CNN’s town hall on the coronavirus, addressing facts, fears, and medical guidance, has now finished. Here’s what was discussed:
Vaccine trials: CNN medical analyst Dr. Celine Gounder, a clinical assistant professor of infectious diseases, said it is just the “very beginning” of a long process of research and studies.
Reinfection: Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said while “there is no design study that has proven that you are ‘protected'” from getting reinfected, “projecting what we know about viruses, I would say that there is a very good chance that you’re protected.”
Young people need to take pandemic seriously: “We are getting more and more information that someone can transmit even when they are asymptomatic. So in order to protect oneself, society and particularly the vulnerable people, we’ve really got to adhere to the physical separation,” said Fauci.
Increased contact tracing can help save lives: Mike Ryan, director of the World Health Organization’s Health Emergencies Program said that, “it is possible to do contact tracing even under the most difficult circumstances, but it does require a real scale-up in public health capacity.”
Assessing your own mental health: Psychologist and author Dr. Gretchen Schmelzer likened the public’s response to the coronavirus to the stages of grief, and encouraged people to find “coping strategies” to keep their stress levels down.
