Ou Medicine Infectious Disease

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Infectious disease experts at OU Medicine held an hourlong news conference Tuesday to answer questions about the coronavirus and discuss what s can do to mitigate its impact. Here is what the experts have to say about COVID-19, with their answers summarized and edited for brevity and placed in a question & answer format:

Q: How serious should the public be taking the COVID-19 threat and all these suggestions about frequent hand washing and social distancing?

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A: I think my biggest recommendation is to take social distancing seriously. This really is not a game, although you're welcome to turn it into a game if you are trying to teach children how to do those things. It is something that is real and something that works. Frequent hand washing is important. — Dr. Douglas Drevets, chief of infectious diseases, OU Medicine (As a side note, the infectious disease experts at OU Medicine aren't just advising others to take this advice seriously. They are doing it themselves. They held their news conference in a large auditorium and advised reporters to stay far apart from each other and to use hand sanitizer before and after entering the room. The experts, themselves, stayed far apart from the news media and each other. They approached the microphones one at a time, taking care not to touch the microphones.)

Q: Is the academic side of OU Medicine doing anything specific to try to come up with a cure or vaccine for COVID-19?

A: We are in the final negotiations of an agreement between Dr. William Hildebrand, an OU Health Sciences researcher, and Pure MHC to identify novel targets for a therapeutic vaccine against COVID-19. We are also finalizing an agreement with another researcher to begin pre-clinical testing of another COVID-19 vaccine to help bring a vaccine to patients as quickly as possible. — Dr. Jason Sanders, senior vice president and provost of the OU Health Sciences Center.

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A: We have a new visitors policy that limits it to one visitor at our adult facilities at OU Edmond and the OU Medical Center, and the visitor needs to be 18 years old or older. Two visitors are allowed per patient at our Children's Hospital and our women's hospital. This is all in an effort to protect our patients, their families, our hospital caregivers and an effort to mitigate the possible transmission of the virus. — Dr. Linda Salinas, infectious disease specialist.

A: Since the turn of the century, we have experienced at least five pandemics, the SARS pandemic of 2003, the H1N1 pandemic of 2009, the MERS pandemic of 2012, the Ebola virus pandemic of 2014 and the Zika virus pandemic of 2016. What makes this coronavirus pandemic different is the unique combination of being severe, but not too severe, along with being highly transmissible. This has made responding to COVID-19 a challenge. SARS actually was more severe and had a higher fatality rate, but because of this more cases were detected so it was easier to track and prevent additional transmissions. COVID-19 is severe, but not necessarily severe in everyone. That means some people carrying the virus will not be exhibiting symptoms, but they may be passing it on to others who could have a severe reaction. — Aaron Wendelboe, PhD, OU Hudson College of Public Health.

A: Unfortunately, it's difficult to predict because it all depends on what we do today. One thing we have learned is that social distancing works. Countries like China and South Korea that have implemented aggressive social distancing have been able to bend the curve. There are other countries that continue to have increasing, doubling rates that are stressing the health care systems. Italy and Iran are two of those countries that have continued to see increasing numbers. As public health professionals, we observe the number of days it takes for the number of cases to double. What we are trying to do is make that doubling time closer to eight to 10 days than closer to two to three days.

Heather Heizer, Mpas, Pa C

A: There have been over 4, 700 cases and just under 100 deaths in the U.S. We expect about 10 percent of detected cases to be hospitalized. Of all cases, we expect about 80 percent to be mild, 15 percent to be moderate and 5 percent to be severe. Death rates will depend on what we do today. Overall, 3 percent of detected cases may die. This will range from less than 0.1 percent to 15 percent, where increasing age increases your risk of death.

Q: How important is it to follow China's example and take extreme measures like instituting travel restrictions, cancelling large public events, closing schools and shutting down restaurants and businesses?

A: There is data that shows that had they done those things one week earlier than they actually implemented some of that social distancing, they would have reduced the number of cases by 66 percent. But had they not done those things, they would have seen 67 times more cases. The goal of the various measures now being instituted in the U.S. is to slow the spread of the virus to keep the health care system from being overwhelmed. — Dr. Dale Bratzler, chief quality officer, OU Medicine.

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A: There have been over 4, 700 cases and just under 100 deaths in the U.S. We expect about 10 percent of detected cases to be hospitalized. Of all cases, we expect about 80 percent to be mild, 15 percent to be moderate and 5 percent to be severe. Death rates will depend on what we do today. Overall, 3 percent of detected cases may die. This will range from less than 0.1 percent to 15 percent, where increasing age increases your risk of death.

Q: How important is it to follow China's example and take extreme measures like instituting travel restrictions, cancelling large public events, closing schools and shutting down restaurants and businesses?

A: There is data that shows that had they done those things one week earlier than they actually implemented some of that social distancing, they would have reduced the number of cases by 66 percent. But had they not done those things, they would have seen 67 times more cases. The goal of the various measures now being instituted in the U.S. is to slow the spread of the virus to keep the health care system from being overwhelmed. — Dr. Dale Bratzler, chief quality officer, OU Medicine.

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