[Cooper:] In the state of Georgia, you would expect Atlanta to be a hot spot of the coronavirus, and it is, but officials are also worried about Albany, Georgia, home to about 75,000 people. The south Georgia town is seeing a surprising number of cases. CNN's Dianne Gallagher has more on the reasons why.
[Dianne Gallagher, Cnn Correspondent:] Anderson, to give an idea of how this virus does not discriminate, look no further than Albany, Georgia, not a big city. Right now, nearly a quarter of the deaths in the entire states of Georgia come from this small community here. And medical workers, who went through six-months-worth of PPEs in less than a week, they say they think they've been able to track the outbreak to the most communal experience, two funerals that happened, one at the end of February and the other at the beginning of March, as it silently spread throughout their community. Now, they're all-hands-on-deck. They have testing going on here. They are working around the clock in the hospital, just like all over the rest of the country. The hospital CEO tells me that they've still not seen that curbed yet. And, Anderson, the worst is still yet to come, they believe.
[Cooper:] Dianne Gallagher, thank you. Now more on the coronavirus cluster in Albany, Georgia, someone that is in the midst of it, Dr. LaMont Smith, a critical care doctor. Dr. Smith, you actually retired. You live in Jacksonville, Florida. But when the call went out for people to retire, doctors and other medical professionals, you drove all the way to Albany to help out. What made you come?
[Dr. Lamont Smith, Retired Critical Care Physician:] I still have a lot of connections to Albany. I lived there for three years. And I have a lot of affection for the hospital and the work that's being done there and for the people in the community. It's an easy choice for me to say, yes, I'll come back and help.
[Cooper:] It's amazing to think, once they're able to trace how things spread, to see it spread from this funeral, the impact of just one group of people coming together. You know, you hear in other states, for instance, in Florida, where you're living now, there tomorrow are going to start the statewide stay-at-home order but the governor is exempting church gatherings, which, again, large numbers of people coming together.
[Smith:] And, you know, I think that's probably a mistake, because this is a good example of how one person or a couple of people can impact a whole population of people. So he's done an excellent job of handling an unexpected situation and that onslaught of critically ill patients that changes the whole dynamic of the hospital. And as you said, the source was a couple of people who didn't know, who went to a funeral or two funerals, and the result has been catastrophic because we've had to we filled all the I ICU beds with COVID patients. Patients are dying every day. We recently had a report of a patient who was discharged today, which made everybody feel good but, last week, it was very, the impact to me was just unbelievable. So not prohibiting gatherings, even in church, is a set-up for disaster. You'll see more situations like what happened in Albany happen in other places, unfortunately.
[Cooper:] It's such an important point that, and such an important thing to remind people of, that you can have it and be asymptomatic, and you're lucky if that's the case, but you can spread it to other people.
[Smith:] That's correct. I think of it in terms of three different populations. The one you just mentioned, the people asymptomatic, may carry. A lot of health care workers feel we might fall into that category. So it's important to avoid large gatherings, avoid your own family. And a lot of us are not even spending time with family for that reason. And if you do that, it kind of cuts down the communication off in terms of communicating the virus. The second group of people are those mildly symptomatic. And they tend to go to the emergency department. Again, the wrong decision. Best thing is to stay home, treat themselves symptomatically. Because when you get really sick, when you're really ill, you'll know, and you'll come to the hospital. And unfortunately, the people that get really ill end up in the ICU, like myself and people like me. And at that point, your chance of recovering from this is greatly diminished. So staying home is really the most effective thing that you can do.
[Cooper:] Dr. LaMont Smith, I'm thankful you didn't stay at home, that you answered the call and that you came to Albany. And I appreciate all you're doing and all your colleagues are doing. Stay safe.
[Smith:] Thank you.
[Cooper:] Health experts now say the virus can spread by just talking and breathing. Dr. Sanjay Gupta joins me live to discuss that, coming up. Plus, we've been reporting for weeks that people without symptoms can spread the virus, as we were just talking about. So why is the governor of Georgia saying he just found this out?