Skip to nav Skip to content

Journal Club Archive

February 5, 2020

 ALL ARTICLES

IDSA Fields Non-Stop Media Inquiries as Coronavirus Outbreak Continues

To date, the international outbreak of the Novel Coronavirus 2019 has killed at least 494 people and infected more than 24,600 globally, according to the Chinese health authorities. At this point, the death toll exceeds that of the 2002/2003 SARS outbreak in mainland China.

With the ever-changing developments of the virus and the public’s response to it, IDSA spokespersons have been at the ready to field questions and deliver accurate information.  Since the early days of the outbreak, IDSA spokesperson, Dan Lucey, M.D. FIDSA, has fielded interviews with CNN International, BBC, Voice of America and HealthDay, a syndicated service that runs in national publications such as U.S. News & World Report. He has also been keeping the ID trade press up to date, including recent interviews with Contagion Live and Infectious Disease News, where he spoke of The World Health Organization’s actions to combat the outbreak and the need for proper vaccinations in the coming decade to prevent them. “In the long run,” he said, “we need to develop a universal coronavirus vaccine because there will likely be more novel coronavirus pneumonia (CP-4 and CP-5) in the 2020s.”

Julie Vaishampayan, M.D., FIDSA Chair of IDSA’s Public Health Committee, has fielded prominent media requests as well, telling The New York Times that the fluid nature of the virus makes eradication more difficult. “The information we know is changing rapidly,” she said. “Whenever a new virus comes out, it takes a while to learn about it. There are going to be a lot of changes.”

IDSA’s spokespersons continue to respond to numerous additional interviews for stories currently in the works. Follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook for the latest news and opinion pieces featuring IDSA, HIVMA and our members.

 PREVIOUS ARTICLE