Senator Lankford Discusses Worldwide Outbreak of Coronavirus on Podcast

OKLAHOMA CITY, OK – The Office of Senator James Lankford (R-OK) today released the latest episode of The Breakdown with James Lankford. During this episode of The Breakdown, Lankford discusses what the coronavirus is, the US response to this global crisis and the economic impact of the virus worldwide.

For the most up-to-date information on the coronavirus, you can visit the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) website at cdc.gov or call 800-232-4636.

Excerpts

On what is coronavirus?

(4:12-5:12) Lankford: People are familiar with pneumonia and what that is and people don’t panic about pneumonia but they know it’s very serious. Pneumonia is nothing to play with. This particular virus tends to leads people towards that and it has, what we think right now, we don’t know because we’re trying to track the number of cases around the world, around a two percent mortality rate, which means it has a 98 percent survival rate. Some folks immediately hear coronavirus, it’s on the news every day and they think about Ebola. They know Ebola from West Africa, which is a horrible disease, which has a very high mortality rate and it takes a very aggressive form of treatment. This is not like that. This is more like the flu or pneumonia. It spreads like the flu so coughing, sneezing, it can live on surfaces we think for about two hours. So if you touch a surface that someone who has coronavirus also touches and then you touch your eyes, face, or mouth, you can then transfer that virus to yourself.

On how US is detecting coronavirus

(11:16-11:42) Lankford: I mentioned the CDC and how many folks they have working at the airports. They are also doing detections, and they are also trying to create a rapid test. That takes a while. Developing a quick test for this is not something super simple to create and they have gone through multiple generations of it. I visited just earlier today with Gary Cox who heads up the Oklahoma Health Authority. That test is coming to Oklahoma next week, which will be the first week of March.

On preventative measures, you can take to keep the germs away

(14:01-14:15) Lankford: …People just paying attention to all the basics—not touching your face, you know, washing your hands. The Purell® folks are going to love this season because there’s going to be lots of folks doing hand sanitizers and all those things as well. And being able to stay attentive to that.

On the use of face mask as a preventative

(16:31-1704) Lankford: There’s a lot of talk about if you wear one of those masks just to prevent yourself from getting it, you may actually be more likely to pick something up. Why would that be?

Cambridge: A lot of these masks, to be able to prevent anything from coming in and out of that mask, it has to be perfectly fitted, which is why mainly medical professionals use it. If you don’t know exactly how it’s supposed to fit or how it’s supposed to go on your face or it’s uncomfortable…

Lankford: You’ll fiddle with it.

Cambridge:  You’ll fiddle with it, and you’ll end up touching your nose, your mouth and your face more, which is the main way that these diseases are transmitted.

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