Should, and how can, exercise be done during a coronavirus outbreak? An interview with Dr. Jeffrey A. Woods
https:/doi.org/10.1016/j.jshs 2095 2546/ Cite this artic J Sport Health Sci 2020;9:10 The Coronavirus disease (COVID 19) crisis is now present in China. It started in December, 2019 and has, so far, led 213 individuals died and at least 9066 infected in China by local time 17:26, January 30, 2020. It has also spread to a number of Asian countries, as well as to Canada, France, Germany, and the United States. As a result, the Chinese government has put several major cities in Hubei Province on lockdown and has thrown plans for the Lunar New Year holiday into chaos for millions of people. On January 30, 2020, the World Health Organization also declared the COVID 19 outbreak a global health emergency because it could spread to countries that are not prepared. Furthermore, to prevent the spread of the new and deadly virus, all cities in China now have shut down most public places and facilities, including parks, leaving many people with no place to exercise. As a result, people may wonder if one should exercise at all during the outbreak and if so, how? These questions made Journal of Sport and Health Science remember some well known studies done by my colleague, Dr. Jeffrey A. Woods and his team at the University of Illinois at UrbanaChampaign (UIUC) in which they found a protective effect of exercise on mortality due to influenza in mice. Dr. Woods is a Mottier Family Professor at UIUC. His research focuses on the effects of exercise on the immune system, the gut microbiome, and aging. He was among the first scholars to demonstrate that regular exercise can have an anti inflammatory effect on the body and showed that exercise can improve the immune response to the flu vaccine in older adults. I interviewed Dr. Woods for the "Should and How" questions. Zhu: Would you please tell the readers of Journal of Sport and Health Science a little bit about yourself, for example,
Journal of Sport and Health Science