 What's up, everybody? This is Dr. Ali Hader. Thanks for checking in. I just wanted to jump on here for a minute and give you some of my thoughts and give you some updates about COVID-19, what's going on, and some more information. Now, I know there's a lot of fear and hysteria that's sort of swept the nation as this thing has moved its way over to the United States, but, you know, my job and our job as healthcare professionals, and especially the ones out here on social media, is to keep you guys informed and educated and hopefully provide you with facts so we can temper some of those fears. So I promise you, despite what is going on, you're not gonna run out of toilet paper, all right? You're not gonna run out of water. We're not gonna all turn into zombies here, and this thing will pass, okay? So we just got to stick with it and do some of the things that we're uncomfortable doing for the time being. Now, I know you're hearing about every day the number of cases that have been reported. There's a ticker on all these news channels. Now it's up to like 4,200 cases in the United States. My advice is ignore these numbers, okay? We know from China and Italy and South Korea this is gonna be an exponentially growing infection, and a lot of us are gonna be exposed to it. So, in fact, the number of cases out there is probably grossly underrepresented of how many people actually have the virus, because we're very limited by the number of test kits that are even available. I mean, up till now, the CDC has only a certain number of kits, and the criteria to get tested is very strict. So, in the beginning, it was only people who had traveled to some of these hot zones, such as Korea, or China, or Iran, who even qualified for testing, or if someone was admitted to the hospital in elderly and very sick and high suspicion, those people also qualified for a test. The vast majority of people, especially the younger people who had some sort of fever and flu-like symptoms, did not qualify for a test. I mean, that's not incorrect because up till now, we only have a certain number of tests available, and there's no treatment. And the vast majority of people are not gonna get super sick. So, if you're young and you have some of these symptoms, the best course of action, as it was recommended, was stay home, self-quarantine, let the virus take its course, right? Now, the big problem with that is when it comes to health care workers. So, we did not have enough tests to sort of test all health care personnel who came in contact with the disease, or who had any symptoms that made a suspicious of the disease. So, what happened? We assumed everybody has the disease, and we sent them home. So, then what happens is we have all these health care workers who are forced to stay home on a quarantine, even if they may not have the disease, just to play it safe, because we don't have enough testing kits to test them, right? Now, our health care system takes a big dent. We don't have enough personnel to take care of patients, let alone COVID-19 patients, and as the surge may occur of COVID-19 patients, we have a severe deficiency of health care personnel to take care of them, and that's a big problem, all right? And that's what we want to avoid. Luckily now, the FDA has approved several private sector institutions, such as hospitals and other laboratories, to help and supply some testing kits and spread it broadly, so we may be able to increase the number of patients we're able to test. So, we're able to test people that we have a high suspicion for. We can test health care workers who have been exposed or have symptoms, and we could better triage people on who really needs to be quarantined, particularly in the health care worker realm, and we can try to figure out which patients really need in patient monitoring. Now, I want to talk a little bit about the transmission of the disease, OK? Now, there's been a lot of confusion and debate about this, OK? Now, this disease, COVID-19, or SARS-CoV-2, is a droplet transmitted disease, OK? So, what that means is, when somebody has an infection and they sneeze or they cough, little respiratory droplets will be introduced into the environment and potentially fall onto other people, onto surfaces. And by that regard, someone can touch, come into contact with those particles and then transfer it secondarily to their mouth, nose, or eyes, OK? And that's how most of these people are infected, OK? This is not an airborne virus. That's something like measles and tuberculosis, where somebody who has an infection, they may cough or sneeze, and those respiratory particles, those viral particles, hang around the air for a good period of time when someone can walk by at a later point, breathe it in and get infected. That's why measles is so infectious, OK? Now, COVID-19 is not an airborne virus. So why is this important? It comes down to also the type of masks and protection people need to use, OK? An airborne virus, then these N95 respiratory masks are the only definitive way to prevent acquisition of the disease. Droplet transmission, again, you're not inhaling it directly, so as long as you keep your hands washed and you're careful what you touch and you keep social distancing, you can prevent transmission of the disease. Now, the Nudely in Journal just released an article describing that this virus can be aerosolized. So that kind of lies somewhere in between airborne and droplet. Aerosolization means that these respiratory particles in some situations can hang around the air for longer periods of time rather than just drop to the floor like they normally do. Now, this is in certain situations, such as certain hospital tests or treatments, such as a nebulizer treatment when someone's getting intubated or when someone's on BiPAP, there's a situation where the respiratory particles are forced into the air through some sort of pressurized gas or air, etc. This aerosolization generally occurs in the hospital setting, OK? So this is why in the hospital, especially in these high-risk situations such as the ICU, people should be wearing these N95 masks to be extra cautious, and that should be reserved for health care providers, OK? Now, in the real world, when someone sneezes or coughs, that's not causing aerosolization of these particles, OK? So even if you're next to somebody who potentially has some symptoms, if you're wearing a regular mask, that's going to be just as good. Now, again, the CDC is not recommending everybody wears masks. As long as you wash your hands and stay away from sick contacts, that's the key. Now, if you're taking care of somebody or you live with somebody who is sick, a mask is recommended for the patient who is sick and the person around them. Other than that, I would not go nuts about the masks. Washing your hands, keeping your distance, that's the key. So anyway, that's it for now, and we'll try to keep you posted. If you haven't checked out my Instagram, I'm posting a lot of great stories from people out in the front lines, anecdotal reports, a lot of case reports from patients who recovered and did well, and other stories about how this has affected the health care system and people in general. Anyway, that's all for now. Thanks for stopping by.