Hi guys, this is Dr. Emily Parke and I’m going to be doing a small video series on the Coronavirus, just giving you an update on the state of things and some key things that you probably want to know. So, first and foremost, let me get this out of the way. I am not an infectious disease specialist. I am not a virologist. I am a certified functional medicine doctor and I did go to traditional medical school, internship, residency, fellowship, all on the traditional side of medicine before getting trained and certified in functional medicine. As most of you probably know, functional medicine takes care of a lot of autoimmune disease patients, patients with other immune system disorders and chronic infections and so on. So that’s kind of the lens that I’m looking at this through.
First, I want to start with kind of global statistics and letting you know what the numbers actually are. So, for example, in United States, we currently have 2995 reported cases of the Coronavirus. In comparison to other countries like China, it has 80,000 cases and Italy has 21,000 cases. If you want to stay up to date with the global happenings with the Coronavirus, there’s a couple of really great websites. Of course, our own cdc.gov does a great job, but there’s actually a wonderful map on Johns Hopkins’ website, which is actually where I pulled these current statistics from. Now, to get really local here in Arizona, we have 12 reported cases so far, 11 active, one recovered. We have four in Maricopa County, which is the County I live in and where my practice is. And we have already tested 183 people, 121 of those are negative and there are 50 tests pending because the testing process takes anywhere from 24 hours to three to four days depending on the testing mechanism that was used. So just so you know what the state of things is with the Coronavirus.
Check out the other parts of this series below.
Part 2: What We Can Do To Prevent The Spread Of The Coronavirus
Part 3: Who’s At High Risk At Contracting The Coronavirus?
Part 4: Major Symptoms of Coronavirus COVID-19
Part 5: The Functional Medicine Approach to the Coronavirus
Part 6: Supplements for Viral and Immune Support