesting and as dr. Siegel
pointed out we think we know a lot about
it but we don't know everything and so
to let everybody get it just as a way to
fight it might not be the best course
you might want to call Great Britain
because we're seeing some things
reported from there I'm sure both
doctors are following it that they're
talking about that sort of thing I'm
going to bring you both back we're gonna
take a quick break the Trump
administration is ramping up its
response to the corona virus pandemic
how soon we should expect to see 2
million high speed tests as offer
officials offer details on who gets top
priority for testing that plus the
answers to more of your questions from
our all-star medical panel stay close
number one we want to assure that those
most vulnerable and those impacted are
able to be prioritized number two we
don't want to do testing that in any way
threatens the acute care system
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