Dr. Rochelle Feldman, a pediatrician in Santa Clarita, recently appeared on KHTS Radio to discuss the coronavirus as KHTS Owners Carl Goldman and Jeri Seratti-Goldman continue to be quarantined following a cruise in Asia.
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After thousands of passengers aboard the Diamond Princess cruise ship were quarantined in their cabins for about two weeks, Goldman ran a fever during the return trip to the United States and tested positive immediately afterward. Seratti-Goldman is still negative for the disease, and both remain quarantined separately at a medical center in Omaha, Nebraska.
“The purpose of my discussion today is to give people some perspective,” Feldman said. “(Quarantine) has a long history in the United States. In my mother’s day, … there were quarantines all over the place.”
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Feldman continued that in those days, anyone with a highly contagious illness was isolated in their home, along with the other members of their household, so the disease was not spread in the community.
“It still works, except that these days, the people that are quarantined are actually cared for, and that’s the big difference — they actually do receive medical care,” Feldman explained. “But we are now sophisticated enough to know how these diseases are transmitted.”
Diseases are typically transmitted through the four “F”s: food, feces, fingers and fomites, with fomites being “non-living substances” such as kitchen counters and children’s toys, according to Feldman.
With the coronavirus, or COVID-19, medical experts have determined that it can be transmitted by contact with an infected person, but it remains to be seen if this is the only way it spreads, Feldman added.
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“In other words, if a person with COVID-19 sprays with a cough or sneeze onto your face, then you are at risk,” she said. “The other question is whether or not fomites can do this, and that question has not yet been answered.”
Currently, those who have been exposed to the corona virus must complete a 14-day quarantine with regular negative test results in order to be released. Those who test positive for COVID-19 during their quarantine will be re-tested after they stop showing symptoms, and require two negative tests over a designated period of time in order to be released, according to Goldman.
When asked if she believes that the coronavirus can no longer be spread following these quarantines, Feldman responded, “I believe that’s the case, and I don’t think the CDC would take any kind of risk whatsoever in letting them go, but again, since this is a newer virus, we don’t know.”
With that being said, Feldman added that despite what she called the “hoopla” surrounding the coronavirus, there is something she wants the community to know.
“The truth of the matter is, the mortality rate, meaning the number of people who died from it, the hospitalization rate and the attack rate, and the numbers involved are less than a tenth what they are for influenza, which we have all over the place here,” she said. “Many more people die from influenza, many more people get influenza, many more people are hospitalized from influenza by tens than have COVID-19.”
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