Here in the Bay Area the number of people infected with coronavirus can still be counted on one hand, and all of them so far appear to have been isolated before they spread the illness more widely. 

Spreading faster though: fear about the illness. And that fear is at times manifesting itself in ugly ways, including numerous reports of harassment targeted against Asian Americans. But if coronavirus concern isn't going anywhere, is there a more productive way to direct those worries?  

On this edition of How to Bay Area we'll be discussing how Bay Area residents can better respond to coronavirus risks. In the first segment, we check in with two Bay Area health experts who have been working to prevent the spread of the illness to learn more about the current risks for the region. Then in the second half of the program we speak with two psychology experts and consider how to better react to our own overreactions. 

Guests: 

• Dr. Sara Cody, the director of Santa Clara County’s Public Health Department and a county health officer
• Dr. Charles Chiu, a Professor of Laboratory Medicine and infectious disease at the University of California, San Francisco
• Roxane Cohen Silver, a professor of psychological science, public health and medicine at the University of California, Irvine who has studied the psychological toll of past health scares
• Sherry Wang, professor of counseling psychology at Santa Clara University who wrote an opinion piece for the the San Francisco Chronicle with advice on how to combat discrimination fueled by the coronavirus scare

Host: KCBS Radio reporter Keith Menconi