But what does that mean exactly?

And how can we do it for more?

On that, we'd like to bring an infectious disease expert and former federal virus hunter Dr Dennis Carroll, who joins us now live from Washington D.

C Dr.

Carroll, thanks so much for joining us.

Thank you.

So can you remind us of exactly what that means?

Flattening the curve?

And why is that the most important thing for people to be thinking about right now?

Well, I think it's We've seen actions taken in California, Illinois and New York that are indicative of the speed with which this virus is spreading across America that if we let it continue to infect a TTE the direction it is now using the limited interventions we have now, within 3 to 4 weeks our health system is gonna completely collapse.

It'll be overwhelmed by the number of people seeking urging care.

Flattening the curve is basically what can we do toe really profoundly impact on the number of people that are being exposed and infected, and if we don't really take the kind of actions that are being now undertaken in California and elsewhere that we are in a really in historic position of facing a health crisis that we've never faced before.

So flattening the curve is basically how can we reduce the number of people exposed today so that three weeks from now, the numbers of people showing up at the health facility are far fewer than those that were showing up the day before.

Now, when we look at that chart, it shows the flattening of the curve also means that the virus last longer.

But I imagine there's no concern about prolonging the outbreak.

Well, the biggest concern is that if we in fact force our health system into a critical state, we're not only not going to be able to provide critical treatment for this particular virus, but the health system itself is going to be challenged.

To provide normative service is for critical needs of people other than the virus.

If we're able to flatten the curve and slow the number of people who are becoming infected than the health system is better positioned to be able to provide, service is not just for this virus, but for critical other health needs.

Understood now which countries have most effectively flattened the curve of their outbreaks?

And how did they go about doing that?

Well, clearly, we've seen South Korea demonstrate through a robust of community effort to that they can break the spread of the virus and dramatically reduced the numbers of people that are exposed and infected.

So we need to look at the South Korea's to really ask ourselves, What can we do here to achieve the same outcome?

And I think what we're seeing and, for instance, in California is an example of the extraordinary measures that are going to be needed if we're going to really reduce the numbers of people who are infected over the next three weeks.

Otherwise, we're going to look in an awful lot like what's going on in Italy today.

Do you have a sense of what South Korea was able to do so effectively?

Well, first off, they had an extremely effective and widely distributed diagnostic capability, something that we have failed to do until just recently, and they were able to use that information to be able to target and mobilize high risk communities and high risk groups to be ableto lower exposures and isolate and contain the movement of that virus.

So we're greatly handicapped because of the loss of opportunity to Jews diagnostics to be able to tell us where the virus is, Who's infected s Oh, we're really in a much more vulnerable state by the failure of being able to provide those critical early interventions.

All right, Dr Carol, thank you so much.

Appreciate your time.

Hi, everyone.

George Stephanopoulos here.

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