Two weeks ago, Dr. Peter Rabinowitz, director of the UW MetaCenter for Pandemic Disease Preparedness, rated his concern level for coronavirus at seven or eight out of ten. On Friday, Rabinowitz said he’s now rating his concern at an eight or nine.

“What a difference a few weeks makes,” Rabinowitz told KIRO Radio’s Gee and Ursula Show on Friday. “We know that it is here, there’s hundreds of cases in the state, and we’re still finding out the true extent of it in the state because the testing is still catching up.”

Rabinowitz said the coronavirus will be with us for a while, not over in just one big event.

“I was thinking that it’s like a natural disaster, like an earthquake or a hurricane, except that it’s in slow motion,” he said. “It’s not over tomorrow and then we go on to the next thing in the news cycle and think about something else or do the recovery. … It’s as disruptive as a hurricane, an earthquake, but it’s a slow motion disruption.”

Read the entire story at MyNorthwest. Peter Rabinowitz is the Director of the UW MetaCenter for Pandemic Disease Preparedness and Global Health Security and a professor of Global Health.