In this episode, we discuss the coronavirus with Mandy Bodily-bartrum and Darla Perdue, the two individuals leading the way in protecting the patients of Vibra Healthcare & Ernest Health from the virus. Mandy & Darla provide some background on the coronavirus and address some of the hysteria currently circulating the internet, including:

• Did coronavirus spread to humans because someone ate a bat?
• Is the coronavirus a plague?
• Has the coronavirus mutated?
• Coronavirus vs. the flu
• Is coronavirus curable?

Our Guests

Mandy Bodily-bartrum, DNP, NPH, RN, CIC, FAPIC is the vice president of infection prevention at Vibra Healthcare.

Darla Perdue, MSN, RN is the chief clinical officer at Vibra Healthcare.

Quotable

“People don’t really realize how many people touch a door handle in a day” -Darla

“When you hear about high-touch surfaces being focused on in at a hospital level, it really is something that you should be focusing on in your own homes, as well.” -Darla

“The media has created quite the hysteria, unfortunately” -Darla

“If you wash your hands, if you focus on the cleanliness of your environment, you’re going to reduce your possibility of being exposed to any infection significantly.” -Darla

“[The coronavirus is] something to be cautious about…but not necessarily to get too panicked about.” -Mandy

“There’s still a lot of unknowns about the coronavirus, just because it is such a novel virus that we are seeing.” -Mandy

“When you’re talking about general symptoms, they are very similar to the flu” -Mandy

“Unfortunately, right now we don’t have a general test that’s available for commercial labs, so you can’t just go to your doctor…and in five minutes know if you have COVID-19 or not” -Mandy

“The biggest element of protection is hand hygiene and cough etiquette” -Darla

Here’s a list of resources mentioned in the episode:

World Health Organization: QA on coronaviruses (COVID-19)

CDC: Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19)

For more information on infection prevention, how to properly wash your hands, and other important topics, be sure to check out Continuum: A Healthcare Blog and subscribe to Continuum: A Healthcare Podcaston your favorite platform.