United States Surgeon General Dr. Jerome Adams joined Bo Thompson Friday on WBT's Morning News with an update on the COVID-19 pandemic in America.
In an NBC interview this past Monday, Dr. Adams said "this week it's going to get bad."
When asked about that prediction, he replied, "The curve is going to look different in different places. It got really bad in New York. We know that other places that have taken it seriously have been able to slow their spread across the county. 19 of our 50 states have very low spread."
The Surgeon General went on to predict that "places like Detroit, Chicago, and New Orleans are due for a 'New York type week' next week."
Thompson asked Dr. Adams about the "15 Days To Slow The Spread" guidelines that were introduced on March 16th.
Dr. Adams said "We don't make the timeline, the virus in the local community makes the timeline."
"It doesn't matter if the President said Easter, Labor Day, or Memorial Day, the important message here is the sooner we take these guidelines seriously, the sooner we are going to get to the other side and open the country, and fewer people are going to die."
Now that we are hearing of patients who have fully recovered from the virus, are people likely to contract it again? “We’re learning every day. We still don’t know. Based on looking at the data in China and Italy, we aren’t seeing massive numbers of re-infection… We are hopeful that we can get through this and that people will develop some sense of immunity."
Surgeon General Adams went on to describe a 3-phase plan to combat the spread of Covid-19 and offered some information that should be cause for optimism.
1) One year out: Make sure we have vaccines in case this virus is seasonal.
2) Six months out: Focus on certain medicines to make available to people who get sick.
3) Immediately: Good hand hygiene, avoiding groups larger than 10, adhere to guidelines like those set forth in Mecklenburg County.
Finally, at a time when there are so many dire statistics, Thompson asked for one reason why the Surgeon General believes Americans should be optimistic right now.
"China and South Korea did the things that Mecklenburg (County) is doing, and they're re-opening," said Dr. Adams. "And they had a course of about 6-8 weeks... New York and Washington, the hardest hit places in the United States, are actually leveling off. So, we know that if you do these things, you can actually shorten the course of the disease and you can prevent your healthcare systems from being overwhelmed and you can can lower the number of deaths.
"There is a light at the end of the tunnel if we do the right things at a community level."