• City Hall
  • Province House
  • Education
  • Environment
  • Investigation
  • Journalism
  • Commentary
  • @Tim_Bousquet
  • Log In

Halifax Examiner

An independent, adversarial news site in Halifax, NS

  • Home
  • About
    • Terms and Conditions
    • Commenting policy
  • Archives
  • Contact us
  • Subscribe
  • Donate
  • Manage your account
  • Swag
You are here: Home / Featured / Ask an expert: Q & A with Dr. Tom Frieden

Ask an expert: Q & A with Dr. Tom Frieden

April 14, 2020 By Jennifer Henderson Leave a Comment

Dr. Tom Frieden is working from his hone office. Photo: Twitter

The Halifax Examiner is providing all COVID-19 coverage for free.

Tom Frieden, a former director of the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta as well as a former Commissioner of Health for New York City, was interviewed about coronavirus yesterday by reporter Helen Branswell. Branswell, who used to work for the Canadian Press, now writes for STAT, an online news daily specializing in health, medicine, and drug research. I sat in on that videoconference. Here, in brief, are a few of Frieden’s comments.

What should health authorities be doing now?

“Use the time to prepare for the next wave of the virus. Like Wayne Gretzky used to say, skate toward where the puck is going, not where it is now. This will mean testing more widely, isolating all infected people, aggressively tracing all of their contacts, and quarantining for 14 days.”

If these things are executed properly, Frieden suggested we may be able to “box in” or contain the virus to small clusters and avoid re-imposing the strict physical distancing measures we are living with today. That said, when we re-emerge, the future will look different from the past.

“You will see lots of hand sanitizer at public places; we still have to figure out what to do about elevators,” said Frieden. “There will be no more shaking of hands and there will be fewer face-to-face business meetings. Work days or work hours may have to be staggered to reduce the number of people congregating.”

When will the world be ready to re-open? 

“A vaccine is still at least a year away so the virus is still going to be here,” said Frieden.  To keep it “to a simmer,” three things must happen:  1) the number of deaths must come down; 2) health care workers must be able to be protected; and 3) the public health system must be able to test, isolate, trace, and quarantine people who have been infected.

“Right now in the United States, we aren’t moving fast enough to get the test capacity up,” said Frieden. “In terms of contact tracing, that army of people is just beginning to get organized. Seven thousand people have already died in my city of New York.”

What percentage of COVID-19 transmission is resulting from people who don’t have any symptoms (asymptomatic) or people before they show any symptoms (pre-symptomatic)?

“Information on this is emerging. Some of the best information we have is coming from the Diamond Princess cruise ship. Initially, between 40% and 50% of the people who had the virus didn’t have any symptoms. That was shocking. But as time went on, most of those people developed symptoms and only about 18% turned out never to have symptoms. Spread could be either from the pre-symptomatic or the asymptomatic person. There is one well-done study from Singapore which estimates 6.4% of their transmission came from people who did not show any symptoms.”

How are the serology tests working?

“There are tests for the virus and also tests for the antibodies, called serology, which is a blood test. There are many serology tests on the market and many of them are junk. There is an enormous amount we don’t know. We don’t know if everybody who gets infected with the virus develops antibodies, although it’s looking that way. We don’t know if the antibodies protect against future infections and that’s a crucial question. In theory, if antbodies are protective, that person has a “get out of jail free card” and could go back to normal activities and help with the response.”

What is your opinion on wearing cloth masks?

The Center for Disease Control has recommended that healthy people wear cloth masks whenever they go out but the World Health Organization has not.

“The CDC recommendation was thoughtful and reasonable. It is a judgment call. The reasoning is as follows. In a place with lots of spread, some people will be pre-symptomatic or asymptomatic and therefore potentially spreading the virus. We do know if people who have the virus wear a home-made mask, they are less likely to give it to others. There are some “buts” here. You don’t want to be taking supply away from healthcare workers. You don’t want to be touching your face more because you are sweaty. And you want to make sure it doesn’t give you false confidence to go out because if you are ill, stay home.”

Is there a silver lining?

“For all the terrible death and economic depression we are in, in fact, we are seeing some silver linings. We are seeing a future where despite conflicts among (and within) countries, we are all connected and that we can work together. That there is interest in global solidarity. It matters to us if the nursing home residents are safe, if the prisoners are safe, if the homeless are safe. This is the time to build our public health entities to keep us safer from other conditions beside coronavirus that are needlessly causing illness and disability. So I remain optimistic we will come out of this stronger.”


The Halifax Examiner is an advertising-free, subscriber-supported news site. Your subscription makes this work possible; please subscribe.

Some people have asked that we additionally allow for one-time donations from readers, so we’ve created that opportunity, via the PayPal button below. We also accept e-transfers, cheques, and donations with your credit card; please contact iris “at” halifaxexaminer “dot” ca for details.

Thank you!




Filed Under: Featured, News Tagged With: Center for Disease Control (CDC), coronavirus, COVID-19, COVID-19 testing, COVID-19 vaccine, Helen Branswell, masks, pandemic, Tom Frieden, World Health Organization (WHO)

About Jennifer Henderson

Jennifer Henderson is a freelance journalist and retired CBC News reporter. email: [email protected]

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

The Tideline, with Tara Thorne

Brian Borcherdt. Photo: Anna Edwards-Borcherdt

Brian Borcherdt came of age in Yarmouth in the 1990s. When he arrived in Halifax, the city’s famous music scene was already waning, and worse, the music he made was rejected by the cool kids anyway. After decades away from Nova Scotia, he and his young family have settled in the Annapolis Valley, where he’ll zoom in to chat with Tara about his band Holy Fuck’s endlessly delayed tour, creating the Dependent Music collective, and the freedom and excitement of the improvised music he’s making now. Plus: Bringing events back in 2021.

The Tideline is advertising-free and subscriber-supported. It’s also a very good deal at just $5 a month. Click here to support The Tideline.

Uncover: Dead Wrong

In 1995, Brenda Way was brutally murdered behind a Dartmouth apartment building. In 1999, Glen Assoun was found guilty of the murder. He served 17 years in prison, but steadfastly maintained his innocence. In 2019, Glen Assoun was fully exonerated.

Halifax Examiner founder and investigative journalist Tim Bousquet has followed the story of Glen Assoun's wrongful conviction for over five years. Now, Bousquet tells that story as host of Season 7 of the CBC podcast series Uncover: Dead Wrong.

Click here to go to listen to the podcast, or search for CBC Uncover on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or any other podcast aggregator.

About the Halifax Examiner

Examiner folk The Halifax Examiner was founded by investigative reporter Tim Bousquet, and now includes a growing collection of writers, contributors, and staff. Left to right: Joan Baxter, Stephen Kimber, Linda Pannozzo, Erica Butler, Jennifer Henderson, Iris the Amazing, Tim Bousquet, Evelyn C. White, El Jones, Philip Moscovitch More about the Examiner.

Sign up for email notification

Sign up to receive email notification of new posts on the Halifax Examiner. Note: signing up for email notification of new posts is NOT subscribing to the Halifax Examiner. To subscribe, click here.

Recent posts

  • It sure feels like a whole lot of nothing is happening with the mass murder inquiry and investigation January 25, 2021
  • 1 new case of COVID-19 announced in Nova Scotia on Sunday, Jan. 24 January 24, 2021
  • Reckoning with racism January 24, 2021
  • After reading a Halifax Examiner article, two cops showed up at an author reading at Mount Allison University January 23, 2021
  • A heritage property in Sir Sandford Fleming Park is falling apart. Will the city do anything about it? January 23, 2021

Commenting policy

All comments on the Halifax Examiner are subject to our commenting policy. You can view our commenting policy here.

Copyright © 2021