HOUSTON — A Houston doctor is opening up about spending the last four months on the front lines in the battle against COVID-19. Dr. Joseph Varon is the Chief of Critical Care Services of United Memorial Medical Center. He said things are not slowing down and are actually getting worse.
"You know, I've been doing this for 119 continuous days. I've been working 16 to 20 hours a day," he said. "And we have been doing that because people are coming in much sicker than what they were before. It's a very serious situation."
Varon said patients are coming in sicker than they were at the beginning of the pandemic. He said he thinks people are waiting longer before they come in for treatment because they're scared to go to the hospital. He said one patient experienced COVID-19 symptoms for five weeks before going in to get help.
He said he believes that at some point, everyone will get the coronavirus.
"There is no question about it. You mean you may have a mild form, but everybody is going to get corona(virus). What you don't want is everybody getting the corona(virus) at the same time, which is what's happening at the present time," he said.
Varon said it's taking a toll on the medical professionals who are on the front lines.
"Our healthcare systems are getting overwhelmed. Our nurses are ... they're exhausted," he said.
Varon said this is the first time in his life that he's worked with the Army. Medical reinforcements were sent by the federal government to help in the fight.
What will it take to turn things around?
He said in order to get the pandemic under control, education is paramount. He said the social-distancing measures that have been harped upon for months are the most important thing when it comes to slowing the spread.
"Education. Simple as that. We can fix this. The way to do it is social distance. Wear your mask. Wash your hands. It's very simple," he said. "And this is a true war ... a war that I have against stupidity because people are still doing things that they shouldn't do outside. If you can convince your viewers to simply follow those easy rules that I talk to you about, we have a very good chance to flatten the curve and be OK. But if we don't do it, we're going to have a gigantic second wave in October.
Varon said he's very concerned about the upcoming fall. He said we have time to control the spread of COVID-19, but we need to do it quickly.
"A lot of people are going to die if we don't control this. A lot of people are going to die," he said. "I'm very concerned about the fall, but I think that we still have time to control that. We have a few months where if everybody does the right thing, we will be OK, but we have to do the right thing."