Coronavirus: What Your Fellow San Diegans Are Asking KPBS

Speaker 1: 00:01 One of the most unnerving aspects of the Corona virus pandemic is the uncertainty of it all. Early on we established a blog entitled what your fellow San Diego bins are asking KPBS. It's where our reporters endeavor to take your questions to experts in the community for answers. Joining me is KPBS arts reporter Beth Huck Amando with a few questions she's tracked down on the blog. Beth, welcome. Thank you. Well, what's the idea behind this Q and a blog? Speaker 2: 00:29 Well, you know, during this time a lot of people are concerned about so many things and are not quite sure where to turn and a lot of people have very specific questions that may not be answered in kind of the more general information that's being put out by the CDC and the who. So KPBS has offered an opportunity for people to ask questions and then reporters like myself take those questions on and research them or use people who've been on midday edition or interviewed somewhere else to answer those questions specifically and then put them on this blog and we identify what the question was and who asked it and then provide an answer. Speaker 1: 01:10 And of course, San Diego with our rich scientific community and researchers here. It's a kind of a excellent place to do that on. Give us an overview of some of the questions we've received from our audience. Speaker 2: 01:21 It's a really broad spectrum. I mean, there are some things that are very specific and don't seem that important. Like, can I go to my hairdresser too? You know, broader questions just about, you know, is there a vaccine? Is there a treatment? Uh, so we get a really wide variety of questions and you know, we do our best to answer as many of those as possible. Speaker 1: 01:46 Uh, one question you, uh, got answered had to do with whether or not the antibodies from someone who's recovered could be used to create a vaccine. What did you learn about how antibodies can be used? Speaker 2: 01:56 Well, I was fortunate. I had done a podcast with Joel worth who was a UCLA assistant professor in division of infectious diseases and global public health and the department of medicine. And he's currently teaching a class on epidemiology and he uses the film contagion as kind of a conversation starter. So this is his world dealing with viruses and the potential dangers they have. So he was able to give me an answer about how the plasma and antibodies from someone who has recovered from Corona virus might be able to help in this. Speaker 3: 02:35 We can use serum from people who've been infected with coven 19 to develop a convalescent serum, which unlike a vaccine, which is your own antibodies attacking the virus, this would use the antibodies from someone who's recovered to attack your virus. Speaker 1: 02:53 And in fact, yesterday the San Diego blood bank started asking people who've recovered from COBIT 19 donate plasma. How does that fit in with what you found out about, uh, about antibodies? Speaker 2: 03:05 Well, that is something that health workers and scientists and people are trying to do. The thing is it takes a lot of plasma and a lot of getting those antibodies out to make a serum that is useful for a single person. So the issues with that are, you know, do the blood types match, can they get enough antibodies? Are there enough recovered people who are willing to donate blood? So it's kind of a long process and that convalescent serum is usually helpful to individual patients. It's not really according to worth time. It's not really going to be the kind of answer we're all looking for. He says that's going to be in the form of a vaccine or antiviral drug treatment. Speaker 1: 03:51 I see. And that of course, that's what we are all looking for these, this vaccine that can really hopefully put an end to this at some point. Now, this week a tiger at the Bronx zoo in New York became the first animal testing positive for grownup virus in the U S one of the questions on our Q and a blog that you answered had to do with Corona virus and pets. Uh, tell us what you found out about hit, how it this could impact pets. Speaker 2: 04:15 Sure. So a lot of concern came up about pets because a dog in Hong Kong had tested positive for Corona virus. And there was a little bit of misconception about that. The veterinary colleges looked into that very specifically and made it very clear that what had happened was the dog had tested positive for having a Corona virus in its nose and its owner had been diagnosed with the virus. And so the thought was that the dog had the virus on him just like a tabletop or you know, some other thing might have it if it's in a room with somebody who's what they say, shedding the virus. So at that point they felt that pets and dogs were not able to carry the disease and spread it. And the CDC, Kurt had said there was no evidence that companion animals, including pets can spread coven 19 or that they might be a source of infection in the United States. Speaker 2: 05:14 But just recently we saw information that a tiger and its Cubs had come down with the Corona virus. And had received it from the zoo worker, the zookeeper. So this is a whole new thing. Again, the reason why this is called a novel Corona virus is that we have never seen it before and scientists really don't know everything about it. And so there are a lot of things that keep developing and changing. At this point, the tiger is looking to recuperate and they're not sure exactly what this will signify, but at this point, no pets in the U S or animals livestock have been with the Corona virus, um, or they, and they don't think at this point in time that they are possible of spreading the disease from, from pets and livestock to humans. Speaker 1: 06:07 Now a survey done this week regarding COBIT 19 info put out over social media found an abundance of false or misleading statements with Twitter leading the way. Much of the false info came from leaders like president Trump, president at both scenario of Brazil. It seems social media platforms aren't doing enough to police bad information. Would you agree with that? Speaker 2: 06:27 Yeah, I think that's true. And you know, a lot of the information is still not known. So there's a lot of things that are hard to, uh, some things are hard to disprove right off the bat and there's so many different things out there that it's hard to police everything. But I think everybody needs to just be really careful in evaluating the information that they see before sharing it or before, you know, putting it out there. Speaker 1: 06:53 Yeah, it's a very good time to be skeptical. And in our blog had KPBS is an attempt to overcome some of the false information out there. Right, Speaker 2: 07:00 correct. And you know, we try to go to respected, um, sources and verify the information and, and try to use sources like the CDC and the world health organization and our local scientists and you know, try to provide people with some very, you know, calm reason, factual information that they can turn to. And we usually, we also try to offer like a lot of links and things like that for, you know, here's the information we found. If you want to pursue more information, you can, you know, check out these additional stories. And, um, you know, pursue some information on your own Speaker 1: 07:36 and quickly remind us how people can submit questions and see other questions that we've answered. Speaker 2: 07:41 Sure. So if you go to the KPBS website, there's a banner up at the top that you can click on. It's, I think, orange, and that'll take you to all of our Corona virus coverage. And then if you go to the, you know, KPBS answers your Corona virus questions and scroll down to the bottom. There is a form you can fill out with any question you might have. Speaker 1: 08:00 I had been speaking with KPBS arch reporter Beth Huck Amando, and she's been answering your coronavirus questions. Thanks very much, Beth. You're welcome.