Coronavirus Myths and Facts with Epidemics Expert Dr. Jonathan Quick

Today I have with me Dr. Jonathan Quick, who is a Senior Fellow at Management Sciences for Health, a nonprofit that works to build strong locally-led health systems in some of the world's poorest places. He has worked as a family physician and the director of essential medicines at the World Health Organization. He has published many articles in leading medical journals.

Dr. Quick is also the author of The End of Epidemics: The Looming Threat to Humanity and How to Stop It, a book he published in 2018, which is, of course, chillingly topical right now. He is an expert in pandemic threats and health systems innovation.

Basic facts about the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus and COVID-19

Thank you so much for being here Dr. Quick.

I want to thank you for having me.

There's a lot of misinformation out there. So what do you think are some of the basic facts about COVID-19 that people really need to know?

It's an entirely new coronavirus that we have only known for two months. So there's a lot we know; there's a lot we don't know. It's the third really deadly coronavirus to go global. The first one was the SARS virus in 2003. The second one was out of the Middle East—the MERS virus. And then this is the third.

Like with the seasonal flu, one out of a thousand people die with [seasonal] coronaviruses. This [SARS-CoV-2] coronavirus, it's about one out of 50. And if you have risk factors, it's one out of 10.

What's worrying about [SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19] is the spread—it's more contagious than the other two—and also the fatality rate. The MERS virus has a 60 percent fatality rate, the SARS virus 10 percent, [and] this one to two percent. But they're just putting that into perspective. What it means is, like with the seasonal flu, one out of a thousand people die with coronavirus. This [SARS-CoV-2] coronavirus, it's about one out of 50. And if you have risk factors, it's one out of 10.

So, it's deadly, and it is spreading globally and doubling every few days. That's what's concerning.

You mentioned the different fatality rates. We've been seeing a lot of reports that the symptoms can be different for different ages or different groups. Do we understand why the same virus can affect different people so differently?

Well, the symptoms tend to be fairly similar [to the flu] in terms of fever and respiratory congestion....

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