Northwestern Medicine infectious disease expert Dr. Robert Murphy will address how to most effectively blunt the potential impact of COVID-19 – and the price we will have to pay if we don’t – in an hourlong webinar scheduled for noon, Tuesday, March 24. 

Members of the media are invited to join “Blunting the Impact of COVID-19.” Registration is required to join this event. You may register here using the passcode 1234, or contact Kristin Samuelson at ksamuelson@northwestern.edu or (mobile) 847-769-6596. The webinar will be available at this WebEx link.

Murphy,  executive director of the Institute for Global Health at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, will discuss the following topics:  

• COVID-19’s mortality rate, which is at least five times greater than influenza
• The stress COVID-19 is placing on our health care system, potentially leading it to a partial collapse
• Unemployment greater than that seen in the Great Depression
• A potential economic recession bigger than the one in 2008 
• Social isolation never before experienced on the scale that is soon to arrive

Murphy will discuss these issues and also will speak about how we might use our experience with COVID-19 to better prepare for future global pandemics. 

The webinar is sponsored by the Buffett Institute for Global Affairs at Northwestern University and is part of Buffett’s weekly Confronting COVID-19: Global Implications and Futures webinar series.