Matthew McConaughey sat down with Dr. Anthony Fauci for a Instagram Live interview on Thursday to ask the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases the coronavirus question on everyone’s mind.
“My hope is to leave this meeting with a more defined road map for all of us going forward,” the actor said at the beginning of the livestream, which garnered 11,000 live viewers. “A road map of where and how we Americans should collectively march onward and forward in this COVID crisis. That’s my goal: to get some science and some certainty cause I, like many of you out there, am still kind of confused about a lot of stuff.”
He started the livestream by having Fauci clear up some of the rumors about the virus. McConaughey asked Fauci if you can get the virus from surfaces or only via the air, to which Fauci responded that “it is conceivable but very unlikely” that you can get it from inanimate objects. “Overwhelmingly its person to person through the respiratory route,” Fauci said.
McConaughey asked the leader of the coronavirus task force if there should be a mask mandate. Fauci responded, “Absolutely we should have universal wearing of masks. The difficulty with mandates is that there tends to be a push back about do you have to waste time enforcing it or can you really use the power of persuasion from the leadership, everyone doing it.”
Is it true that those with blood type A are more likely to get sick with COVID-19 than those with blood type O? Fauci said yes, but the difference is so small that it’s not worth worrying about.
Does Advil make the virus worse? “No,” said Fauci.
Can you get the virus again, even after you developed antibodies? Fauci explained that only “neutralizing antibodies” will defend you from the virus, and since the virus has only been tested in labs for about six months, it is hard to tell how long those antibodies last.
McConaughey also asked Fauci if there are any long-term affects of COVID-19. Fauci responded by saying that it is still unclear how long ongoing symptoms may last, but that there are people who have chronic problems after recovering from the virus.
“It’s very disturbing because if this is true for a lot of people then just recovering from this may not be okay,” said Fauci. “You may have weeks where you feel not exactly correct.”
Fauci also debunked the idea that zinc or budesonide can help kill the virus in the human body, saying that those who think it’s helping them are probably feeling the placebo effect.
Fauci also debunked the idea of herd immunity: “If everyone contracted it, even with the relatively high percentage of people who are without symptoms, Matthew, a lot of people are going to die. The death toll would be enormous and totally unacceptable.”
McConaughey eventually switched the conversation to sports, and Fauci explained that there are different risk factors that change the likelihood of spreading the virus.
“One sport versus another, and where the sport is played, and college vs pro,” Fauci said, adding, “There’s a big difference.”
Fauci left the livestream viewers with this message: “I often say, and I don’t mean this to be provocative about it you know, take your choice: You want to open the bars or open the schools? You know if you open the bars you’re going to have community spread that’s going to make it more difficult to open the schools.”
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