- The latest coronavirus update from White House health advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci includes some good news.
- In an Instagram Live interview with actor Matthew McConaughey, Fauci said that sunlight actually kills the coronavirus.
- This is why Dr. Fauci recommends getting outdoors as much as possible as one way to fight the coronavirus pandemic.
White House health advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci has been dispensing all kinds of coronavirus updates throughout the six months of the pandemic so far via a head-spinning interview schedule so intensive that the doctor has become a frequent sight across cable news and the blogosphere pretty much daily now. His grueling media relations schedule has certainly been understandable, though — this is a once-in-a-century public health crisis facing the planet, and Fauci (who’s also the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases) has been trying to disseminate as much good and life-saving information as possible. Which includes dictates like washing your hands regularly, social-distancing, and wearing a face mask.
In between his regular on-screen appearances with outlets like CNN, the doctor has also sat down with celebrities who command a large following that the doctor can capitalize on to get his message out. People like the Golden State Warriors’ Steph Curry, who asked the doctor a slew of pretty insightful questions during their chat back in March. And, now, Fauci has done the same with movie star Matthew McConaughey.
The actor peppered Fauci with a rapid-fire series of questions during an Instagram Live interview, and it produced a few headline-generating moments — such as Fauci’s assertion that there’s something pretty simple that actually kills the coronavirus, and it’s something we can all easily take advantage of.
At one point during the chat, McConaughey asked Fauci whether it’s true that sunlight kills the virus (which has sickened more than 5.2 million people in the US and killed almost 168,000 at this point, according to Johns Hopkins University). “It does,” Fauci replied. “That’s one of the reasons why outside in the sun when you are interacting … That is much, much better than being inside … Outside is always better than inside.”
From there, McConaughey asked if this is partly why some tropical island nations like Japan have been much better off comparatively during the pandemic than the US. Fauci agreed that’s likely the case, which also squares with the results of a study published in the Journal of Photochemistry and Photobiology back in June.
It found that “90% or more of SARS-CoV-2 virus will be inactivated after being exposed (to the summer sun) for 11 to 34 minutes.” Moreover, researchers added that “99% of SARS-CoV-2 may be inactivated within the two hours period around solar noon during summer in most US cities located south of latitude 43 degrees north,” which encompasses much of the US.
