Charles: OK, and, again, I approach this by saying I am not making light of anything, but my son called me and asked me a question last night. Many times, I don’t know the answer and I certainly didn’t know the answer to this one. So, he wants to go on a date with a lovely young lady from somewhere else. He was around another friend who I guess had been diagnosed with what you would call these breakthrough cases of COVID. She is vaccinated and yet she has now tested positive. So, he spent time with her in the last day or two. And now he wants to spend time tomorrow with someone else, who is also vaccinated. He said, “Dad, do I go get tested?” I didn’t know the answer to that.
Dr. Hill: Yes, that is a real good question. I would recommend if you have had a really close exposure with somebody, even if you have been vaccinated, I would be wary about being around people without a mask, in close contact. We are usually saying if you are going to become positive it is usually within five days or so, five to seven days after exposure. So I can’t give him any guarantees. If he is vaccinated, he is probably well protected, but we are seeing some vaccine breakthroughs. Most people are not very sick. Many of them are asymptomatic. But I would be a little careful.
Charles: And I guess I say all of that to say the rules are kind of weird. It seemed like before they were pretty cut and dry. You know: Wear a mask stay away from people. Right now, it’s like, “Well, I am vaccinated. I am bulletproof.” That is just not the case necessarily. It is better but it is not foolproof.
Dr. Hill: It is not foolproof. We do know that most people that are vaccinated, even if they do have a breakthrough case – which is rare but does occur – most of them will not end up in the hospital. They will have very mild symptoms and will recover fine.
Charles: So, for a vaccinated person, what does life mean right now? In other words, as what you call the fourth surge begins, what is your advice to those folks?
Dr. Hill: I think go about your business. You can live your life. I do think if you are in a crowded situation, like a bus or a small area, it might be good to wear a mask, just because of all of the other respiratory viruses and COVID that is going around now. You will be better protected. But I think for the vaccinated folks, we still have a lot of confidence in the vaccines. All of them, they are protective for the most part. And as I said earlier, even the small percentage that get sick, if you are healthy and not immunocompromised, you are going to have little or no symptom.
Charles: Alright, now let’s talk about the unvaccinated people. Clearly, we want people to get shots. That is the idea.
Dr. Hill: Yes, we need people to get vaccinated and we need people to get it now because we are running against time. This is a race between the virus spreading as fast as it can and people getting vaccinated. So, if you are thinking about getting vaccinated, do it today or do it tomorrow but get it started.
Charles: And let’s start, obviously these vaccines have been around for a while. I saw a picture where I think you got yours in December of last year.
Dr. Hill: That is right. We have vaccinated 40% of our parish. In the United States we have given out over 160 million doses, completed doses of the MRNA and the Johnson & Johnson. We know that these vaccines, for the most part, are safe and effective -- and the only way we are going to get control over this situation.
Charles: So, one of the things that, I played a bit of (St. Tammany Parish Coroner) Chuck Preston talking yesterday, but one of the things he’s been talking about is vaccine misinformation, this fight against that. Have you seen some of that, and what are your thoughts?
Dr. Hill: Oh yes, there is a lot of vaccine misinformation on social media, as Dr. Preston said yesterday. Some of these are really slick. They will take little piece of truth and expand on it and go right into misinformation. We know that these vaccines do not cause sterility. They do not get into your genetic material. They do not cause birth defects. A lot of this information out there is just patently false. It is unfortunate because we have an answer to our situation that we’re in, in this country and in the world. Every unvaccinated death is a death that could be avoided.
Charles: One of the things we dealt with or heard a lot about early on was this idea that I’m just going to get COVID and I’ll be fine. I don’t have any underlying conditions. I am young and strong and all that good stuff. There is a variety of reasons that that is not necessarily a good strategy, but I am going to let you talk about that. What is it?
Dr. Hill: Well, I think we are seeing people and this new wave we are seeing younger people. I think the younger people thought, “We can’t get very sick from this.” Certainly, that is not the case. We are seeing a small percentage of people that get COVID and get very sick end up in our ICU, ending up on assisted breathing or on a ventilator, which we try to avoid. The other issue is, even after you get over COVID you can have long COVID syndrome. You can have brain fog, lack of stamina, muscle soreness and just generalized fatigue. People feel really awful. There is no telling who is going to get that. It can last for a month, two months or even longer. It seems to be more prevalent in women than men. It is something we are going to have to deal with for the long haul. I think it is something people need to consider. Even if you survive COVID, the natural infection, you may end up with symptoms that may not go away for quite some time.
Charles: This, I remember you and I spoke probably a year and a half ago, or whenever this thing sort of started. There was a lot you didn’t know. Do you feel like the scientific community is learning a lot as we go?
Dr. Hill: Absolutely, we are learning better treatments. We have monoclonal antibodies to treat patients who are not hospitalized but have COVID that need antibodies. These work very well, but then again, they are under emergency use authorization and they do require an IV in an infusion suite. We have some very good treatments in the hospital, but, again, we don’t want to have patients there. We want to do prevention. It is much better to prevent than to have to treat this disease. The other thing is, we can’t predict who is going to get really sick and who won’t. We know that some people who are immunocompromised can get very sick with this but we have some healthy patients come in that have gotten very sick with this, so I would not feel confident being unvaccinated that you won’t or can’t get really sick. We have many cases where people have told us later on, “Wow, if I had known this, I would have taken the vaccine.”
Charles: Yes, you haven’t heard many people get really sick and come back and say I’m glad I didn’t take the vaccine.
Dr. Hill: Right, right.
Charles: So, as we wrap this up, I guess the main points, the high points. We are at a crucial point at this moment.
Dr. Hill: Right, we are at a tipping point and we need to get our unvaccinated vaccinated as soon as possible. I can’t emphasize more the urgency to get people to go out and get vaccinated. Please do that for your community, for your family. Because if one family member gets sick the entire family is going to get sick. This is really contagious.
Charles: I know I have heard this elsewhere, somebody said, ‘Get a shot or get sick.’
Dr. Hill: That is it. If you don’t have COVID now and you are unvaccinated, you will get COVID.
St. Tammany Health System continues to accept appointments to receive the COVID-19 vaccine at its Express Care clinic in Covington. Appointments should be made via the free MyChart app or by calling (985) 898-4001.