ATLANTA — The U.S. surgeon general made the trip to Atlanta with President Donald Trump on Friday.
Dr. Jerome Adams told Channel 2’s Justin Wilfon that while people should be concerned about the coronavirus, they should not be in a state of panic.
“For a large majority of Americans and Georgians, they are at low risk for coronavirus,” Adams said.
Adams, a vice admiral in the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps., visited the Georgia Department of Health, before heading to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to meet up with Trump.
“I wanted to make sure I stopped by the state Department of Health to find out what’s working well and what wasn’t working well with regards to the coronavirus response,” Adams said.
The surgeon general said the state tested 30 people for the virus Thursday. The results aren’t yet known.
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“If you do get it, you are highly likely to recover. It’s a 99% percent chance that you will recover,” Adams said.
But there are plenty of challenges ahead in the fight against the virus. Wilfon asked the surgeon general how close we are to a vaccine.
“You have to first have a vaccine that is promising, then it takes a long time to actually prove safety, and even a longer time to prove that it’s going to work on a wider level,” Adams said.
The surgeon general said it’s still 12-18 months away.
In the meantime, Adams said there’s no reason to panic with 80% of those who do get the coronavirus requiring no medical attention.
“There is a bigger outbreak of misinformation across our country and in Georgia than there is an outbreak of coronavirus," Adams said.
Adams said all schools, businesses and churches in Georgia should be thinking about how they’re going to react if there is a widespread outbreak here.
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