Dr. Jeff Barke ‘crushes the fear’ around increasing coronavirus cases and supports reopening schools

SAN DIEGO (KUSI) – The debate of reopening continues and has expanded from businesses, to include schools, as coronavirus cases and testing continue to rise.

Dr. Jeff Barke is a Board Certified Primary Care Physician from coastal Orange County who has personally treated multiple COVID-19 patients, and none of them have needed hospitalization or died. Barke explained COVID-19 is a very serious disease, that is “very deadly if you are in a high risk group, somebody that is more than 65-years-old, or somebody that has a significant pre-existing, underlying, medical condition.”

In order not to scare people, Dr. Barke continued to explain, “but we should contrast that with the young and the healthy. In the young and the healthy, this virus is no more deadly or dangerous than a bad seasonal influenza.”

Regarding reopening schools, Dr. Barke is in support of doing so because “children are particularly immune to this.”

According to Dr. Barke, around 98.6% of people that get exposed to this virus either get no symptoms, or mild symptoms.