BY LINDSAY PRIDE
The infectious disease specialist at Cookeville Regional Medical Center said caring for COVID-19 patients is much more complicated than caring for other patients, but he believes the hospital staff is doing a good job.
CRMC staff have treated 44 COVID-19 patients as of Saturday, including seven still at the medical center.
"The vast majority have done very well," Dr. Mark Pierce said. "The one death that we had, I recall, was related to COVID-19 but not directly COVID-19."
That patient was an elderly person from a Nashville nursing home with other chronic conditions who died at the hospital May 15.
Dr. Pierce said the job of caring for COVID-19 patients is harder on the nurses than the physician.
"We try to limit exposure to the patient," he said. "They're going to contaminate their environment."
Hospital staff have to cover from head to toe with Personal Protective Equipment, which has to disposed of after every visit to a COVID-19 patient room.
As far as treating the patients, Dr. Pierce said the most important thing is "good, supportive care" in addition to ventilators and oxygen patients need when they're having trouble breathing.
The COVID-19 patient who was in the hospital for 85 days before being discharged recently was on the ventilator for nearly 40 days.
The patient "ended up having a trach and pent tube," Dr. Pierce said. "It was a long rehabilitation."
They can also use "convalescent plasma" to help treat COVID-19 patients, according to Dr. Pierce. That's taking the blood of someone who's recovered from COVID-19, separating the plasma with the antibodies and giving it to a COVID-19 patient.
"That's been known to work in certain infections for long period of time," he said. "We don't know with absolute certainty how good it is."
Dr. Pierce also mentioned a new anti-viral, Remdesivir, that the hospital has access to through a program at Vanderbilt.
"We have several vaccines in trials," he said. "That will be really exciting, to have a good vaccine available hopefully by next year."
In Putnam County, 479 people have tested positive for COVID-19, according to the Tennessee Department of Health. That's an increase of 14 since Friday an increase of 120 since last Saturday, March 23.
"It's encouraging to me, our hospital numbers have been pretty flat for the past month," Dr. Pierce said. "I think it's pretty much across Tennessee. It means we actually have flattened the curve.
"When this first started, the whole idea was not to stop the infection, that's not possible. The whole idea was to slow it down enough to handle the cases as they come in."
Dr. Pierce said, "Once you've been infected, you probably have reasonable immunity at least for some period of time."
He's also encouraged by the amount of testing Putnam County has done.
"It helps people know their status, know when to stay home," he said. "The asymptomatic can pass the infections along. That's why we should wear a mask when we go out. Wearing a mask will decrease the spread to other people."
Dr. Pierce said he is concerned about a potential spike in COVID-19 cases when kids return to school.
"On the whole, kids seem to handle it pretty well," he said. "I'm much more concerned about kids taking the infection to parents and grandparents."
In Tennessee, 22,566 have tested positive for COVID-19, according to the TDH, an increase of 481 since Friday; 364 people have died, and 1,732 have been hospitalized.
The sixth death from COVID-19 in Putnam County was reported in error on the TDH website Friday. The number of COVID-19 deaths in Putnam County was back to five Saturday.
The number of those who've recovered in Tennessee has increased by 228 since Friday to 15,193. In Putnam County, 223 people have recovered from COVID-19.
COVID-19 case counts in other Upper Cumberland counties: Macon, 136; Clay, 7; Pickett, 3; Smith, 34; Jackson, 17; Overton, 26; Fentress, 12; DeKalb, 37; White, 33; Cumberland, 112; Cannon, 21; Warren, 23; and Van Buren, 4.
COVID-19 testing and free mask distribution continue from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Putnam County Health Department on County Services Drive Monday through Friday.
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May 31, 2020 at 06:41AM
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Specialist talks about caring for COVID-19 patients - Cookeville Herald Citizen
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