US Hits Record COVID-19 Hospitalizations Amid Virus Surge

Speaker 1: 00:00 The news that San Diego County is falling back into the restrictive purple tier of COVID-19 precautions affects every household in the region. As we brace for another onslaught of the virus, how each one of us behaves in coming days will make a difference to whether we prevent another spike in cases here to help us understand what's happening, what's at stake. And what we can do about it is dr. Christian ramos' assistant medical director with family health centers and adjunct assistant professor at San Diego state university's school of public health. He specializes in infectious diseases, dr. Ramos, thanks for joining Speaker 2: 00:35 Us. Thank you for having me. So Speaker 1: 00:37 Another news that we're falling back into the purple tier is so discouraging, especially for businesses struggling to survive. Um, we know that the hospitals in San Diego are at about 71% capacity, according to the County, as a member of the healthcare community here, how concerned are you that hospitals could be overwhelmed or will be able to handle what happens this fall? Speaker 2: 00:59 Yeah, over the short term, I think our hospitals are okay, but that's really not what we're worried about right now. Our capacity is fine, but this is a disease that really, what we see happening is because of what we do today and it, and it manifests itself in two to three weeks. So when we have exponential spread in the community, what we're really worried about is that we can be overwhelmed in the future. And there are many States I just counted from my sources, 14 States in the country where the ICU capacity is at above 80% right now, and three States where it's above 90%. And we just really do not want to get there. And when we look at our curves, they're sort of headed in the wrong direction. Speaker 1: 01:38 Oh, you know, what is your understanding of why San Diego's COVID infection rates increased and pushed us back into the state's most restrictive tier? Speaker 2: 01:47 Yeah. Looking at all the numbers. I don't think that there's a single reason. I think we all expect that as the weather gets colder and people spend more time indoors than naturally, there's going to be more transmission. I'd like to think. Maybe there's a little bit of complacency among people. Um, just doing the basic things that we know work like wearing masks as much as possible, limiting gatherings of a number of different people and maybe sort of loosening their bubbles that they've created to try to stay isolated. Um, so maybe that's happening a little bit, but I think a lot of it has to do with the weather. Speaker 1: 02:20 Do you think that San Diego are taking the statistics seriously enough? I mean, if you don't know anyone who's contracted the virus, other numbers getting through to them, Speaker 2: 02:30 Look, it's, it's just my numbing, all of the information coming out and what are the numbers all really mean? But the way human beings make decisions have to do with our own experience. Um, so my answer to your question is that people that have not seen this up close, maybe still not be very afraid of it. And those like myself who have seen people suffer and die from it, uh, know that this is something very serious that nobody should want to get no matter what your age is, Speaker 1: 02:55 A new study published by the journal nature this week model, the highest risk areas for the coronavirus to spread and found that gyms, restaurants, and coffee shops are among the riskiest. Do you think that our public officials are doing a good enough job of, of designing restrictions specific enough to get a handle on the virus? Could there be more nuanced, nuanced policies perhaps, or do we need these kinds of sledgehammer approaches? Speaker 2: 03:21 Well, let me first review the study. You mentioned this is a, uh, study of 98 million people in 10 us cities using their cell phones to sort of track their locations. And the modeling that was done in this study really confirms other data that we already have, which is very, very clearly, restaurants are the highest risk location for transmitting the virus. And that's really not a big surprise because in order to eat or drink, you have to remove the mask from your face and especially restaurants or bars or coffee shops that are indoors are going to have a higher concentration of people. So, absolutely no surprise. In fact, it's right in line with a CDC study that was published in July, showing restaurants, bars, coffee shops, gyms, and religious gatherings were really the highest risk locations. And I think our County has done a really good job following the data and using the data to tell us where the most transmissions are occurring in our location. Speaker 2: 04:15 They've actually started to publish the contact tracing data. Uh, and we can see that a 10% of infections that are happening in our County are in bars and restaurants. Another 8% are happening in retail environments and 34% or so are happening in the workplace. So people are being infected at work. So I think, uh, you know, the sledgehammer, I'm glad you brought that word up. We do not want to have to use a sledgehammer. We want more nuanced decisions, uh, to allow some parts of our economy to continue to be open, uh, but really take the highest risk activities out and remove those. Speaker 1: 04:47 Now the news of an effective vaccine coming is encouraging, but, but right now what's your message to San Diegans about what we need to do to make it through till the vaccine is actually available to us. Speaker 2: 04:59 Yeah. We're so used to seeing the news today and expecting things to happen tomorrow. But the good news that we saw about the vaccine results was very preliminary. Um, it's going to be really months, I'd say maybe six months before a vaccine is really available to the general population. We may see in the next month or two and emergency use authorization. Uh, but it's going to be just really a trickle out to the highest priority populations at first. And so it will be next year, uh, for certain before this is widely available. And so in the meantime, we can't become complacent. We still need to do the basic things that we know work very, very well. And the evidence just keeps piling up about these basic public health measures, such as masking and distancing and avoiding large, large crowds. Uh, one other thing I would add is that testing is really important. It's been deemphasized recently, but, uh, people should really find a way to get tested in their own communities. And we now have more ways than ever to be tested. That should be convenient. And finally, dr. Speaker 1: 05:58 Raymond's when talking about Thanksgiving, for example, everyone I know is struggling about how to deal with it. What's your family doing? Speaker 2: 06:05 Yeah, well, I just mentioned the, uh, the testing. I think it is a very good idea. If you're going to be bringing separate households together to ratchet up your quarantined activities for a couple of weeks before, and then to ensure that everyone has access to a test before they do it, I can tell you my own family. We've decided really not to bring households together from, from different parts of the country, uh, just for a safety reason. And one last thing I'll say I forgot to mention in response to your last question is what can people do? I think it's a good idea to support your local businesses that are really struggling to stay open. You know, I've been trying to go more and more to local restaurants that are doing a safe, um, COVID safe outside dining or, or take out. And then finally, if you are just thinking, well, what can I do? I'm not a healthcare worker. I'm not in public health. We really want to get to a point where vaccines are available and approved. Uh, and the one thing that we really need more of is more participation in local vaccine clinical trial efforts. And there's a website called COVID vaccine sd.com that will allow people to enroll in one of our two vaccine trials that are currently available in San Diego. Speaker 1: 07:14 We've been speaking with dr. Christian Ramers, who is with family health centers and who specializes in infectious diseases. Dr. Ramos, thank you so much. Speaker 2: 07:23 Thank you for having me.