Coronavirus Facts. Dr. Dean Blumberg Talks to Armstrong & Getty

how are you, sir? Good? How are you excellent? We're grateful that you took a little time to come on today. We have all sorts of questions, but as long as you're the chief of pediatric diseases, do you have any idea to APPI deemeologists have any idea why children, thank god, seemed to not be as affected as adults by the coronavirus. Well, we're not sure, but we're familiar with other infections that behave similarly, like hepatitis A or West Nile virus or

even mononucleosis. Children seem to be affected very mildly or often asymptomatic with those infections, and it's really older individuals who are hit much harder. Yeah, as a parent a couple of young kids, that does lower the crisis level on this thing for me, right, absolutely. Well, you know, we're also worried about so many things, but it is one less thing to worry about. Well, listen, I took

just enough microbio to be dangerous. But is it something to do with their immune systems or their lung function or what? Do you have any idea? Yeah, I think it's it's probably both of those. It's probably that their lungs are healthy and their immune systems. Either their immune systems are stronger and they're able to fight this off better. Or it's also possible that they haven't had um much experience with similar viruses, so their immune systems haven't been

primed um yet and so they fight off the virus differently. Interesting. That is interesting. Yeah, and I'm hoping science leaps ahead as they figure these things out. It's like my kids, because they've got so many other colds and flues currently, there's not room for another one. There you go. Yeah, yeah, So let's talk about vaccines briefly. I think we've all heard that it will take at least a year to get a vaccine going, why does it take that long? Well,

we don't have any coronavirus vaccines. It's different with influenza. So on two thousand nine, when we had H one N one, we know how to make influenza vaccines, and we could just plug that one into the pipeline. We knew we'd have a vaccine within three to six months. But we don't have a pipeline for coronavirus vaccines um, and so we really have to start from scratch. Is there a particular number that makes sense for these gatherings?

Because there are states, county cities, whatever has said no people, no, no gatherings over thousands, Some people say no gatherings over five, some people say no gatherings over to fifty. Does that make sense to you, because it seems like to me, if you've got forty people in a room close together, that's a problem. Also, absolutely, Yeah, these numbers are arbitrary.

Um you know that. Yeah, yeah, but obviously you know, it just depends on your threshold, and so it depends how worried public officials are and the penetration of the virus in the community. So, for example, we know that that California, Washington, and New York are real hotspots right now, um from the testing, although we don't know other places that are affected in the US because there really hasn't been that much testing. Do we know why the normal

flu tends to go away every spring? It has to do with temperature and humidity, and it also has to do with social um interactions, so that people get outside more, they're less crowded inside. And so we're hoping that coronavirus just naturally dies down as the weather warms up. But we don't know if that's going to happen. And I'll go back again to influenza H one and one in two thousand nine. Remember that one started in the spring and in the summer we it really ramped up and

we had increased transmission. So we're not sure that coronavirus is going to go away in the summer. And at helping I was rooting for that and that killed how many people? The number I saw the number an earlier day. It was a ton of people. And it didn't get near the attention. This is no, it didn't, But um, you know, I think that's because we thought we had more control over it because we did expect a vaccine and we have anti virals available for influenza, and we

don't have anything available for this right now. Dr Dean Bloomberg is the Chief Pediatric Diseases at the u C. Davis Children's Hospital, also head of Infection Control at Shriner's Hospital for Children in Northern California. And and by the way, just as an a side, if you don't support the Shriners Hospitals, I'm talking to the audience there. They do miraculous work. It's really a wonderful organization. But um, you mentioned that it's possible that the sunlight and humidity and

humidity will help kill off the virus. That study that got so much attention that the virus can live for three days on stainless steel and the rest of it. I've heard medical authorities saying, look, that's in a lab condition. In the real world, that probably won't last nearly that long. But what's your take on that The vast majority of transmission occurs via the respiratory route, so coughing and sneezing

and being close to somebody who's symptomatic. Yes, the virus can survive on surfaces, but we don't even know it what concentration on the surface that it's going to be infectious, So that plays a very small role. That's that's really interesting because there's so much focus on wiping down door handles and all that sort of stuff. But you're saying, the most likely way I'm going to get it is being in a room or so many coughs and I

breathe it in. Yeah, within six feet of somebody, because those respiratory droplets are pretty big and so gravity takes over and then they end up falling to the ground. I'm happy they stay six ft away from everyone. These are high times from missing throws. Those pictures that you see of people like in in those biohazard suits that are spraying spraying down outdoor areas, I think that's men

to inspire confidence than than actually do anything interesting. And if that works economically speaking, is probably worth the effort. But so doesn't a side doctor. Does it make you insane? Taking in medical news in the mainstream media, Well, you know, I get a lot of news in the mainstream media that from the medical things because a lot of things are slow to come out in the medical um in the medical literature. But still the half wits on table news.

Let's be honest with each other. I gotta think of the stuff you see on TV, for instance, you think that's not right, that's not close to right, that's half right. Well, I don't know, seems like a bit much, but yeah, I mean talk radio we exaggerate everything speaking of it. Dr Dean Blomberg is the chief of pediatric diseases that you see Davis Children's Home. But my final question is is there something, as an expert, like, is there a line that would get crossed where you'd think, oh, this

is even bigger than we thought. Is there something like that or is it already happened. I think it's already happened. And the balance is that we're all susceptible to this virus because nobody has ever had this before. Nobody's ever and exposed to it before, so we could all get it and that's the scary part. And on the other hand, the vast majority of people who get it are going to have mild disease, So you know, the panic is

somewhere in between those two. But the point is, and this probably bears repeating, for people like ourselves who tend to be a little more skeptical, a little more cynical, not easily frightened. The point is we need to keep the total number of cases low enough that the severe cases don't overwhelm our our unit units, in our our

supply ventilators. Correct. Yeah, absolutely so. You might have heard of the flattening of the curve, and the idea is that we don't want everybody to get sick all at once. We know cases are going to increase in the coming weeks, but if they increase, for it, really rapidly, then this could overwhelm the healthcare system. And remember, healthcare workers are part of the community too, and they could get affected. And if they're affected, then there's even less healthcare workers

to take care of sick people. Well said Dr Dean Bloomberg. We appreciate your time very much. Excellent job. I hope we can stay in touch. That'd be great. Thank you. Thanks well done, Armstrong and Jetty