SAN ANTONIO – With businesses being allowed to reopen with capacity limits in Texas, many are wondering -- Are we out of the woods? Is the risk of catching COVID-19 lower now?
Dr. Bryan Alsip, University Health System’s chief medical officer and a member of the COVID-19 Health Transition Team, answered this and other questions about the new coronavirus in a video provided by UHS.
“We’re not out of the woods,” Alsip said.
He said the downside of flattening the curve is that the curve becomes longer. The good news is that we’ve avoided a peak surge that would have put a lot of pressure on our health care system, but we can expect the curve to extend for a longer time, he said.
“We can expect to see more cases in our community for some time now,” Alsip said.
Alsip said it’s important to be as vigilant as ever as we open up more businesses because the risk of contracting COVID-19 has not gone down.
“It doesn’t mean it’s any less important to do all the things that we’ve been doing up to this point. So physical, or social distancing is still important, hygiene is still important and respiratory etiquette is still important," Alsip said. “Ultimately, if essentially we stop doing those things or if we ignore the recommendations that we put into place, we run the risk of bringing more and more people together in a quick amount of time that could potentially pass the virus to each other and infect others, which would lead to a higher number of cases in a very rapid amount of time.”
Watch the video above to hear the doctor’s full explanation. Click on the other questions below to see Dr. Alsip’s answers.
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