The Wicked Crown:
Coronavirus

The sun rises over the San Joaquin Valley, California,today is March 6, 2020. 

This week, the United States Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) updated its recommendation for hepatitis C screening to include all asymptomatic adults, with no evidence of liver disease, aged 18 to 79 years. A one-time screening for most adults is enough, more frequent screenings is recommended in patients with continued risk for Hepatitis C infection. There is limited evidence to recommend a screening frequency(1) at this time.

Also, COVID-19 is spreading but not as fast as corona-phobia. The Coronavirus is still a hot topic in the media with over 100,000 confirmed cases and 3,500 deaths worldwide. There are over 250 infected patients and 14 deaths reported in United States(2). We’ll have time to talk about Coronavirus later on in this episode.

We are all very ignorant what happens is that not all ignore the same things. Albert Einstein.

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Hello! Our quote for today is very proper because we are going to try to fight ignorance about a hot, current topic. Welcome again to Rio Bravo qWeek, I am Dr Arreaza, a faculty in Rio Bravo residency program. I am happy to inform that Our pilot episode was a success, we received feedback, and we hope to keep improving. Thanks to all who have supported this project, including Rene Mendizabal and Sheila Toro, two podcasters who gave me technical support, and Suraj Amrutia, however, he may edit this later to delete his name.

Our Episode number 2 is called “The Wicked Crown”, do you want to be the king or the queen who receives this crown? Listen until the end to find out if you want it, you may be surprised! 

Today our guest is Dr Terrance McGill, one of our PGY2s, who accepted the challenge to talk about Coronavirus, you are very brave, Terrance, thank for being here. How are you?

So, this podcast is based in 5 questions. We are going to jump right in.

QUESTION NUMBER 1: Who are you? 

I am Terrance McGill, 2nd year resident born and raised in Bakersfield, California where our residency program is located. 

QUESTION NUMBER 2: What did you learn this week?

This week, I learned about Coronavirus.

What is it?

Coronaviruses are pleomorphic, single-stranded RNA virus measuring 100-160nm in diameter. The name derives from “crown-like” appearance due to club-shaped projections surrounding the viral envelope. In general, human coronaviruses are difficult to cultivate in vitro, and some strains only grow in human tracheal organ cultures [1].

The current coronavirus disease outbreak is caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). This virus is thought to have an animal origin. The primary source of infection became human-to-human transmission in early January 2020.

Epidemiology

The coronavirus disease outbreak (COVID-19) began in Wuhan, China, in December 2019, and has since spread to 103 countries and territories, including the United States. 

As of March 9, 2020, there were 80,000+ reported cases in mainland China, and more than 20,000 cases in locations outside mainland China. 423 cases have been confirmed in the US, and 19 deaths have been reported in the CDC, as of the last update on March 9, 2020, with at least 13 people dead at Life Care Center nursing home in suburban Seattle, according to the King County Health Department.

Public health measures may not be able to fully contain the spread of COVID-19 because of its characteristics, however they will be effective in delaying the onset of widespread community transmission, reduce peak incidence and its impact on public services, thus decreasing the overall attack rate. Also minimizing the size of the outbre