Olney Enterprise Round-table with Dr. Jeremy Johnson: COVID-19 Coronavirus

The Coronavirus, or COVID-19, has reached the United States and is expected to spread.

If we watch Italy, we know that social distancing is our only hope of stopping this virus from overwhelming hospitals and medical staff personnel.

When this virus affects someone in a serious way, they often require ventilators. If we don’t slow down the spread of this virus, there won’t be enough ventilators or hospital beds to treat those most critical patients.

Please take this warning seriously and wash your hands, stay away from crowds. The virus can spread from touching, through your nose and mouth, or through your eyes. It spreads from shared airspace as well.

Be careful and if you are sick, please stay home. If you are able to work from home, do so. Wash your hands after getting gas for your car too. Wash after using credit card or debit card machines.

Try to avoid touching your face. If we all take this seriously and do our part, the impact on our country may be much less than anticipated.

According to the CDC, ....the virus doubles in the number of cases every four days, so while the number of cases seems low currently, this will add up to millions infected with the virus in the United States.

According to public health scientist and infectious disease expert Michael Osterholm, it is predicted that this virus will conservatively infect over 96 million Americans in the course of the next three to seven months.

Dr. Jeremy Johnson gave us some very impactful and productive insight, explaining to us that we need to take this very seriously going forward. The coronavirus is now considered to be 10 to 15 times more contagious than the flu, which Dr. Johnson was able to elaborate on, as well as how this will impact Young County going forward and expressing how this will reach Young County in due time.

“I think this is a virus that we will develop immunity to,” Dr. Johnson said of the virus potentially being in Young County. “I do not know if the virus has reached Young County yet but I do think it will. If you are sick and have been exposed in a certain area, I do think it is best to do maybe 14 days of self- isolation like they are recommending for other people that have been exposed to COVID-19. So I do think that this will reach Young County but I do not think it will have a devastating of here because we are more rural and things don’t spread as easily around here. Make yourself educated on the CDC web sites and it will be okay.“

You may refer to the full interview by visiting www.Facebook.com/OlneyEnterprise.