A bit of good news and bad news to begin the week’s media briefing from doctors at the University of Kansas Health System. The good news is the number of COVID-19 patients being treated in the hospital has dropped from 33 to 31. But half of those patients are in the intensive care unit. Yet doctors noted the Kansas City Metro area is still doing much better at social distancing than St. Louis, where five times the number of COVID-19 patients are being treated with many more on ventilators than here.
Joining the panel was Mario Castro, M.D., MPH, vice chair of clinical and translational research, and a pulmonologist at the University of Kansas School of Medicine. He’s leading a clinical trial among healthcare workers to see of the much talked-about drug hydroxychloroquine can prevent someone from catching COVID-19. It’s called the HERO study, for Healthcare Worker Exposure Response and Outcomes and 15,000 front-line workers such as nurses and medical technicians are expected to take part.
Dana Hawkinson, MD, medical director of infectious prevention and control at The University of Kansas Health System said data suggests sheltering at home is helping blunt the curve, but he’s concerned that he sees many young people continuing to gather together, and we still have much work to do. He reminded people to stay home and stay safe.
Dr. Steve Stites, chief medical officer at the health system says the goal is to test as many people as possible for the virus, but some necessary limitations are still in place in order to make the best use of limited resources. The hope is for more broad community testing by June. He did emphasize that nobody will be denied a test who needs one because of lack of insurance coverage. Dr. Stites also says all of the area hospitals have developed an unprecedented spirit of cooperation, as all of their chief medical officers have begun talking several times a week and comparing notes on how we all are taking care of COVID-19 patients. He says if this was a baseball game, we’d be in the second inning and still behind in the score…in other words, there’s still plenty of baseball left to play.
Tuesday, April 14, at 8:00 a.m. is the next daily briefing call and will include Dr. Stephen Lauer, a pediatrician, who is going to help parents and guardians navigate scheduled vaccinations and other common questions about children and COVID-19. The feed is now available via TVU grid. The TVU source is UoK_Health and is being made available to all. You will still need to call-in to ask questions.
Telephone dial-in Participants:
Dial: 1-913-588-2222, and enter 50041981# when prompted for the Call ID. Feel free to send questions in advance to medicalnewsnetwork@kumc.edu.
