As I record this, the COVID-19 Coronavirus outbreak is poised to become a global pandemic. Each day brings reports of new cases in new locations around the world.
So far, COVID-19 has mostly impacted countries with decently functioning health care systems. However, a great worry that has been repeatedly expressed by experts, and from the World Health Organization, is what happens should we see clusters of cases where there is no good health system. This includes poorer countries, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa and also, populations in the midst of some humanitarian crisis.
To help us understand the potential impact of this coronavirus outbreak on vulnerable populations around the world is Dr. Paul B. Spiegel. He is the director of the Center for Humanitarian Health at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health, where he also works as a professor.
As it happens, Paul B. Spiegel was in the midst of a project to model scenarios around COVID-19 and the Rohingya refugee population in a region of Bangladesh called Cox’s Bazar. We spend a good bit of time discussing that particular humanitarian crisis, while also discussing the broader implications of COVID-19 spreading to places that are already in the midst of a crisis.
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A transcript of this episode is available here.
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