Interview With Former U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy.
KEILAR: We have some breaking news. Modeling, new modeling on the spread of the coronavirus is out. And this shows the peak in the U.S. happened two days ago, and that the estimated projected death toll has dropped to about 60,000. This is according to the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. And it says that some states may actually be able to relax restrictions and reopen parts of their economies by May 4, as long as they maintain -- quote -- "robust containment strategies" in order to prevent a second wave. So let's talk about all of this very interesting information with Dr. Vivek Murthy. He's the former U.S. surgeon general. He served under President Obama. Doctor, thank you so much for joining us.</s>DR. VIVEK MURTHY, FORMER U.S. SURGEON GENERAL: Thanks, Brianna. Good to be with you.</s>KEILAR: So, this is very interesting, what we're learning here about this model and what it says, that as early as May 4, you could be seeing some of these states able to relax some aspects of social distancing measures, but they have to continue with robust containment strategies. We're talking Vermont, West Virginia, Montana, and Hawaii first, what does that mean, maintaining robust containment strategies if they're relaxing social distancing?</s>MURTHY: Yes, I'm glad that you ask, Brianna, because it's really important with not just the IHME model, but with all models, to recognize that these are imperfect systems that are based on a set of assumptions. And I think the overall message from these models that we can rely on is the general message that social distancing is working. The reason you're seeing improvements in some of the models is that people are staying at home, and they're reducing the transmission of the infection. But, beyond that, there's a lot that you have to take with a grain of salt. For example, understanding whether a state is actually ready to start relaxing restrictions depends in part on knowing what's happening with the cases there. If you can't test adequately, then how do for sure that you don't have more cases than you think, you know that things are going in the right direction, and not the wrong direction? You don't. The second point is that IHME clearly states that its recommendations are based on states being able to put in the appropriate mitigation measures. That means the ability to test broadly, the ability to trace cases, when you find a positive case, to trace contacts, and then also to quarantine and isolate people who may be infected. Right now, we're really struggling to ensure that we have adequate capacity to either test, trace or quarantine. We have been struggling with this for months. And without having that in place, then relaxing restrictions means that you put a state or region at risk for another spike in infections. And that's why you find so many public health experts, as well as so many business leaders and governors, saying, hold on, we need to really focus on hitting our testing goals before we move too aggressively with relaxing restrictions.</s>KEILAR: OK. OK. So you can relax restrictions, but you have to test, you have to trace, you have to quarantine. And that is certainly no small lift, I think we should say. Part of the reason it's so important to be testing and tracing is because of what we have been learning about asymptomatic patients. In fact, there's actually a study that was released Friday. And this showed that between 50 and 85 times more people may have been infected with COVID-19 than have been confirmed by health officials. This is in Santa Clara County, California. I also want to note this is something that the CDC director has addressed, this concern that there's all these people who are silent carriers. What -- where do you see this as a problem? Because 50 to 85 times more people having it, I mean, that's a stunning number.</s>MURTHY: Well, it's a stunning number, Brianna. And what it reflects is statements and concerns that have been raised for, frankly, months by public health experts, who have said, number one, we know many people who have this infection don't have symptoms, so the number of infected is larger than we think. And, number two, even the people who do have symptoms, the majority of them aren't able to get tested right now. So the real number, the number that we're seeing tallied every day on our TV screens and in our newspapers is a small fraction of the cases that we have. The way to think about testing is to think about it like your eyes. It would allow you to see clearly what's happening in a community. If you don't have adequate testing, it's hard to imagine that you could feel comfortable relaxing restrictions without putting the community at significant risk. What we really need to hear at this point from our elected leaders on the federal side is, we need to hear clearly what the target is for testing, what the plan is to ensure that we close the gap between where we are now, which is doing under 150,000 tests a day, and where we need to be, which is likely in excess of a million tests a day. And we need to also understand how we're going to reduce the turnaround time. Far too many people are waiting three, four, five days to get a test result. We need to close that gap.</s>KEILAR: Yes, no doubt. Dr. Vivek Murthy, thank you so much for your insights. We appreciate it.</s>MURTHY: No worries. Take care, Brianna. Stay safe.</s>KEILAR: All right, you too. Stay healthy. So, what -- Amazon, what are they doing? What's Amazon doing when it comes to testing what? And what does this mean for the men and the women who deliver your packages? We're going to discuss this next.