How COVID-19 will transform airports (and other pandemic considerations)

“Epidemiologists have found that you can slow a pandemic tremendously by focusing public hygiene efforts on three key global airports.” –Dr. JP Santiago

In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Dr. JP Santiago talk about how the COVID-19 pandemic will change global air travel moving forward (2:00); the prescience of the 2011 movie Contagion, what the scientific data says right now about how long COVID-19 can contaminate various surfaces (13:30); what to make of certain “folk cures” for COVID-19, as well as whether or not it’s safe to take medicines like ibuprofen to treat symptoms (20:00); the future of post-traditional medical treatment approaches, such a telemedicine (29:30); what other pandemics, such as H1N1 can (or cannot) teach us about how to respond to COVID-19 (34:00); and when “normal” life might return, given pandemic concerns, and what that might look like (42:00).

JP Santiago has been a family medicine physician in private practice in Dallas/Fort Worth for nearly 20 years. He earned his medical degree in 1997 from the University of Texas Southwestern in Dallas, and did his residency training and was chief resident at the University of Kansas Medical Center before returning to Texas. He will be retiring from private practice in April to work for the Indian Health Service to provide medical care to Native American reservations as a traveling physician. His wife is a physician as well and he has four children. He maintains an aviation magazine online at: https://theavgeeks.com/

Notable Links:

• World Health Organization COVID-19 updates (website)
• JP’s updates on the COVID-19 pandemic (Facebook posts)
• 2020 COVID-19 pandemic (global viral outbreak)
• 2020 coronavirus pandemic in Iceland
• Airport security repercussions due to the September 11 attacks
• Contagion (2011 Steven Soderbergh film)
• The New England Journal of Medicine (medical journal)
• 2003 SARS outbreak (global viral outbreak)
• Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness (TV show)
• 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic (global viral outbreak)
• 2009 H1N1 flu pandemic (global viral outbreak)
• Antibody (protein utilized by the immune system)

This episode is also brought to you by AirTreks, an industry leader in multi-stop international travel. AirTreks is a distributed travel company with employees working from all corners of the world to help with your flight planning, specializing in complex routes with up to 25 stops. The AirTreks website offers suggested pre-planned travel itineraries to help you get started, but can customize to fit your journey.

The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. COVID-19 episode art was created by Luke Van Tassel. More of his art is online here.

Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com.