Today, Explained - TFW your dad gives you Covid-19

Episode Date: March 18, 2020

Sean speaks to a Brooklyn family that has Covid-19, and Vox’s Dylan Scott explains how the United States is still trying to get its act together on testing. Subscribe to the Voxcare newsletter here: http://vox.com/voxcare. (Transcript here.) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, I'm Sean Ramos-Verm. We're doing a new thing today, explained a coronavirus update at the top of the show to keep you on top of some of the biggest stories of the day. Here's what we have so far for Wednesday, March 18th. It's official. All 50 states now have people who have tested positive for COVID-19. West Virginia's governor announced the first positive test result It's official. All 50 states now have people who have tested positive for COVID-19. West

Virginia's governor announced the first positive test result in his state Tuesday evening. At least 100 deaths in the country have now been linked to the coronavirus, and the virus has now infected more than 200,000 people worldwide in at least 144 countries. The WHO today said Africa should prepare for the worst as cases doubled in South Africa. And the United States and Canada have agreed to close their border to all non-essential traffic. The coronavirus stopped Ohio from voting yesterday, but primaries went ahead as planned in Florida, Illinois and Arizona.

Joe Biden swept, and Bernie Sanders is now reassessing his campaign. President Trump said today that he'd send a 1,000-bed hospital ship to New York Harbor, but a Pentagon spokesperson said the ship's being repaired in Virginia right now and probably wouldn't embark for New York for weeks. U.S. stocks took a nosedive today. That triggered a halt in trading, and an NPR Marist poll found that 18% of households have already reported someone being laid off or having hours reduced because of the coronavirus outbreak.

Women were hit harder than men. People who earn less than $50,000 a year were hit harder than those earning more, which is just another reminder that this all but inevitable coronavirus recession that's coming will hurt those who are already hurting most. So thank your grocery store workers. Thank your sanitation workers. Thank anyone doing essential services in your life. Consider tips.

Also, Kevin Durant has tested positive for COVID-19, and it looks that he was recently hanging out with Drake, who is now, according to page six, self-isolated in his Toronto mansion. Expect some quarantunes soon. Please write us with your coronavirus questions. Email todayexplained at vox.com or tweet at us. The show is at today underscore explained.

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Who am I speaking with? Sean, this is Drew. Hey, Drew, this is Sean. How are you? Doing well, man. How are you doing? Doing okay. Doing okay. Lots of time on my hands all of a sudden. Yeah, and who are you with right now, Drew? I'm with my son, Trevor, and my wife, Aggie.

And we are here in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, just gathered around the kitchen table. So why are you guys just sitting around gathered on a Tuesday afternoon? For fun. I wish it was for fun, but no, yesterday I got my test back that I was positive for COVID-19. So on Monday, I was after school, I was talking with my principal and I said, And this was, this is Monday, the what, like the ninth or whatever? Yes, exactly. Monday the ninth. I was talking to my principal. I said, count me out for tomorrow. I'm not sure what this is. I said, would you prefer I go to the doctor

just to have it checked just in case? He said, yeah, do that. So I went to the doctor the next morning. The flu test came back negative. And then they took kind of an other viruses test that also came back negative a couple days later. So I'm still out of school Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. My doctor calls me and says, I want you to go take a coronavirus test. But here's the thing. I had to actually get on a subway to go take the test. Because we live in Brooklyn. The test was being given at a hospital in Manhattan. So I had to do that. And then four days later, which brings us to yesterday, is when I found out the results.

So in between that time, my room was already deep cleaned. People were aware in my building that I was being tested. And I also sent out emails to all the families of the students that I teach to let them know that I was being tested. And I also sent out emails to all the families of the students that I teach to let them know that I was being tested as well. So I could see how complicated this is because, you know, you're in New York City, your options are sort of limited in how you're going to get from point A to point B. At that point, when you were going to go take the coronavirus test, were you like, I should take a car, I should take an Uber and risk infecting the driver if I have something, or should I take the subway and risk infecting the driver if I have something,

or should I take the subway and risk infecting, who knows, a dozen people or something? I'm not sure what the process you go through was. What was it? I wore gloves and I had a face mask at that point from the doctor's appointment the day before. So I had gloves and a face mask on. I was not coughing at all. So, you know, I'd like to think that I controlled it as best I could. But at the same time, when I got there and the doctor interviewed me and he was a specialist, an infectious disease specialist, he said, after this interview, I normally wouldn't test you because you're not exhibiting any of the symptoms right now. And I said, well, I'd really like, I'm here, please test me because I need to know this to get back to work. And so he said, oh, all right, but I'd really be shocked if you were positive. And here we are. What did the doctors tell you to do after you got tested?

We were already in a self-quarantine for a few days since I took the test. And once the results came back, they said, assume that everyone else in your house, and in this case, we live in an apartment, in your apartment has the virus as well. Trevor and Aggie have also shown symptoms over the last few days. I started showing symptoms a week ago yesterday. So our other son is, so Trevor's 23, our other son is 20. He's here with us too under quarantine, but he's not showing any signs yet. Oh no, should he be there with you? Well, that was the question that we asked the doctor and she said, yeah, she said it's too late. Just assume that he has it. Oh, okay. I guess I just want to ask how you all are doing. We're feeling well. We're feeling well. I think we've all gone through a slight fever, but the fever is gone right now.

We've all gone through some body aches and kind of tingly skin, sneezing and coughing, but everything seems to be improving. I just seem to be a couple days ahead of everyone. And like emotionally? Emotionally, that's probably the harder part is you know here we are you know we're kind of facing this new reality and we're also in a in a city that that is you know the biggest city in the country and they're talking about a possible lockdown and you know we want to make sure that when we're locked in here that we're going to be able to have our basic needs met. Yeah. Yeah. Can I hear from Aggie and Trevor? Hi, Sean.

Hey, Aggie. Thanks for making time for us. Sure, sure. How about you? How are you feeling? What are your concerns and thoughts right now? No, I'm doing okay. I'm grateful that we get along as well as we do. My company recommended that everyone start working remotely a week ago yesterday. So I've been working at home. But yesterday was kind of a rough day. And with Drew's diagnosis, I decided to take, you know, a couple of days off from work. So for me right now, I'm just relieved that we're, we're okay. Um, and that we're here and I don't know, I think I'm just grateful for a couple of days of rest. True rest. Yeah. Are you mad at your husband at all? No, no, not at all. That's good. I have to ask, I'm sorry. I'm not trying to like incite domestic strife.

Have you been in contact with your doctor's Aggie? So while Drew was going to get the test, our physicians were meeting with Trevor and me via Teladoc, and they were interviewing us. I mean, they were asking us so many questions, and they could not find any trail back to where we may have contracted it. That's the biggest mystery of all, because we weren't anywhere where it was. That we know of, of course. That we know of. Yeah. Which is just scarier, I guess, right?

Because this is spreading in New York. It sounds like New York's on the cusp of being in total shutdown, and New York State has more cases than any other state in the union right now. Your governor's calling for military assistance. Like having it be sort of unknown feels even scarier. Well, yeah. And the doctors did not think that Drew was showing the COVID symptoms. They did not think he had it. And he pretty much asked for the test so that he could be cleared to go back to work because he would not have been able to go back. Our thinking at this point is that plenty of people are walking around with it who might not even realize it because it feels like

the regular flu or a bad cold. All right. Maybe I'll ask Trevor how he feels about it too. Okay. Yeah, it is. I mean, it's a bit nerve-wracking for sure it's it's a completely new situation but like my parents said we all get along really well and we've gotten along really well so far so if i was going to be quarantined with any group of people i'm happy i'm happy it's my family i can say that um i think that something that i guess is weighed heavy on me more than maybe my family is just that i'm um i went to school to be an actor and I just got off of a touring gig. And a lot of my friends right now are losing jobs because, you know, regional theaters everywhere are shutting down. And, you know, Broadway, they shut down indefinitely or until I think sometime in April. So that's been something that to grapple with, I guess, is as far as employment.

That's been kind of an interesting situation. Well, good luck, Trevor. Can I talk to this fourth family member who like doesn't have it, but definitely has it? Oh, yeah. Yeah, let's see. He's in the other room right now is that what qualifies as social distancing in your family like he's in the other exactly well like we said we've been figuring out how to you know keep sane with each

other in a very small living space here he is this. This is Elliot. Hold this up when you speak. All right, this is Elliot, and he sounds just like Trevor and me. Yeah. Hello. Okay. Hello, Elliot. Hi, how are you?

My name's Sean. I host a podcast called Today Explained, and we're trying to explain what it's like to get COVID-19 with the rest of your family today. Yeah, I can give an outsider's perspective from inside the quarantine, I guess. I don't even remember which day it was at this point, but I was just laying in bed and I just woke up and I'm not fully mentally there

when I first wake up in the morning and my dad's just leaning in my room and says, hey, I have to go and get tested for coronavirus. I'm really not feeling well, and I was just kind of shocked, and I had to go about my day, which was weird. And I've kind of been playing catch-up because I'm still in school, and I have a part-time job, and I've been emailing my managers at my job and the head of my program at school,

trying to keep them updated on the situation and trying to keep everybody updated that the situation and trying to keep everybody updated that I might have been in contact with, which was kind of nerve-wracking. But I tell everybody, yeah, I haven't shown any symptoms yet. And while it's pretty much widely suspected that the in the, like the younger you go, the more likely it is that people can be silent carriers. There isn't enough, you know,

evidence to sufficiently say whether or not you're more infectious in this period, you're less infectious, whether or not you can transfer it while you still have it, which is kind of the thing I have to keep reminding myself to not try to feel, you know, like I just spread it to all my friends and everything,

but. Or to us. Oh, patient zero in the household. There you go. to not try to feel, you know, like I just spread it to all my friends and everything. Or to us. Oh, patient zero in the household. There you go. Yeah, it was me all along. We really brought you out here to confront you. We're actually changing his name to the silent carrier. Y'all are hilarious.

You're like the Norman Rockwell portrait of COVID-19 in America, like just the best possible version. What do you think, I mean, because this will be heard by lots of people who don't have this yet, who are, you know, seeing the news coming out of New York State, which is worrisome to anyone around the country, and especially maybe people in New York. And this, everyone promises this will get worse before it gets better. What would you tell people who are, you know, living alongside you and beyond about, you know, how to best prepare themselves mentally and even physically for what's to come? Well, I would say first to follow the instructions that were being given to, you know, to keep far away from people, to stay in as much as possible,

you know, all of that. I mean, that obviously is happening a little too late in a lot of places, but just listen, do what they're saying, stay home. I think that there's also, at least for me, because I still haven't shown any symptoms or anything, there's one thing that's helped me a lot is staying as informed as possible and trying to find information from as many different news sources as possible

because I think one of the things that's kind of been affecting me is like you know for the past five five or so nights like every night as I'm falling asleep it's kind of a thought of like what if I just wake up tomorrow and I start feeling symptoms and if I let that fear grab hold of me it's gonna you know not allow me to think as logically and as rationally as I should be able to think so just don't let that it's just it's not worth your time to let the fear control you it's just best to keep a level head and and you know respond appropriately to everything that you're

seeing in the news you know make sure you to everything that you're seeing in the news. You know, make sure you have some basic supplies in your place. Figure out who can deliver to you if it's needed to be delivered, if you need to stay in. And don't go out. Yeah, stay calm. We'll pass that on. I really hope you all get better ASAP Rocky. Elliot, Drew, Aggie, and Trevor, thank you.

Yeah, thank you. All right. In a moment, I'll talk to Dylan Scott at Vox. He's got the latest on getting tested in the United States. It's Today Explained. designed to help you save time and put money back in your pocket. Ramp says they give finance teams unprecedented control and insight into company spend. With Ramp, you're able to issue cards to every employee with limits and restrictions and automate expense reporting so you can stop wasting time at the end of every month.

And now you can get $250 when you join Ramp. You can go to ramp.com slash explained, ramp.com slash explained, R-A-M-P dot com slash explained. Cards issued by Sutton Bank, member FDIC, terms and conditions apply. Dylan Scott, you cover healthcare for Vox. How hard is it to get tested in America right now? So testing capacity has increased dramatically. As of Tuesday, we were able to run about 37,000 tests in a day. As of Tuesday, we had conducted more than 50,000 tests, which is up from less than 8,000 at the end of last week. But just to be clear here,

testing 30,000 people in a day is not even close to being able to test 1% of the population. It's not even close to a tenth of a percent of the population in a day. Exactly. start as a country like South Korea did, it might have been a lot easier to contain the virus, to, you know, figure out where it was, who had it, and take much more targeted steps to try to fix it. But because we had such weak testing to start, we've had to resort to these much more dramatic social distancing measures, you know, closing schools, telling people to work from home, canceling large gatherings, because we just don't know exactly how widespread the coronavirus is in the United States because we haven't been testing enough. Let's talk about the process here if you actually think you might have this. I mean, how is that changing right now? First off, is it still,

you know, if you feel you've had a fever for a few days and sore muscles, call your doctor first? Yes. I think that we still want people to sort of go to have sort of a normal medical regimen. So if you don't feel very good, you know, think you might have a slight fever, you feel a little achy, you've got a cough, don't go to work. Try not to come in contact with other people. And yes, call your doctor, try to arrange an appointment. We don't want, as much as we want people to be cognizant of their symptoms and seeking help if they need it, we also don't want to be overloading our hospitals because we already expect that the coronavirus cases are going to exceed the amount of care

that our hospitals are able to provide. Okay, well, let's see you get to the point where you do actually need to be tested for COVID-19 in the United States, knowing how limited the tests still are, and knowing that the country's currently over capacity. What happens then? Where do you go to get tested now? Hospitals are the primary places conducting tests. I think they're also being distributed to physicians' offices as capacity allows. There have been some places, particularly in Seattle, that have set up drive-thrus for people to come through, pull up in their car, get their swabs taken,

and have those samples sent out to the labs to be tested. So it's definitely worth checking with your doctor. It's worth checking if there's one of those pop-up testing clinics in your area. If you get tested and you test positive for COVID-19, what happens from there is probably going to depend a lot on your symptoms and how you seem to be handling it. For a lot of people, home care is probably going to be enough. You know, if you just have a low-grade fever, a little bit of aches and pains, you know, a light dry cough, the hospital and the doctors are probably going to send you back home, tell you not to contact anybody, isolate yourself, etc.

What we're worried about is the most vulnerable populations, older people or people with underlying medical conditions in their hearts or their lungs that can make them more vulnerable to the virus. And those people are potentially going to be asked to stay in a hospital for a few days to be monitored. And obviously, if your symptoms progress significantly enough that, you know, you're having trouble breathing on your own or have other complications arising, then you're probably going to be put in an intensive care unit and have to stay at the hospital like for a matter of weeks, you know, both to make sure that your body can continue functioning and then to make sure that you're recovering from the virus fully. I think something that's important to understand is like, especially for younger people, it's a really small percentage of the population who are going to require hospitalization, even if they do get infected.

Like we're talking just a couple of percent of people. But when you look at people who are older, like 50 and over, 60 and over, they are much more likely to need hospitalization, at least for monitoring, or they'll need to be put in an intensive care unit to make sure that their body doesn't fail them. So that's where this wide range of the symptoms that people experience because of COVID-19 comes into play. It can be everything from you don't really feel bad at all. You're like Idris Elba and you tested positive, but you don't feel sick. Yeah, and it sucks. Listen, I'm doing okay. I didn't have any symptoms. I got tested because I realized I was exposed to someone who had also tested positive. Or it could escalate all the way up to severe pneumonia and death, most likely for the

elderly. And so that's one of the most tricky things about both identifying this disease and then treating it. Tell me how it works in the United States as far as healthcare coverage is concerned. Are you paying out of pocket for the tests? Are you paying, you know, an arm and a leg for the hospital treatment if you get to that point? So, obviously in general, America has some of the highest out-of-pocket costs in the world. People here are much more likely to skip medical care, including for serious conditions, because of the high out-of-pocket costs. And that's a problem for a situation like this, when you want people to seek care and you don't want costs to be a barrier.

Now, there's a little bit of variation here, and this is another one where it's like, you got to check with your own health insurance company. But there have been some states like California and New York, where the governors have issued executive orders that require either their state Medicaid program and the individual or small business private insurance plans that are regulated by the state to provide testing and treatment for COVID-19 free to the patient. And we have just seen Anthem, one of the biggest health insurance companies in the country, announce that they are going to waive co-pays and other cost-sharing obligations for patients who are tested for or need to be treated for COVID-19. So there does seem to be a recognition that we don't want people to avoid

seeking care because they're worried about the costs. We don't want people to be hit with $4,000 bills if they end up being quarantined or hospitalized because of this situation. But it's very much a piecemeal approach. The problem is a big federal law that governs large employer health insurance plans that cover about half of Americans. Those plans are not subject to the state executive orders. For those people, which is a lot of us, we're going to depend on these kind of voluntary measures that these health insurers are willing to take in reaction to the crisis. One other thing that I just found out is that the CDC does think it has the authority to cover the costs of tests and treatment for uninsured people. In theory, they could be hit

with the full cost of what it takes to be tested or treated for COVID-19, but it looks like CDC will be able to pick up those bills. Dylan, I feel like a lot of people out there right now are worried and the things that they're hearing aren't inspiring confidence. We were late to this whole thing to begin with. Our testing was not up to where it should have been. Now we're playing catch up and we're still not at capacity. Governor Cuomo is calling for the military to come in and give him more hospital beds, and it still hasn't even happened. I mean, you're hearing from readers right now at Vox.com. What are they saying? Are they scared?

I think primarily people are scared, and they feel like they don't know what's going on. We have a healthcare newsletter called VoxCare that's going out three times a week now during the COVID-19 outbreak. a healthcare newsletter called VoxCare that's going out three times a week now during the COVID-19 outbreak. You can sign up for it at vox.com backslash VoxCare. I've put out a call over the last week or so for questions. And I do think the through lines about this are, you know, what are my risks? What does the disease feel like? And then just like, what am I allowed to do? Am I allowed to go outside of my house? I got an email from a woman this week that I will not forget anytime soon. She said she lived in Northern

Ireland. She was 68 years old and had COPD. So certainly somebody who is potentially vulnerable to the coronavirus. But she asked me, she was like, can I just take my dog out on the beach and walk by myself? Like she just she didn't even know basically if she was allowed to leave her house and take her dog for a walk. And so I think that is a signal both of how scared people are. They are they are afraid to do those most basic of their daily activities. And they just don't have the information that they need to be able to make decisions about what they can do or what they should do. And she can take her dog for a walk as long as she practices safe social distancing from other people, right? Exactly. Not a doctor. This is not medical advice.

But yes, it's okay to go outside. It's okay to take a walk. Stay six feet away from other people. Practice good hygiene. Wash your hands when you get home, et cetera. But like, we are not all being bound to our homes by the authorities. But I think a lot of people feel that way because there is just so much fear and so much unknown about the pandemic.

You want to give people something to be hopeful about before we go so i i'm gonna try to answer this question earnestly um i oscillate all the time between being scared to death and feeling a little more sanguine about the whole situation. And the things I've seen from nurses working on the ground, from patients who are trying to be really proactive about protecting themselves and protecting other people. I talked to one guy who belatedly got a COVID-19 test in Chicago, but before he ever got tested, he had already started calling people he had been in contact with recently to tell them how he was feeling and that he was worried he might have coronavirus. As it turned out, somebody he had been in touch with at his physical therapist's

office had a father with lung cancer, exactly the kind of population that you'd worry about with coronavirus. And so that was just him on his own trying to be proactive and trying to help other people. And so when I see that kind of stuff and sort of this, this slow but steady mobilization across our entire society, like I do think people are thinking outside the box. I do think they appreciate that it will take an entire society to get this outbreak under control. And that makes me hopeful. For as much as the initial response was lacking and too slow, we are starting to get our shit together. And even if it's going to be hard, and even if it's going to take a long time, we're going to get through it. Tell people where to find your newsletter one more time. Vox.com backslash VoxCare.

Send me your emails. Sign up, subscribe. I'm going to do my best to answer them. And we'll get through it together. Tell people where to find you on Twitter.com. Dylan L. for Lewis Scott. All one word. Dylan Lewis Scott, thanks so much.

Thank you, Sean.