6 Months Into Pandemic, Dallas Doctor Recaps What We've Learned About COVID-19
DALLAS (CBSDFW.COM) - If it feels like the calendar is yet another trick of 2020, you're not alone. Six months have passed since COVID-19 turned everyone's lives upside down.
"Six months feels everything but six months in this time frame," said Dr. Mark Casanova, president of the Dallas County Medical Society.
Let's take a ride back to March 15.
Dallas County reported a total of 14 Coronavirus cases. The state's total was 56. North Texas school districts still thought they were extending spring break, and shelter-in-place and Zoom were unfamiliar concepts to most.
CBS 11 News asked Casanova where he thought we'd be by Sept. 15.
"I would have predicted that we would have been better than we are at this moment in time, but part of the prediction would have also entailed that we would have been worse early on," he said.
He said six months are a lifetime in terms of what we've learned about COVID-19.
"We have mastered the basic understandings of how to decrease transmission of the virus, and yet we still see very generous caseloads."
One aspect that Casanova said has changed is the understanding of the role of masks. Historically, they've been used to protect the mask-wearer from getting sick - not the other way around.
"If COVID-19 came with an instruction manual, if that had been, in the opening pages of the instruction manual [it said], 'The way to beat me is to have universal masking', that would have certainly been a very strong early recommendation."
He said the positives include improved strategies to treat COVID-19 patients, especially the sickest. But an effective vaccine, he said, is still a ways away, which medical professionals predicted in March.
"I think we're pretty much on target for where we expected we would be," he said.
By March of 2021, Casanova believes some members of society will have been vaccinated. As for what North Texas will look like one year into the coronavirus pandemic?
"I hope and pray that we'll be in a better situation than we are today in terms of our viral load in the community, how many people are being infected, our positivity rate, and the like," he said.
