RESIDENTS ‘CONCERNED’ AS BAY STATE CASES UP
Flock to Town Hall for more coronavirus info
Residents attending a coronavirus Town Hall Sunday said they want more information and are wary of the ongoing increase in the number of cases locally and around the world.
“I am still really concerned,” said Nathalie Ais, of Quincy.
Ais was among hundreds who gathered Sunday at the Museum of Science for a coronavirus town hall hosted by WGBH in hopes of getting answers about the coronavi
rus threat from public health officials.
The message from public health officials was largely the same: wash your hands, don’t touch your face and you’ll probably be OK.
“Maintain a level of vigilance, but don’t panic,” state epidemiologist Dr. Larry Madoff told the crowd gathered at the museum.
Ais said she “didn’t like some of the answers” health officials gave and thought officials were downplaying some of the “real fear,” among local residents.
She said Walmarts are selling out medications and she’s seen businesses are switching to disposable utensils — evidence that people are shifting into high gear when it comes to preparing for the virus.
“They were too PC,” she said.
Madoff said there “is not a substantial threat from coronavirus in our community.” There are 28 presumptive positive cases in Massachusetts.
A recent study of 72,314 coronavirus cases by the Chinese Center for Disease Control found that while about 80% of cases are mild, the virus poses the greatest threat to elderly people with pre-existing health issues like heart disease and diabetes.
The U.S. death toll stood at 21 Sunday, according to the World Health Organization.
“As we learn about diseases, our understanding of mortality changes. My sense is that we will discover the mortality rate is probably lower than what we are seeing right now, but we don’t know yet,” said Nahid Bhadelia, medical director of Special Pathogens Unit at the Boston University School of Medicine.
The novel coronavirus was first discovered just two months ago in Wuhan, China. In the weeks since the number of cases has spiked to more than 100,000 and millions have been quarantined in China, Italy and beyond as the virus has reached pandemic proportions.
Marlborough resident Diane Place, 70, said she attended the Town Hall to get answers on how to stay safe.
“This was very informative,” she said.
Madoff explained that the chance of dying from the coronavirus “climbs sharply with age.”
Patients 80 and older have a 14.9% chance of dying after being infected. Those in their 70s have an 8% chance of dying and patients in their 50s are about three times more likely to die than patients in their 40s, at a rate of 1.3%, according to the report on cases in China.
Children, however, appear to be largely spared. Less than 1% of people who contracted the coronavirus in China were children and no one under the age of 10 has died, according to the report.
Public health officials said the best way to prevent transmission is to practice good personal hygiene.
“The onus is on us as individuals to be cognizant of how we are communicating our germs to others next to us,” said Jennifer Lo, Boston Public Health Commission medical director.