As coronavirus spreads across the globe infecting more and more people, it’s time to start panicking and hoarding toilet paper and face masks, right? TV’s best-known celebrity doctors Dr. Drew and Dr. Oz have responded to that with an emphatic “no”!
TMZ caught up with the medical experts in New York and found both eager to tell the public to calm down and not panic about COVID-19.
Dr. Drew says, ‘settle down everybody’
Dr. David Drew Pinsky, otherwise known as Dr. Drew, recommends that we listen to the CDC, and the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Dr. Anthony Fauci, follow their instructions and “behave accordingly,” he said.
The medic then pointed out that 16,000 have died from regular flu, and we should be more worried about that; he said, “get your flu shot, it’s far more likely to kill you than corona.”
He then attacked the press, accusing them of spreading panic, which has led to interrupted supply-lines and is stopping patients from getting regular medicines.
“The panic is having a real-world affect… people are losing jobs and businesses are going bust… not because of the virus, but because of the panic,” he explained.
Dr. Drew finished by advising people to “stop obsessing about it; just wash your hands.”
Dr. Drew has previously attacked the media over their response to the virus. In early February he told the Daily Blast Live he was “furious” at the press for “overreacting”.
“The press should not be reporting medical stories as though they know how to report it,” he said at the time.
Dr. Oz says stop hoarding face masks
Dr. Mehmet Oz, otherwise known as Dr. Oz, told TMZ he’s concerned that while Americans are being told “not to panic,” at the same time they’re not being told what practical measures they can do to mitigate the virus — which makes them panic more.
“The worst thing when you’re your stressed is to have nothing to do,” he told the interviewer.
Dr. Oz said the best thing we can do is act on the things we can affect and not worry about the things we can’t change.
He argues that because the coronavirus doesn’t severely affect healthy people, then we should concentrate on preventing the vulnerable and sick from getting the illness. “Don’t let grandmother get it,” he says, “because, with her medical history, it could be a catastrophe.”
Dr. Oz also addressed panic-buying, saying: “I see lots of people in masks, and I’m worried about that.” He says that most people wearing masks don’t have them fitted properly, or are using the wrong kind, and adivsed that people should stop hoarding them and leave them for the professionals who are in the hospitals taking care of the sick.
Coronavirus doesn’t seem to be going anywhere soon, and a number of major events have been affected. SXSW in Austin, initially planned for later this month, has been canceled; however, plenty of music festivals, such as the Treefort Music Festival in Boise, Idaho, are still expected to go ahead.