BUFFALO, N.Y. (WBEN) "I voted yesterday, and I think it's relatively safe to go out and vote," said Dr. Tom Russo to Susan and Brian on WBEN Thursday morning. The Chief of Infectious Disease at the Jacobs School of Medicine said he stood in line and found people to be very respectful by maintaining physical distance and wearing masks.
Russo said he was equally impressed with workers inside the polling place. He reminds voters to bring a mask and wear it properly.
While not concerned about voting, Dr. Russo is concerned about the upcoming holidays. "We have doubled the number of cases and hospitalizations since our lowest numbers in early August. Erie and Niagara Counties have been treading water for the past six weeks. Western New York's numbers have looked worse because the southern tier counties have not been doing as well," he said.
The increasing shift to indoor activities is of deep concern to Russo. "The Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays where people will be gathering, crossing social bubbles, and not wearing masks due to eating and drinking; the concern is quite real." He fears cases could pile on.
Many health experts point to the strong push back to the public health directive as the major cause of the large number of covid cases in the U.S.and the disproportionate number of deaths compared to most parts of the world.
"I think we just have to accept that this is the year of Covid. We need to do things differently. We need to accept the fact that there are certain things that we'd like to do that we can't do. We need to accept the fact that we're going to be inconvenienced in terms of wearing masks and other things. It is the only way that we can keep ourselves and our loved ones safe," said Russo.
If we continue to push back, Russo said unfortunately we're going to see the number of cases go up and he's concerned about that.
When it comes to hospitalizations, Russo said, compared to the Spring, ventilators are only used as a last resort. "We're much more aggressive now in using a variety of oxygen delivery methods.The early experience has shown us, if we're much more aggressive in intubating and putting people on ventilators earlier, that they do not do as well. This intensive care management and increased knowledge of how to manage these individuals is one of the reasons that deaths are down."
