Local Dems Talk To Expert About COVID

By VERNON ROBISON

The Progress

It’s not looking like things will get back to normal anytime real soon. That was the expert opinion given by Infectious Disease Epidemiologist Dr. Brian Labus during a weekly online meeting held by the Mesquite 2 Moapa Democrat organization on Wednesday night, Aug. 5.

“I wish that I had good news and that all would be better next week” Labus said in response to a question about when life would return back to normal after COVIC-19. “But this is a long term thing. It has taken us months to get to where we are now and it will take time to get to the end of it. I’d say months, not days or weeks.”

Labus is a member of the Governor’s COVID-19 Medical Advisory Team and has been on the faculty at UNLV School of Public Health since 2015. Before that he spent 15 years as Senior Epidemiologist at the Southern Nevada Health District.

In his analysis of the COVID-19 conditions throughout the region, Labus says he mainly ignores the news media. That is because they are reporting the number of confirmed cases, he said. “We know that it takes two to 14 days to get symptoms,” he said. “Then it takes upwards of a week to get test results back. So those numbers are delayed.”

Labus said that the most important statistic for him is the number of new hospitalizations in the last 24 hours.
“Our only big problem in all of this is if our hospitals are packed to the point where people can’t get in,” he said.

Another statistic Labus finds relevant is the percentage of people testing positive. This shows how high the transmission rate is in the community, he said.

“Our goal is to have that be under 5 percent,” Labus said. “According to the World Health Organization, countries that have controlled this outbreak were under 5 percent and got to the point where they were testing a lot of people and not finding it.”

In contrast, the daily positive rate in southern Nevada has been at around 14 percent, Labus said. It is about 10 percent statewide.

Labus was asked his opinion about the push from rural communities in Clark County to reopen schools. He responded that, if it is done carefully, it would be fine to send kids back to school.

“I can’t tell you the right answer for every community,” Labus said. “But shutting everything down isn’t always the best answer. There just needs to be strong efforts to reduce risk wherever possible in the schools. Schools are capable of making plans that are safe and appropriate for their community. If they do, there is no reason that schools can’t open up safely.”

Labus was also asked about the resistance that rural residents have had to wear face coverings in public.
“A mandate to wear face masks is a hard message for the rurals because they haven’t seen a lot of diseases in those places,” Labus said. “But that is somewhat concerning because they are at risk just like everyone else.”

He likened that risk to the danger of forest fires. “When you are managing forest fires, you don’t really concern yourself as much with places that have burned already,” Labus said. “It is the places where there is a lot of fuel, where the lightning strike will hit and burn everything up. That is kind of how I see the rurals areas.”

Labus was asked about his outlook for when a vaccine might be ready. He expressed optimism about this, but cautioned that there was still some time before a vaccine would be finished.

“Everyone got so excited when the news said that the vaccine is in its last stage of clinical trials,” Labus said. “But what they didn’t mentions was that the final stage is the most difficult, expensive and longest phase of the process. It involves tens of thousands of people and a massive effort. It takes months to collect data and see what is going on. I don’t see a vaccine available to the general public until early in spring.”