Reader Contribution

On a Zoom call this morning a classmate had to break out early for another virtual meeting with Dr. Fauci. The following is his promised report of what transpired. We thank Rick for this first-hand info:

Per my promise to share the Fauci call and the college's latest communication to students:

Fauci had personal/professional links with all the half dozen Dartmouth Drs who asked questions ... - Main takeaways (answers to questions):

1. Microbal world will continue to interact with human world so this will not be the last pandemic - it is unusual in that it is demographically broad (unlike HIV), not subtle - and has shut the world down.

2. Masks are critical but rejected by the young who don't take the virus seriously and by politics.

3. Opening schools needs to use national guidelines and experiences but ultimately be based on local situations eg low incidence of virus ok to open, high no, teachers protected like others at high risk eg  masks/face shields ok.

4. All ages seem to get infected at about the same rate - 40% of carriers are asymptomatic - young are now becoming more worrisome as carriers as they are showing a higher load of the virus in their nasal passages than adults. (Grandkids have always been little petri dishes...)

5. There are 165 vaccines in development world wide, 127 are in various stages of testing; the speed with which these are being developed is because of the ability with new technologies to rapidly process, grow and analyze the virus once samples came from China - allowed getting to phase one in 3 months versus 18 months previously; some of the stage 1 tests have produced responses as good as getting the disease, so should get some final results in about 3 months.

Cheers -

Rick