ST. LOUIS (KMOX) - The St. Louis Metropolitan Pandemic Task Force has a new acting leader, Dr. Clay Dunagan, Chief Medical Officer for BJC. His appointment comes as Dr. Alex Garza is a U.S. Army reservist and he deployed to Kuwait for several months on Saturday.
As COVID-19 cases rise in the St. Louis area, Dr. Dunagan is concerned because of low vaccination rates and the virulence of the Delta variant. The cases are not just confined to rural Missouri.
All four St. Louis area Task Force hospital systems are seeing increasing hospitalizations and the patients are younger, Dunagan says.
"Increased transmissibility, it's also partly due to the fact that many older citizens have gotten vaccinated, particularly past 65 and up," He says. "There's a very large proportion of citizens who are vaccinated and who are being more careful. There's a big part of it that's just the sensible avoidance of a contagion and vaccine. Beyond that, the variant is more effective at infecting and causing symptoms in younger age groups."
Here are some other current COVID-19 topics he discussed with us:
Viruses mutate constantly
"All viruses do, but some of those mutations will turn out to make the virus better at being transmitted or cause more severe decease. If you have a lot of unvaccinated people, there's a lot of opportunity for mutations to arise and proliferate. And then, if you have a large group of people who are partially immunized, then you may see mutants that start to develop resistance against the vaccine immunity.
"This situation we're in right now is not good and is one that will foster the development of mutants that are going to cause future problems."
Surging cases and hospitalizations
Could this result in what area hospitals saw this past Winter?
"I think that's entirely possible, we're a little bit too early to see what may happen as this virus gets moving full throttle in the St. Louis Metropolitan area, but it is quite possible we're going to see levels as high as we did last Winter. It is sobering and I will tell you, it takes a real toll the caregivers too who have worked their hearts out to try to manage through this, especially when they see the vast majority of people being admitted to both the hospital and winding up in the intensive care unit on a ventilator. The vast majority of those individuals have not been vaccinated, so it's discouraging to feel like the community is not doing its part of the effort to head this off."
When should people go get tested for COVID-19?
On Monday, St. Louis County Executive Dr. Sam Page strongly encouraged anyone with cold-like symptoms to be tested for COVID-19. Dunagan says the symptoms of the Delta variant are different.
"Testing capacity hasn't ramped down, it's still pretty much the same technology that was being used before and Dr. Sam Page is totally correct for several reasons. One, is there are probably more breakthrough cases with the Delta variant than we were seeing before, we don't have complete information on that, and fortunately the breakthrough cases don't seem to be as severe and they're not landing people in the hospital typically. But it's also true that the symptoms of the virus have been shifting, and where as cough and shortness of breath were really the most prominent signs and symptoms in the previous Alpha variant. We're seeing many more cases presenting with a sore throat and nasal symptoms and a headache so, it feels more like the common cold to people."
Dunagan says it's really important if you have any of these symptoms to be tested for Covid 19.
When should we be wearing face masks?
When it comes to mask-wearing whether vaccinated or not, Dunagan says people need to wear masks anytime they are going to be in a setting where they may be exposed to someone who is unvaccinated. Dunagan adds if you're outside by yourself or able to be a reasonable distance from others you don't necessarily need a mask.
"But indoors, I think people would be well advised if they don't know the vaccination status of everyone in their vicinity to wear a mask. I personally when I go into a grocery store or a restaurant on the way in, I keep a mask on until I'm confident about the setting I'm in. This doesn't mean you can't take off your mask if you're in a small group of people who have all been vaccinated. But I think we do need to be more aggressive about mask use at this point."
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