‘It’s really been an eye-opening year’: Final weekly check-in with TTUHSC’s Dr. Michelson
EL PASO, Texas (KVIA) -- This is the final installment of ABC-7's Weekly Check-in with a doctor on the frontlines of the pandemic. Reporter Mauricio Casillas is capping off the segment after a year of doing it. For this final check-in, Mauricio tweaked his questions so that Dr. Edward Michelson could reflect on the past year.
Mauricio Casillas (KVIA): How has this past year gone for you?
Dr. Edward Michelson (Chairman, Dept. of Emergency medicine TTUHSC El Paso): "The past year has really been like no other prior year in my career in medicine. We had to quickly come up to speed on taking care of patients during a pandemic with a new virus that we had no experience with before."
Casillas: How have hospitals learned in the past year?
Dr. Michelson: "Hospitals did an amazing job here in El Paso dealing with the surge. We were always worried that we were going to exceed our capacity with patients suffering from Covid-19. Fortunately, we did not. We managed to keep up."
Casillas: What should people at home continue to do?
Dr. Michelson: "This is really a race. It's a race between how quickly we can vaccinate our population versus how soon will the variants show up in this community which could cause yet another surge in cases. Masks work very well. They work well against the native virus and they work well against the new viruses, that might not be covered as well by the vaccine."
Casillas: What's the one thing that sticks out from this past year?
Dr. Michelson: "It's really been an eye-opening year for me to see how we could come together in this community, as well as, my community of healthcare providers -- to keep ourselves well, to stay in the game and to save as many people as possible."
Casillas: What's your prediction going forward?
Dr. Michelson: "We know that new variants are here. We know that those are going to pose a challenge. Monoclonal antibodies don't work as well on the new variants. The vaccines may be less than fully effective. We're going to have to stay careful and stay tuned to see what happens in the coming weeks."
Casillas: What's giving you hope?
Dr. Michelson: "I get a lot of hope looking to the future by the fact that we have a lot of vaccine doses available. Virtually every adult should be able to be vaccinated in the united states by the end of may."
Casillas: What's your parting message to the Borderland?
Dr. Michelson: "The Borderland has done an amazing job of doing the right thing during Covid, of staying safe. Keep doing what you've been doing."
