Dr. Martha Whyte, Regional Director of the Louisiana Office of Public Health, talks with 101.7 / 710 KEEL's Robert J Wright and Erin McCarty about the latest - and seemingly ever changing - Coronavirus guidelines from the World health Organization and Center for Disease Control.

Whyte tells KEEL listeners, "First, they're only guidelines because they (the CDC) don't have the authority to mandate. But they are saying that based on how infectious it is what you need to do to to stay protected. Now sometimes things come to the point where you just can't do something, and you have to look at risk versus benefits and that's what the school districts are going to have to look at. I don't think anybody's trying to make it impossible for people to do things, but if you look at the science behind it, that's what you need to do."

Dr. Whyte also explores the difficulty in balancing keeping people safe from the illness against the effects shut downs and quarantines have on the economy. "It weighed heavily on the governor to have to close things down," Whyte says, "I heard those conversations. It was a very difficult decision. But when you're trying to stem an infection that was running rampant across our state, it was something that he felt like (Governor John Bel Edwards) had to do.

"I agree that we have to see how we can keep this country running," Whyte concludes, "But we also have to mindful of the fact that people are dying, close to 150,000 people."

 

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