Michael Osterholm hasn’t seen his grandchildren since March 10.
Well, not in person, anyway.
“You know, I see them on FaceTime,” the infectious disease expert recently told Fresh Air’s Terry Gross. “You know, I get to do all those kinds of things with Zoom and so forth, but it’s not the same. So it is very hard.”
Osterholm, the director for the Center of Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, recently spoke with Gross about the state of the pandemic. The conversation, which aired on National Public Radio and was posted online on June 17, addressed topics many of us have questions about. Here’s a sampling:
DON’T GO OVERBOARD DISINFECTING
Osterholm told Gross that he thinks people are going overboard on disinfecting surfaces (which can lead to antibiotic resistance) as well as worrying about handling mail, packages, newspapers and groceries:
“I don’t worry about food,” he told her. “I don’t worry about newsprint. I don’t worry about packages I get here. I don’t worry about doorknobs and railings any more than I would during the regular cold season. You know, it’s not that that’s going to be the major challenge with this virus. Over and over again, it’s the air that we share with each other that is critical. That’s why distancing is so important.”
(It is important to keep up on hand washing, though, he affirms.)
IT’S ABOUT AIRFLOW
Osterholm also spoke of the importance of air flow, whether it’s rolling down the window in your Uber ride or meeting up with friends at the beach.
“Anytime you can, increase airflow in whatever setting you’re in,” he said. “For example, outdoors has its own natural, in a sense, air conditioning. You know, I often hear people talking about the risk of going to the beach, and ironically beaches are probably some of the safest places to go to if you’re not literally cheek and jowl with someone, just because the wind is blowing all the time, and it’s creating, in a sense, kind of a cleansing of the air where that virus might come out. If you’re in a building where the heating, ventilation and cooling system is not moving air very frequently, then that aerosol that that person’s breathing in that conference room is going to build up over time. And so yes, you are going to be at greater risk in that kind of a setting.”
LIMIT TIME IN PUBLIC
He also told Gross that he has only purchased one tank of gas since March 10.
“And I still have a lot of it left,” he said. “That’s something if you’d said five months ago that would be something that I would do, I would say, no, come on. And so I think we’ve all had such a big change in life. I don’t go out much at all. When I do go out, I wear my mask. I limit my time in the public setting. It’s a hard thing. We haven’t been to work at the University of Minnesota at our center together as a group since since early March. It’s a whole new world, and it’s a challenging world.”
LISTEN TO THE INTERVIEW
Read the transcript, or listen to the interview, on NPR’s website, NPR.org. You can also read more highlights from the interview.