--:-- [Sound of a podcast intro fades out]
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Support for Today Explained comes from the FIFA World Cup, of all things. The FIFA World Cup 26 is coming to North America next summer. It is the ultimate celebration of sports and culture. You can get closer to the beautiful game with a hospitality package, closer to the action, the best seats, the best suites, closer to match day and that world-class food and that world-class entertainment, closer to the experience of a lifetime. Book a hospitality package at fifaworldcup.com slash hospitality. And listen to The Guardian for free at theguardian.com.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Hello, this is Carl. Hey Carl, this is Sean calling from Today Explained. Hi. Carl, where are you right now?
--:-- Carl Goldman: I am in a quarantine facility at Nebraska Medicine in Omaha.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I do have the coronavirus. I've tested positive for it. I've now been in this facility for 16 days, and last test came out positive, so I still have the virus. It's 98.7.
--:-- Carl Goldman: That was my temperature.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: No fever. That doesn't sound terrible. I'm sorry, what?
--:-- Carl Goldman: Nope, none. Just the cough. Excuse me.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: On the what? Oh. Oh, cough? My cough's probably a two on a one to five. It gets worse in the afternoon. There you go. You heard that real time.
--:-- Carl Goldman: Carl, tell me how this story starts. Where did this journey begin for you?
--:-- Carl Goldman: For Christmas and my wife's birthday, which falls right around Christmas, I gave her a present of a trip to Southeast Asia cruise on Princess Cruises, the now infamous Diamond Princess. We went with two of our close friends and headed for Tokyo on January 17th. Three days later, we boarded the Diamond Princess. We had a wonderful 15-day of our 16-day cruise through Southeast Asia. On the last day, the captain announced that a passenger had left the ship in Hong Kong about four days earlier, and he had come down with the coronavirus. So we were going to race back to Yokohama Harbor in Japan and allow the Japanese authorities to come on board and see what would be decided. But we were going to be delayed and not able to leave the ship for 24 hours.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: What was it like on the ship once people found out that there was this new virus that the world had never heard of? Did it, I mean, you're talking about being on a joyous holiday vacation. How much did it change the mood on the ship?
--:-- Carl Goldman: I think all of us kind of resigned ourselves and said, OK, it's one day. Japanese health officials had come on board. They took everybody's temperature. That was about an 18-hour process. us. They then told us when we woke up the next day, the captain announced that we were not going to be able to leave the ship the next day. And we were now quarantined in our cabins for 14 days.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Wow. But it still was a remote thing. A little later, we learned that 10 people had come out positive with the coronavirus on our ship. And that was the start of became, we call it the daily count, the Grim Reaper, the captain coming on the speaker every day and announcing more and more had the virus.
--:-- Carl Goldman: As of today, there are well over 700 of the crew and passengers who have come down with the virus. And we've now had a total of six deaths from the virus on the ship, which also is very, very sad.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: But of course, you're not on the ship anymore. Were you part of the like U.S. medevac that we read about in the newspapers and online where Americans who had the virus or who were just on the ship got to leave?
--:-- Carl Goldman: Yeah, so I was in the epicenter of that. 300 of us chose to leave when the State Department and the U.S. Embassy suggested we leave. We were taking my bus over to an airport in Tokyo that had two 747 military cargo planes standing by. While we were on the bus, authorities learned that some people had the virus. I had been tested two days earlier for the virus, but did not get the results. So I was not one of the group that tested positive while we were on the bus. So I did not know I had the virus. Boarded the plane six hours later. It had already been an all-nighter for all of us. I woke up two hours later with a very, very high fever, 103. So they placed me inside a quarantined area on the plane. I fell asleep and woke up eight hours later when we landed at Travis Air Force Base.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: What happened to you next?
--:-- Carl Goldman: Six of us continued on the flight to Omaha. When we got to Omaha, I was taken off the plane, put in an ambulance, took me to a biocontainment area at the hospital, and then put me in a room that was sealed off So I was contained in there for 12 days Anyone who entered my room came in in full hazmat gear three layers of gloves
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: On the 12th day I was healthy enough to be downgraded and released into an area where there are 15 of us, 13 have the virus, and two have been released. One is my wife, so that's wonderful. She never had the virus, came out negative with that.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I guess something I'm curious about, Carl, is how does it feel to have coronavirus? How are you? What's weird about this virus is a lot of symptoms are like a mild cold for me without any of the drippy nose, no sneezing, no body aches. It was simply a very, very high fever that spiked for about 10 hours, disappeared, came back as a low-grade fever about two days later. And other than that, and then being dehydrated a bit from the fever, I do not have any symptoms of the virus, even though I'm still testing positive.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So those germs are still in there, and I'm still contagious. I'm not going to be allowed out of here until authorities are sure that I'm not going to be contagious. And what's life like now in this facility? How much time do you have to be there? How does this story end for you?
--:-- Carl Goldman: Well, it will end when I eventually go home after testing negative for three days. So you can just flush coronavirus out of your system?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Yeah, the coronavirus, like the flu or like any other virus, eventually leaves the system. And my body's immune system fights off the virus and eventually it will get killed off.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I just wonder, do you think the world is prepared for this from your experience? Or do you think, you know, we're on the verge of a full-blown catastrophe?
--:-- Carl Goldman: Well, it already is a catastrophe because there are deaths that have happened from this. And there's so much that's unknown about the virus. When I was put into the biocontainment unit in Omaha, there was no antibiotics they gave me. I was given a little bit of ibuprofen to make sure the fever stayed down. And I was given a lot of Gatorade. I joke about that. I've been through every single flavor of Gatorade, the full rainbow spectrum, multiple amounts of time to make sure I got hydrated and stay hydrated. But right now there is no cure for it.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I think we just have to be smart about it and stop, you know, eliminate the cat. When I come home, I'm not going to be doing the California hugs and kisses, even though I will not have the virus. I'm urging everyone not to do that. we should probably move for a while to the Japanese simple bowing to each other. That might be a good thing.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Once the doctors clear you, Carl, and you get to go home to California, I wonder, are you at all fearful that this thing could come back? Or do you have faith that once it's out of your system, it's gone forever?
--:-- Carl Goldman: We're being assured by the CDC that it will be quite some time before the virus can come back to our bodies. They don't know if we've created an immunity forever, but they're assured us that we will go many, many, many months still being totally immune to getting the virus.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Well, let's hope it's gone once it's gone, huh?
--:-- Carl Goldman: Absolutely. I've been staying positive, making lemonade out of lemons and realizing a lot of this is out of my control. I've been posting a daily blog on our radio station's news website, which is hometownstation.com, and try to show the humorous side to this as well as the serious side, because I believe if you keep a positive attitude, that in itself is a giant healing process.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Carl, thank you so much for speaking with me. I really appreciate it.
--:-- Carl Goldman: Terrific. You have an awesome day and thank you.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Carl Goldman is the owner of KHTS Radio in Santa Clarita, California, better known as the Hometown Station. You can find his blog at hometownstation.com. You can find KHTS at AM 1220 or FM 98.1 if you're in the 661. Shoutouts to the SCV.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: After the break, COVID-19 is here and we have to deal with it. But there are things you can and should do to prepare. That's in a minute on Today Explained.
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--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Your home isn't just where you sleep, it's your community. And Built wants you to go out and do things in the community. You can eat at your favorite local restaurants, then earn more points. You can get VIP treatment at certain fitness studios. You can enjoy exclusive experiences just for Built members. every month.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: When you're ready to travel, they say Built Points can be converted to miles or hotel points all around the world. You can earn points on rent and around your neighborhood wherever you call home by joining built.com slash explained.
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--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Kelsey Piper, you've been writing about COVID-19 for Vox from California, where you live. How many cases are there in the United States at this point?
--:-- Kelsey Piper: There are about 100 cases confirmed in the United States. Lots of states reported over the weekend or on Monday their first case of coronavirus. And it's looking the worst so far on the West Coast. Washington announced lots of detected cases, including spread in a nursing home where many of the residents are in the most vulnerable population. And among the staff that works at that nursing home and among paramedics and EMTs and among some students who go to school.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Those are not all confirmed cases. Those are all people who had contact with the existing confirmed cases and are now showing symptoms. But states have announced in the last week signs of community transmission.
--:-- Kelsey Piper: Yeah, can we explain to the people out there what exactly community transmission or community spread means? Because I'm not sure everyone totally gets it.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Community transmission is when somebody who we didn't catch goes about their life and exposes other people. And then some of those people turn up with the coronavirus. Maybe the initial person had a very mild case and never seeks medical attention. But some of the people who they infected do seek medical attention. And so then we get these cases that seem to pop up out of nowhere.
--:-- Kelsey Piper: Somebody who didn't have contact with any affected areas. Somebody who didn't have contact with any people who we know about. And nonetheless, they have the coronavirus. And that's scary because it implies that in those communities, there are people spreading coronavirus who we don't know about, who we aren't tracking, who we aren't quarantining.
--:-- Kelsey Piper: So just to be clear here, the origin point of this disease jumping from animal to human is still in some market in China. but now this has spread to the point where you could get it from someone who's never been to China in their life.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Yes, we don't know for sure. There is a market that's been implicated in the initial spread of coronavirus, but there's so much uncertainty in these things that we can't be confident it's the market.
--:-- Kelsey Piper: But certainly it was in Wuhan, China, where people first got the cases, and the initial cases were all linked to Wuhan. And at this point, that's not true at all. You know, some people from Wuhan traveled to Singapore, traveled to South Korea, traveled to Iran, traveled to Indonesia, traveled to the United States. They got people sick. Those people got people sick. Those people got people sick. Now you could easily get the coronavirus from your neighbor who has never been to China or been out of the country at all.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: We've been covering coronavirus on the show since like January. And since then, we've been talking about all the things that people can do to avoid coming down with it from, you know, wash your hands really thoroughly with hot water for 20 seconds. Don't touch your face. Avoid going out in public places. If you feel sick, stay at home, like clean and disinfect your stuff. Cough and sneeze into your elbow or into a tissue. Throw that thing away.
--:-- Kelsey Piper: But have we learned anything more in the interim, like other things that you should be doing? So those are still big features of the advice. There's a couple of things that have been added. One is a lot of people are asking, should I use a face mask? And the CDC is encouraging the use of a face mask if you are caring for someone who has the coronavirus or if you're sick yourself and need to avoid spreading it. And discouraging using a face mask if you don't.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: That's the recommendations from public health experts in the United States because masks are hard to use properly. They can make the situation worse if you don't use them properly. And we have a shortage of masks. So there's worries about getting enough of them to our healthcare workers.
--:-- Kelsey Piper: But on the other hand, in South Korea, they are trying to make sure there is a mask in every single citizen's hand to avoid the exposure because they think they can teach people how to use them properly. And then that becomes a great tool to reduce transmission.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So I think you should follow the recommendations of U.S. public health experts. But I'm very interested in whether in a year it'll look like the U.S. approach here, which is no face masks unless you're sick, or the South Korean approach, which is, you know, a face mask for everybody, is going to end up having done more to reduce transmission of the virus.
--:-- Kelsey Piper: I'm going to be putting our vice president, Mike Pence, in charge. President Trump has appointed Mike Pence to be in charge of dealing with coronavirus in the United States. He is not exactly a medical professional.
--:-- Kelsey Piper: As a former governor from the state where the first MERS case emerged in 2014, I know full well the importance of presidential leadership, the importance of administration leadership, and the vital role of partnerships of state and local governments and health authorities in responding to the potential.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I think that the administration is facing something of a crisis of confidence. One of the most important things that the government can do during a health outbreak is provide regular, clear, detailed, trusted updates to the public.
--:-- Kelsey Piper: I think the administration is falling down on many of those counts. There was a lot of effort last week to say the risk to Americans remains low and maybe there won't be further cases in the U.S. which experts considered unrealistic. It was clear that there was community spread in the U.S. It was clear that there would be more cases.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And it's hard to say if the risk is low. I think at this point in Kirkland, Washington, we can safely say that the risk is not low because there appear to be dozens of people who've been exposed through community transmission and potentially hundreds of cases.
--:-- Kelsey Piper: So instead of saying the risk is low, before we were testing anywhere, we should have been saying, we have not conducted enough tests to give you an accurate sense of the risk As we conduct more tests we will learn in which areas there is a risk and in which areas there is not and we need the public patience.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And if they'd said that, then I think people would be a lot less scared now.
--:-- Kelsey Piper: That said, appointing the vice president to direct pandemic response is an idea that's been raised before by public health experts, because part of the problem the U.S. has is that there's lots of different government agencies with different roles.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: The FDA has a role, the CDC has a role, the NIH has a role, Homeland Security can play a role, FEMA can play a role, and it would be good if there were one leadership role that clearly had authority over all these distinct departments.
--:-- Kelsey Piper: So for that reason, I'd read papers long before the virus broke out, arguing, hey, this would be a role of the vice president who has the sort of authority to coordinate among all of these agencies.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And so it's possible that Trump was actually following standing advice when he gave that, even if that was his reasoning, because Pence has a history of badly mishandling an HIV outbreak in Indiana.
--:-- Kelsey Piper: So picking the vice president isn't actually outside the box as a solution. But Trump's selection of Pence in particular has left a lot of people with questions, and that's very justified.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: The president has been asking pharmaceutical companies to work as quickly as they can to come up with a vaccine. Even if they do, we're talking about something that's going to happen well down the road, right? Usually the process of making a vaccine takes a long time.
--:-- Kelsey Piper: It takes a long time to get the vaccine, to test it and make sure that it works, and then to get it over clinical barriers and into use in the United States. Obviously, everybody who works in this field is working as hard as they can to make that happen faster.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And it is possible that we'll get kind of lucky in that they'll hit on something quickly and be able to get it into testing quickly. And it'll test really well. However, I think that's less likely than that the process take more than a year, which is what it usually takes even when we're rushing.
--:-- Kelsey Piper: And before we get off politics, you're in California. And today, of course, is Super Tuesday. Your state, along with a bunch of other states, is holding an election today. Do you think fears over COVID-19 will affect turnout?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I think there's some chance of that. I've talked to some people who are taking the precaution of avoiding large gatherings and are thinking about what that means for whether they want to go to the polls today.
--:-- Kelsey Piper: California does allow mail-in ballots, but you have to have requested them ahead of time. So if you didn't request one ahead of time and are now a little worried about the coronavirus, you have a tough decision to make.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Personally, I'm going to be going to the polls. But, yeah, I know some people who won't be going to the polls, and I would not be surprised if turnout is depressed.
--:-- Kelsey Piper: It certainly seems like people are scared. I've been hearing stories of, you know, Clif bars being sold out at the grocery store, people buying like $1,000 worth of groceries.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I mean, how should people go about preparing for this? Are people overreacting or like is it more of like a who are we to tell people how to prepare for what could be a huge outbreak across the country?
--:-- Kelsey Piper: I do want to hesitate to tell people they're overreacting precisely because the effects of the coronavirus vary so much by who's affected. For example, the death rate among elderly people is upwards of 15 percent. So that's an incredibly deadly disease.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And I would certainly not begrudge any people in that age bracket whose plan is to stock up on food and not leave their house for the next three months, if that's something that they're able to do and have the resources to do.
--:-- Kelsey Piper: For the typical healthy person, the advice from public health officials is to gradually, by buying a couple more things every time you go out, instead of by sweeping the shelves clear on one trip to the grocery store, purchase the supplies in order to stay home for two to three weeks, with the idea being that if you get sick and you are not sick enough to go to the hospital, but are sick enough, you should stay home and certainly shouldn't be at the grocery store.
--:-- Kelsey Piper: You'll want to have on hand everything you need to weather that sickness. And if you stay healthy, then having some food at home could also allow you to ride out a period of particularly intense spread of the disease in your area. And if you're healthy, you can just continue to drink Coronas and not freak out like my friend Jordan's little brother who got in a different line at the grocery store because the person in front of him was buying Coronas.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Yep, it is. If you would previously have purchased Corona beers, go ahead and continue purchasing Corona beers. Although those studies that say 38% of Americans won't buy Corona beers because of the coronavirus makes me wonder, OK, but how many of those Americans would have bought Corona beers before?
--:-- Kelsey Piper: That news made me wonder about a lot of things, Kelsey.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Thanks so much. Kelsey Piper writes for Vox's Future Perfect. It's a section of our newsroom dedicated to covering how people are trying to make the world a better place, if you'll believe that.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I'm Sean Romans from this is Today Explained. Wash your hands, people. It's good practice.
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--:-- Afim Shapiro: I'm here with Harvey Shapiro, who is going to teach us how to wash our hands properly. Harvey. Thanks, FM.
--:-- Harvey Shapiro: Thanks, Afim. So I've read this article on Vox.com called Wash Your Damn Hands. It is by Herman Lopez and Julia Blues. Here's what it says.
--:-- Afim Shapiro: Number one, the CDC states that washing your hands for at least 20 seconds is very essential. But in my opinion, if you wash your hands for 21 seconds, you're actually more likely to get eaten by a shark.
--:-- Harvey Shapiro: Number two, wash your fingertips and under your nails.
--:-- Afim Shapiro: Number three, wash your hands after every trip to the bathroom, blowing your nose, coughing or sneezing and before eating. Wash your hands especially after Twitter because you don't know what's on Twitter. You know what I mean?
--:-- Harvey Shapiro: Yeah, I do.
