Dr. Megan Ranney spent last week testifying about the coronavirus before Congress.
After Ranney took to Twitter on Sunday with a series of posts on the topic that many found extremely helpful and informative, CNN interviewed the emergency physician and Brown University associate professor of emergency medicine.
Here some points she shared with CNN about what we know about Covid-19. The following interview, conducted via Twitter, has been lightly edited. You can read more of the interview here.
Q: We know the genome of the virus. Why is that important?
A: Because it helps us to (a) identify if/when it mutates, (b) track its spread (c) identify treatments and vaccines (because we focus in on specific targets on the virus.)
Q: You mentioned in your Twitter thread that we know how to fight this. If we get more testing, do contact tracing better which isolates and identifies exposed and sick people, and get better PPE, we don’t have to social distance as much. Why is that?
A: We have to social distance in order to prevent transmission. We currently try to social distance from *almost everyone* because we don’t know who might be infectious. But if we know exactly who is sick, and if those people stay isolated from others, then the rest of us can go about our business without worrying.
Q: Do we know that people out in parks/at the beach are safe from getting the virus? People that aren’t wearing masks at the beach but that may be social distancing, they are okay and not in a high risk situation?
A: Re: being at parks/at the beach — there’s a gradient of risk. Being outdoors is lower risk than being indoors, because the virus dissipates. It’s *possible* to get infected if you’re downwind from someone who’s sick, but it’s unlikely. (I’ll go back to my analogy above about a strong smell. If you’re on the beach, and someone sprays a perfume, you won’t smell it at all, or might smell it for a very little period of time. If you’re in a closed room, though, you’ll smell it for a while).
Q: So if we know who is sick, and they aren’t in the general population/interacting with others, we can relax social distancing … close families/friend groups can gather, within reason?
A: Correct! BUT it’s important to also have random testing of asymptomatic people — because (a) people can be infectious before they have symptoms, and (b) current data suggests that 1/3 of people don’t ever get symptoms (but may still be infectious)
Q: And we know what constitutes “high-risk” exposure.
A: High-risk exposure = inside, close together. The longer you’re close to someone who’s sick, the higher the chances of your getting infected. We can’t yet say “2 feet” or “6 feet” or “12 feet” is adequate inside — current recommendations are 6 feet but there’s debate about that.
Q: But how do we prevent high-risk exposures from careless people? Or people that just don’t know they have it?
A: Great question re. careless people. This is where consistent, high quality public health messaging is important. We need to (1) make it easy for people to stay home if they’re sick (make sure they have food, make sure they have sick leave, etc), (2) create NORMS that they will stay home (e.g., people feel that they’re *expected* by their friends and family to stay home.)
Some may also add (3) enforce isolation by checking on people daily, and maybe even having fines if they break isolation. This is more extreme but is sometimes needed.
