7 News Belize

Dr. Sergio’s COVID Cautionary Tale From Oklahoma
posted (April 6, 2020)
Last week, we spoke to a Belizean American nurse in Brooklyn, New York, who's on the frontline of the COVID fight, and at the epicentre of the US outbreak.

She described a harrowing situation of many lives lost, in the face of limited resources and personnel. Most gripping was her account of persons dying alone, with no family around because the coronavirus is so infectious.

This weekend Jules Vasquez spoke with another Belizean American medical professional. He's Dr. Sergio Garcia, a critical care specialist with en emphasis in pulmonary medicine.

He works on the frontline in Oklahoma and told us that the number of dead has been very high, and it will get more so this week. We spoke to him at home on Saturday:

Dr. Sergio Garcia, Interventional Pulmonary Specialist, Oklahoma USA
"We are starting to ramp us rather quickly and a lot of it was because we weren't doing much testing. This thing hit everybody quick and we didn't have enough test kits initially, so we were only testing initially up to 2-3 weeks ago. We were only testing people that were getting admitted and people that showed up sick to the hospital. So we are seeing a lot more cases and a lot more sick people. The trend that it's following we're doubling the rates every 3 days. It's been staying pretty steady and around the time when we peak we expect to see about maybe 52 deaths a day during that time."

Jules Vasquez, reporter
"52 a day - wow! is that something you ever experienced at your general hospital?"

Dr. Sergio Garcia
"No, because this is one cause right. But for now we are stuck in this. We haven't seen the worst yet and that same statistics that get updated every day here - we are estimate to loose close to 100,000 people in the States by mid next month. So when the ramp up occurs and the peak occurs, which everything seems to be occurring. I mean I'm checking it every day and everything seems to go with what they are predicting. 100,000 people will die by mid next month here. That's a lot."

Jules Vasquez, reporter
"What would be your advice to Belizeans?"

Dr. Sergio Garcia
"It's very difficult because it implies economically a tremendous thing - people have to stay home and do what they have to do to make a living. It is tough, but ultimately it's either life or death or the uncertainty as to what's going to happen economically to you as a person or you as a country. But you can always sort out that economically later. Right now life is more important, because life also affects economics afterwards and if Belize would lose 20-25% of the population, it will be devastating. It would take decades to recover from something like that. It is really not up to the government or anybody else, not even the doctors. It's up to the person. The people have to just stay home, stay away from it. If you are living in a place with limited ventilators, like you guys are, the main thing to do is not to get it. Not to get the darn thing."

Tomorrow we'll have part two of our interview with Dr. Garcia.

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