Coronavirus has been sweeping the globe for months now, and what the future holds is unclear; but what is clear is that there are lots of brilliant women on the frontlines of this crisis. Rose Reed, host of The Women, talks with several of them to get their perspective on what’s going on from all over the world: Molecular biologist Dr. Emma Hodcroft in Switzerland, biosecurity expert Raina McIntyre in Australia, infection prevention expert Dr. Soskia Popescu in Arizona, home health care nurse Stephanie in France, and Antoinette Ward, a nurse who’s in charge of the triage center at a major hospital in Atlanta. They answer – and ask – some important questions, like how is this crisis disproportionately affecting women? Why aren't we doing more widespread testing in the U.S.? And why didn’t governments better prepare their healthcare workers for this crisis?
Dr. Hodcroft tells us a little bit about the origin of the Covid-19 coronavirus, how it jumped from animal to person, and points out that this coronavirus has managed to spread so widely partly because of the asymptomatic carriers – people who contract the virus but have no idea they have it, managing to spread it to others. So doing screenings like temperature checks or telling people with a cough to stay home “won’t be enough,” she says. Only free, fast, and widespread testing can enable us to discontinue social distancing measures and begin to slowly open our businesses and services again. So, Rose wonders, what’s up with these tests? Raina McIntyre wants to know, too, saying, “The United States has the most advanced scientific community in the world...I’m not sure why South Korea and Japan and China are able to test at a massive scale, and we still can’t manage it in the U.S. and Australia.”
Dr. Popescu worries that once lockdown measures are eased, we’ll rush back into things, causing a second wave and even longer quarantines: “Realistically, this is a marathon, not a sprint,” she tells Rose. Dr. Yasmin points out that women in the health care and epidemiology fields are dealing with the male-dominated coronavirus task force discounting their advice and expertise, and Stephanie in France is even blunter: Though they’re publicly hailed as heroes, “all the nurses in France today are very angry about the government,” she says flatly. “The lack of equipment reflects an overall disregard for everyone involved.” Listen to this episode for more from the frontlines on The Women.
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