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Health officials have confirmed six deaths and more than 90
cases in the U.S. resulting from the coronavirus at the time
of writing this article. Many thousands more have died or
contacted the disease globally as the illness, also known as
COVID 19, currently spreads faster outside than inside of
China, where it originated.
Sadly, the illness thrives at a time when our nation is, in
the words of author Tom Nichols, “a country obsessed with
the worship of its own ignorance.”
Indeed, diseases thought to be nearly wiped out such as
measles are experiencing a dramatic resurgence due to an
uninformed public and the intentional spread of
misinformation over the internet, a medium where most people
“can’t tell the difference between truth and falsehood.”
However, “only intelligent, qualified, reasonable,
compassionate people who trust science and want to protect
human beings can help at times like these,” says author John
Pavlovitz.
It is a time when misinformation is, perhaps, the biggest
threat to our national security. It is also a time when
science represents our best hope in the struggle against
misinformation in our nation’s era of declining physical and
intellectual health.
What does science say about the coronavirus?
That is the question I posed to Commissioner Eric Zgodzinski
of the Toledo-Lucas County Health Department. Our discussion
follows.
Perryman:
What is the coronavirus?
Zgodzinski:
Well, the coronavirus is a family of viruses. Fifteen to 20
percent of the common cold are actually caused by a
coronavirus. However, the coronavirus that’s circulating the
world right now is called a novel coronavirus and that means
that it’s new, we’ve never seen this one before; its
structure is different, its epidemiology might be a little
bit different too. So, this is called now COVID-19, the
coronavirus, which originated in China in December of 2019
and has a mortality rate of a little bit over two percent.
Perryman:
What do we know and what don’t we know?
Zgodzinski:
They started seeing unusual or unique pneumonia cases in
China, and it progressed to where 78,000–79,000 individuals
there have been seen as coronavirus patients. Over the last
couple weeks, it has come out of China, and you’re seeing it
now in Japan, in South Korea, Iran, and Italy. You’re
starting to see it move into the European theatre. We
haven’t too much of a concern in the United States, until
the other day when it appears that we’ve seen now a
community spread issue here. What does that mean? It means
that we can’t link this patient to somebody who’s traveled
and/or to travel itself. So, when that starts to happen, we
start to say okay, what’s going on? How many other people
could be infected or will be infected? So that’s the
concern that we have right now.
Perryman:
What are the current concerns in Lucas County?
Zgodzinski:
Here in Lucas County or Ohio, we have no concerns with
coronavirus at this point. But that doesn’t mean that won’t
change eventually. As we start progressing through all these
issues that we’re seeing right now - the virus spreading to
other countries and community spreading in the United States
- we’re starting to get a better idea of what’s going to
happen here. The biggest takeaway right now is we are still
concerned with flu season because every flu season does kill
individuals. But the issue now is that we probably should
take time to make sure that we’re prepared.
Perryman:
What does “prepared” really mean?
Zgodzinski:
Preparing for this is much like we do for flu season. You
need to keep yourself healthy, and you need to keep your
hands washed. Did I mention you need to keep your hands
washed? Oh, and can you keep your hands washed?
Seriously, that’s my mantra is that the more that we can
wash our hands then the less likely we are to infect
ourselves. We’re always touching our face, our mouth, we
feed ourselves, we’re wiping our nose and so we have the
ability to take the coronavirus and get it into our
systems.
That’s the message that we’re trying to send out now is to
stay calm, make sure that you stay informed and stay
healthy, and listen to kind of what’s going on, and we’re
going to make it through this. We’re not seeing a high
mortality rate for coronavirus. It’s probably around what
the flu is – two to three percent.
Perryman:
Who are the most vulnerable?
Zgodzinski:
If we can verify that what we’ve seen in China is accurate
and, if that’s the case, then it is older individuals that
are probably immunocompromised or have other existing health
challenges. It doesn’t appear to be children, although that
could change. Because again, it’s not like the flu or cold
virus; it’s not like the measles where we’ve had science
behind it for a long time because we’ve seen those viruses
or issues. Here we don’t know, but at this point it appears
to be adults and probably older adults.
Perryman:
Okay, you talked a little bit about unknowns that we know
about. Can you also describe what might constitute possible
unknown unknowns?
Zgodzinski:
So, people could be exposed, and within two to 14 days you
show signs/symptoms of the disease and/or test positive for
the virus. The concern that we have is that you can be
asymptomatic with this. In other words, so you’re exposed,
your body is replicating the virus, and you or I can be
walking around not having any symptoms of fever, shortness
of breath, or other manifestations of the disease be
actually infecting other individuals, while not aware that
I’m even sick. So that’s the concern that we have is, how
much of a virus load is needed, asymptomatic individuals.
Also, we know of other matters such as respiratory concerns.
So, I as a first responder know that if I wear my N-95
Particulate Respirator mask, my eye shield, I’ve gowned up
and gloved up, I do all the things I need to protect myself
properly, then there’s a very low chance of coming into
infection with that. Again, first responders, nurses and
doctors, do this all the time and so it’s no different than
another virus that they prepare for. Now the problem is
that “everybody” wants to wear a mask, that’s probably not a
good idea.
Perryman:
Why is wearing a mask not a good thing if you are other than
a first responder?
Zgodzinski:
First off, the surgical masks do nothing to protect you.
They actually catch your saliva or respiratory secretions
and doesn’t allow them to travel from you to somebody else.
Hence, it’s a barrier, but if you ever notice the surgical
mask, there are little holes by your nose, it doesn’t fit
tight around your mouth.
First responders wear a mask that seals around the face, the
nose and the mouth. That limits their ability to take in the
virus because it’s stopped at the facemask. It actually
kills about 95% of those particulates. The problem is you
have to put them on right and you have to take them off
right.
Again, if you think about that, think about your strainer at
home, and you’re trying to strain out something powdery,
eventually, the holes clog up, and then you have to shake it
out. It’s the same thing here. So those viruses start to
clog up that mask, and now you have all that virus there,
and if you don’t take it off properly, you can actually have
more of a chance of infecting yourself than if you were not
wearing the mask. So, there are a lot of misconceptions
about mask use.
Perryman:
What happens in a worst-case scenario?
Zgodzinski:
Worst case scenario is kind of what we were planning for
H1-N1. If you remember back in 2009, we started talking
about social distancing. What is social distancing? To
reduce the risk of somebody catching the disease and/or
spreading it, I limit those individuals that are onsite.
Now, here at the health department I have enough office
space where Jimmy has his own space, as Joey does his own
space, and Sally has her own space. Still, I want to stagger
the times that those people are here, so they don’t come in
contact with each other, so that’s social distancing.
The other thing though too, is that yes, if we get to a
point where, and I can’t give you a number, but at some
determined trigger point, I’m just gonna say, alright, now
what we have to do is we have to stop athletic events,
concerts, ask the churches to not convene for a couple weeks
and recommend that churches go online or televise their
services through the web. Schools would be closed,
businesses would…again, there are some businesses such as
grocery stores that they just can’t close because they are
essential. How do we still have a place to work and be able
to check people out at the counter because they need a
gallon of milk.
So, those are all real-world concerns that could happen in a
worst-case scenario. Schools probably will be closed
because, again, kids might not be getting sick, but they
could be virus carriers so, again, we don’t want this thing
to spread any more than it has to or at least try to slow
that down. Those are just hypotheticals so they might
change a little bit.
Perryman:
Is there anything positive in all of this?
Zgodzinski:
There are a couple of things on a positive note. One, this
community has gone through other events like what we could
encounter with the coronavirus. Like the water crisis, we
got through that because we were prepared. It was something
that we didn’t really train for, but we took a plan that we
already had, changed them around a little bit and said okay,
we need to respond to that.
With the H1-N1, we were looking to do the same thing. We
got the vaccines in, and we gave over 70,000 vaccines in
that timeframe. So, we’ve experienced these things before
and the big thing is that this community’s first responders,
hospitals, schools and others have already been talking
about this since about the middle of January. We’ve all been
looking at plans and what do we need to do, but now it’s
time to say okay, what do we need to get out there relative
to making sure that everybody else is prepared.
We all should prepare for any type of event like this, and
again, it’s one of those things where the best prevention
for this is the things that we’re already doing for flu.
Wash your hands, wash your hands, wash your hands, and then
make sure you’re healthy.
Perryman:
Some would say that our information ecosystem, specifically
social media, is broken. So, the last thing I think it’s
important to emphasize is that the coronavirus is real. It
is not a human-made conspiracy theory intended to misinform
or make money on vaccines.
Zgodzinski:
No, this is actually happening and definitely an issue.
Again, this type of thing has happened throughout the ages.
If you look at the pandemic flu of 1918, that started the
year before, actually was very low in numbers, then the next
year, it hit the entire world very hard. We can go through
other disease outbreaks throughout the ages. The reason why
we don’t have some of these other outbreaks anymore is
because of our vaccinations, measles, mumps, rubella,
smallpox have all been eradicated. So, you’re not hearing
about these large outbreaks anymore, so that’s good, but
we’re always going to have these viruses that are always
changing. We’ve seen little pandemics here and there, but
again, it’s our job here in this community to make sure that
we’re continually looking for ways to respond to issues like
this.
If you want more information, visit the Toledo Lucas County
Health Department’s web page. It’ll take you to the CDC and
other resources. We have a ton of stuff up there.
Perryman:
Thank you.
Contact Rev. Donald Perryman, D.Min, at
drdlperryman@centerofhopebaptist.org
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