Tested Podcast

Today: Reporting.

Earlier this month, when Governor Roy Cooper issued his executive order that people stay-at-home, he listed out some essential businesses and operations that could continue.

The list included the obvious, like grocery stores and pharmacies. But the "essential" list also included car mechanics, hardware stores, and news media outlets. No one believes for a second that reporters are on-par with health-care workers or pharmacists on the list of most essential. But, access to verified, accurate information is important.

We speak about the essential nature of news with Rose Hoban, editor of North Carolina Health News, and we hear from WUNC's Jay Price about how a reporter manages risk, and how this pandemic is different from the war-zone reporting he has done in the past. 

Even if the term is unfamiliar, the situation probably isn't. If you've ever lived in a college dormitory, you've been in a congregate living situation… where you live side-by-side with other people, maybe sharing bedrooms, bathrooms, kitchens, and various public spaces.

That term has taken on new importance now, especially in places like nursing homes. It's led Governor Roy Cooper to issue new rules.

As the numbers of cases, hospitalizations, and deaths continue to climb, so do the number of survivors. The Department of Health and Human Services is not providing statewide data on the number of people who have been treated and released from hospitals, but Dale Folwell is one of them. He's North Carolina's State Treasurer. Now in recovery, Folwell talks to WUNC's Jeff Tiberii.
 

In a conference call on March 16, President Donald Trump told governors it should try to get ventilators and other life-saving equipment on their own.

Three-and-a-half weeks later, states are competing against each other and against other countries for a limited supply of PPE, ventilators, and other vital tools in combating COVID-19.

We talk to Rose Hoban, editor of North Carolina Health News, about how that dynamic between the federal and state government is playing out in hospitals.

Predicting how the COVID-19 pandemic will play out in North Carolina is a difficult task. Yesterday, some of the state's best minds from Duke, UNC-Chapel Hill, and RTI crunched the data and offered up their best prediction for what hospitals could expect.

Their message: We need to stay home for a longer period of time.

We talk with WUNC's Will Michaels. He spends most of his waking hours watching the numbers and the various models, and he explains the importance of yesterday's prediction.

Hospital administrators across North Carolina are planning for every scenario they might face during the COVID-19 outbreak. According to UNC Health officials, one of those contingency plans is what to do if half of their providers get sick with COVID-19.

A large-scale survey released today by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Inspector General is clear: The shortage of personal protective equipment (PPE) that might keep that from happening is frightening.

We talk with Rose Hoban, the editor of North Carolina Health News, about the type of work health care providers administer in the pandemic, and how that puts them – and their families – at a unique level of risk.

North Carolina's largest city is also the first serious outbreak of COVID-19 in the state. Hospitalizations there are increasing rapidly, and officials are preparing to be overrun.

On Friday afternoon, Governor Roy Cooper made it clear that North Carolina, like every other state, is pretty much on its own, as the federal government has only fulfilled 33 percent of the requests for supplies and equipment, and told state officials not to expect anything more.

We take a look at what's happening in Charlotte and what it means for the rest of the state with Rose Hoban, the editor and founder of North Carolina Health News.

We all have a role to play in this pandemic. For the majority of us, it's to stay home, stay away from others, and do our best to manage our lives through the next few weeks of social distancing.

For some, unanswered questions are a cause of stress, but for others, the stress is more acute and focused - people who have loved ones who are sick, or those fighting the disease on the front lines, in hospitals across North Carolina.

We talk today with Shevaun Neupert. She's a professor of psychology at N.C. State University and researches stress. Neupert explains the difference between regular, everyday stress, and the chronic variety we are feeling now.

It's hard to know what, exactly, to expect here. Is North Carolina going to be like New York? Or New Orleans? Will we see our hospitals overrun?

Or might we get to where the Bay Area is? Early and decisive actions seem to have made a difference there. As of now, hospitals in northern California are not overrun, and the curve there might just be flattening.

Today on Tested, we talk to Rose Hoban from North Carolina Health News about which states might serve as a bellwether for what North Carolina can expect, and she shines a light on some of the unsung heroes of the health care community.

These are unprecedented times for school administrators, educators, students, and parents.

For so many, school is not just where classes take place, it's the primary social gathering place. And some things, like proms and graduations, will be lost forever.

On today's episode of Tested, we talk to WUNC's two education reporters, Cole del Charco and Liz Schlemmer, about the seismic shift at all levels of North Carolina's education system.

On CNN over the weekend, Dr. Anthony Fauci brought up some frightening numbers, including that the country can expect 100,000-200,000 deaths due to COVID-19. Proportionally, that would mean between 3,000-6,000 people would die in North Carolina.

But right now, the most important number here is hospitalizations. DHHS puts that number at 137 currently, and it's very likely to go up. Way up.

We talk with Rose Hoban, the editor and founder of North Carolina Health News, about what numbers to watch, as well as the potential for a "bomb of infection" waiting to go off in the state's prisons and jails.

The United States has overtaken China, Italy, and every other country in the world in the number of documented COVID-19 cases. It's a dubious and troubling honor, to be sure. And it caps a week unlike any before it, around the globe and here in North Carolina.

On a day when Governor Roy Cooper issues a statewide stay-at-home order, host Dave DeWitt speaks Rose Hoban, editor of North Carolina Health News, about how we will know when the curve is starting to flatten in the state.

Today: Treatment.

Duke University Hospital has announced it is part of the first national study of a drug the World Health Organization has called "the only drug right now that we think may have real efficacy" to treat COVID-19.

That drug is Remdesivir. It was first developed at UNC-Chapel Hill's Gillings School of Global Public Health.

WUNC reporter Jay Price speaks to Dr. Cameron Wolfe, associate professor of medicine at Duke University and the lead investigator in the new study, about the Remdesivir trial and its prospects for treating COVID-19.

Today: Home.

Earlier today, Durham Mayor Steve Schewel issued a stay-at-home order for his city. A flurry of other counties and cities have issued similar orders in the past 24 hours.

But areas of our state are not being affected by Covid-19 in equal amounts. More than three dozen counties have no reported cases at all. So should the same rules apply to all of them?

We talk about that and more with Rose Hoban, the editor of North Carolina Health News.

Today: Crashing.

We are now in week two of social distancing, and the economy is in free fall. That has the president and others wavering on the measures that medical personnel say will save lives. That dispute, between the illness and the pain caused by the remedy, is real, but it affects people unevenly.

We speak with WUNC reporter Jason deBruyn about unemployment and the short-term future of the North Carolina economy, and we offer an appreciation for the doctor leading the UNC System.

Today: Decisions.

The number of personal decisions we are making every day has probably shrunk. We're driving less, not packing our kids' lunches, and eating out less. But the decisions we are making have likely taken on a whole lot more significance.

On this episode of Tested, we look at the current decisions being made by state leaders like Governor Roy Cooper and the past choices made by the General Assembly, and what impact those policies might be having on how the coronavirus pandemic is playing out in North Carolina.

Meet host Dave DeWitt on a quick guided tour of what to expect from WUNC's first-ever daily podcast.