Noted Immunologist Dr. James Hildreth, President of the Meharry Medical College, Returns to Discuss the Ongoing Challenge of Covid-19
It has been approximately 20 months since the coronavirus pandemic hit the United States. Since Covid-19 began impacting the world in 2019, we have had the good fortune of having Dr. James Hildreth, the President of the Meharry Medical College, with us on a number of occasions to discuss this health challenge.
The noted immunologist has an impressive educational background with degrees from Harvard, Oxford and the John Hopkins School of Medicine. His research specialty is HIV/Aids, which he began focusing on when the Aids epidemic began in the 1980s. Dr. Hildreth is part of President Joe Biden’s Covid-19 equity health task force and a member of the FDA Covid-19 Vaccine Approval Committee.
Recently, featured columnist Jay Bildstein welcomed Dr. Hildreth back to CYInterview to talk about some of the key topics concerning the coronavirus pandemic.
On the Internet, there is currently abundant misinformation about Covid-19, including claims of treatments that have little to no scientific proof that they actually work against the virus. On this topic, Dr. Hildreth offered this:
“There are a number of individuals who are making false claims of treatment success when in fact, all that they witnessed or manifested is that the virus infects individuals. Some people may have a strong enough immune response to the virus, even though it’s a primary response to keep it in check and they get better.”
Though the Covid-19 vaccines reduce the risk of hospitalization, Dr. Hildreth explained why people must continue to wear masks, as well as the other things we must all do to beat this pandemic:
“When we all wear the mask, we reduce the likelihood that transmission will occur because we reduce the likelihood of the virus being spread. We also reduce the likelihood of the virus being inhaled. … The social distancing, the wearing of the masks and the vaccinations are what will get us past this.”
Dr. Hildreth gave us his insight on how much longer Covid-19 could be with us:
“I know this for sure, the sooner we make the decision as a population to get vaccinated, that day will come sooner. The longer we have large numbers of people who are holding out on getting vaccinated, it’s just gonna prolong the day where we could put this behind us and get back to a new normal. And I say new normal because this will not be the last of these kind of challenges we have to deal with.”
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