Louisiana’s Assistant State Health Officer Dr. Joe Kanter joined Newell for his recurring weekly segment Thursday morning to discuss the latest developments in the battle against COVID-19, preventative measures, and the search for effective treatments or even a vaccine. This week, there is cause for deep concern in the Bayou State.
“Doc, I don’t know how else to put this,” Newell began. “We’re not really getting any good news on the COVID infection rate, which seems to be getting stronger and stronger in a number of states and that is really disconcerting.”
“I agree, and I’m worried that that important message is getting buried because we are so excited about the vaccine,” Kanter said. “This is a messaging challenge and there are more intelligent people than I figuring this out, but we’ve got to look to confident with the vaccine, which is easy because we’ve been transparent with the data and open about our plans, and in a few days people are going to start seeing images of people getting vaccinated in Louisiana and across the country. But this is probably the most dangerous part of the pandemic that we’ve ever been in, right now. Yesterday we had more cases announced than any other day prior, the largest single day increase… as opposed to the first and second waves, where we enjoyed the help of outside support, none of those are available now because every state is in the same boat.”
“As we’re in the midst of this spike, is the infection revealing anything new?” Newell asked. “In some of the earlier spikes, almost weekly we kept hearing about these new curveballs in treatment protocols or the symptoms… anything new we’re seeing now?”
“A little bit,” Kanter said. “In terms of what the virus is doing, there hasn’t been much new in the last month, but we continue to improve treatment. The biggest news there is those monoclonal antibody treatments… this is one of the treatments President Trump got when he was hospitalized. These products are out there now and are intended for people not sick enough to be in the hospital and are early in their infection. We have a decent treatment for people that get super sick, and that’s steroids. What’s been missing is the treatments to prevent people with mild illness from getting very sick.”
“Let’s talk briefly about the flu season,” Newell continued. “There’s a recent report from Walgreens that says Texas is the number one designated market area for flu activity, and Mississippi seems to be having serious numbers as well.”
“Yes, and normally that’s us, so that’s encouraging news for us,” Kanter said. “There’s two things different with this season - overall, its significantly less than in years past. Right now, for everyone going into the ER, about 1.6% are flu-related issues. Normally that would be 4 or 5 or 6% and usually Louisiana leads that. This year we are behind national average, so we are looking really good. I really do think it is because of COVID mitigation efforts. Everything we’re doing to prevent COVID also helps prevent flu, so I think this is a signal we’re doing the right things, in general, which is good because we do not have hospital capacity to spare.”
Hear the entire interview in the audio player below.
