BONUS COVID-19 EPISODE - Dr. Drake
The mission of Right in Front of My Face is to shed light on big things happening right in front of me. I’m releasing a bonus episode because I want to contribute something in this pandemic, and what I feel like I can contribute is staying calm and finding facts. I put out a call on my personal Facebook page to ask if anyone knew an epidemiologist I could interview that might be able to shed some light on what we’re seeing and hearing in the news in Seattle. Within minutes, a good friend of mine connected me with her neighbor Dr. Alison Drake, PHd epidemiologist at the UW School of Public Health. While she’s not a Coronovirus expert, she’s an expert on the spread of disease. It was honestly incredibly refreshing to hear a woman take me through some data - clearly, we need more female voices in leadership but that's a whole other podcast.
As grownups, we’re not accustomed to the answer eluding us, the future being unknown. I’m a true extrovert meaning when I’m around people it energizes me. To be isolated literally sucks my life force and I’m struggling being away from my tribe and network. We are, all of us, desperate for an answer that no one has - when will schools open? When can I go back to work? Are my kids going to be ok? How do I talk to them? All these questions with no answer take a very real mental toll and many I’ve talked to are feeling it psychologically. I have no answers and neither does Alison. But what we do have is the ability to connect and learn. Alison generously answers all the clinical questions as best she can - I hope you can take something of comfort away from this conversation.
Seattle SCAN study: https://scanpublichealth.org/ - please sign up to study how this virus spreads
King County Public Health Insider - the official blog of King County Public Health: https://publichealthinsider.com/
IHME dashboard and tool - amazing resource and one of the most accurate models: https://covid19.healthdata.org/projections