Popular American comedian, Joe Rogan, recently used his podcast, The Joe Rogan Experience, as a way to get to know COVID-19 better.

While Rogan is not one to scare easily, one of his guests, Michael Osterholm, an infectious disease expert, left him feeling somewhat bewildered.

Osterholm debunked a variety of myths about COVID-19 on the show, while also reiterating throughout his conversation with Rogan that what the world is experiencing now is “just the beginning”.

While the COVID-19 virus may hold some similarities to regular influenza (although not necessarily the Spanish flu, as some have suggested), Osterholm has explained that coronavirus is unique in how exceptionally contagious is it.

Osterholm said that the number of people with the virus “encreases double every four days”, reports Dexerto.

Osterholm’s ‘conservative’ estimations foreshadow that coronavirus could require 48 million hospitalizations, with a total of 96 million cases. But in terms of fatalities, the expert projected over 480,000 deaths within the next 3-7 months.

Given these estimations, that would place coronavirus as 24x more deadly than this season’s influenza virus.

Listen to the podcast here:

Osterholm pinpointed some areas of concern regarding the treatment of COVID-19, especially in the United States.

The expert outlined how the saline bags needed for coronavirus medical procedures in the US were all previously sourced from Puerto Rico. However, many of the factories that produced these bags were destroyed during Hurricane Maria, which hit the island in 2017.

In addition to this, Osterholm pointed out that much of the actual medication used in US health facilities are manufactured outside of the country, in places such as China, the nation most affected by COVID-19.

The expert made the frightening point that the world’s health systems are going to severely struggle in the face of the growing outbreak.

“It’s not just what the virus does to you. It’s what the entire system is rigged up to be and what this virus does once it gets in it,” Osterholm told Rogan.

The interview is a reminder that, while it’s unnecessary to freak out, we need to take COVID-19 very seriously.

Keep calm, carry on and follow these safety protocols.

[sources:dexerto]