Local doctors discuss coronavirus pandemic
Staying home will slow exponential spreading of COVID-19 and save lives.
As local county and city governments gradually increase measures that encourage residents to stay home, doctors urge the community to practice social distancing despite painful economic ramifications.
Dr. Harbir Singh from Kyle ER & Hospital described COVID-19 as exponentially contagious.
“We know it’s very painful right now with businesses shutting down," Singh said. "It’s going to be a challenging time for all of us, but taking on this pain now is going to be better for us in the long term.”
Business closures and shelter in place orders that are being seen in New York, Pennsylvania, California and some Texas counties are part of an effort to ensure that the disease is not unnecessarily and rapidly spread, because no matter where people are in this country, the United States isn't ready to handle a surge of people getting the virus at the same time, Dr. Jay Zdunek, Chief Medical Officer at Austin Regional Clinic said.
He explained the common misconception that COVID-19 is not as deadly as other diseases: based on the little information known about this virus, the likelihood of having a significant illness is relatively small compared to the number of people who have pre-existing and life-threatening illnesses.
While the risk of developing a significant illness may be low, this fact does not mean that COVID-19 will not be deadly when paired with exponential spreading and an unprepared healthcare system.
Statistics show 80% of the people who get this will have mild to moderate symptoms or be asymptomatic, Zdunek said. Twenty percent of the people who get the virus will have severe symptoms, 15% of which will have to be hospitalized and 5% of hospitalizations will potentially need to be in an intensive care unit.
In a scenario presented by Zdunek, if rapid spreading occurred across the county and approximately 40% of Hays County residents contract COVID-19, 39,035 people would have the virus, 5,855 people would be hospitalized and 292 would need an ICU bed.
Many people have likely already been exposed to the virus and are asymptomatic, meaning as long as they are out in public spaces it will continue to be passed on to others, Singh said.
Dr. Amanda Dupont from Kyle ER & Hospital said those who have the virus could be asymptomatic and contagious for at least 2 weeks and potentially up to 37 days, according to some cases. Children could have minor symptoms like a runny nose and not really get sick, but continue to spread the virus.
COVID-19 is often compared to the flu because of its symptoms and how it spreads are similar, however, COVID-19 spreads more rapidly than the flu. The rate of transmission for the flu is 1.2 and COVID-19 is 2.1-2.4. This means that every person that is infected with the flu will probably infect 1.2 other people. Every person that is infected with the coronavirus will probably infect 2.1-2.4 other people. The caveat is that as the infection accelerates, population density and proximity rapidly increases the amount of the spread.
As more people inevitably start getting sicker, more ICU beds will be needed, Singh said. If people do not physically separate from each other regardless of symptoms and prevent the pace of the exponential spreading, many people will go to the hospitals at the same time and there won’t be enough ICU beds, Singh added.
Exponential spreading of COVID-19 will overrun small medical facilities like Kyle ER & Hospital, which only has one ventilator.
Local hospitals have varying capacities for ICU care and testing.
“As we continue to proactively implement precautions to ensure the safety for our patients, team members, providers and community, we want to emphasize we do not have onsite testing capabilities for COVID-19, please refer to the CDC guidelines for the latest information,” Central Texas Medical Center said in a statement.
Kyle ER & Hospital is doing everything it can to get supplies and protect staff, but in the meantime doctors urge residents to do the one thing they can to decrease the likelihood of a surge of cases all at once — stay home. It's not a matter of if there will be a surge at this point, it's when and for how long.
Situations are developing rapidly in other communities in the United States and local governments are now following suit: restaurants are being closed, gatherings of 10 or more people are being canceled, residents are asked to stay home when we can and keep a distance of 6 feet from people when possible. All of this is meant to flatten the curve, the rate of increase of cases, as much as possible.
These efforts are absolutely necessary to preserve our healthcare system’s capacity, according to Zdunek. It means that the situation will drag on for a longer period of time, but more people will be able to get adequate care, and fewer people will die because they couldn’t get the care they needed in an overrun hospital.
“We don’t want to get to a situation with rapid surges where a lot of people get infected at once resulting in over demand of beds in the ICU," Zdunek said. "We don’t want to get to the situation in Italy where we have to make those calls.”
When Italy’s healthcare system ran out of ventilators and ICU beds, providers were forced to make life and death decisions based on who will get a ventilator.
Dupont said we have to learn from how other countries are responding to the exponential increase in cases.
“We know counties that are taking swift, severe, some would say draconian, measures are seeing relief," Dupont said. "Some that haven’t taken it seriously, they are suffering. We have to take painful measures like closing daycare facilities. Unfortunately, if we don’t take these measures, we are going to be looking at a much more severe and frankly overwhelming medical situation.”
Singh echoed Dupont, citing that China shut business down rather aggressively, and as a result a couple months later their economy is already improving. In contrast, Italy didn’t take those measures and they are seeing cases increase, Singh said.
Staying home when you are healthy is the best precaution to take. But once you start showing symptoms, it might be difficult to make the call of whether to stay home or to see a doctor. When in doubt, call your healthcare provider.
According to Zdunek, if you have mild symptoms with a low fever, there is a good chance you could have COVID-19, but it's not necessarily a reason to get tested. Eighty percent of people who get the virus will have asymptomatic to moderate symptoms and will not need to be hospitalized. In the case that a person has a regular flu or a cold, it is still best to stay home because you are more likely to pick up a virus in a doctor’s office in the hospital with a weakened immune system.
Call your doctor, if you are having more severe symptoms: chest pains, increased respiratory rate, inability to catch your breath or becoming disoriented.
There is no cure for COVID-19 at this time, the treatment is the same as the flu: hydration, Tylenol or acetaminophen —not ibuprofen — for fever, rest and staying away from other people. There is no scientific study showing ibuprofen is bad for treating COVID-19, however there have been some cases when taking ibuprofen was followed by increasing catastrophic events.
This is not a true respiratory illness spread in the air, it is spread by droplets from coughing, sneezing or saliva. Those droplets live on surfaces from 2-72 hours. Doctors emphasize washing your hands frequently, before and after eating and between touching surfaces.
Hays County residents in isolation make important calls every day over which outings are critical and which may be risk spreading the virus.
Avoiding visiting parents and grandparents during this time may be a difficult choice, but it will give them a much better chance at survival, according to Zdunek.
“The most important fact is every single person can make an absolute difference in the mortality rate of this disease if we all practice social isolation and social distancing,” Zdunek said.
