July 7, 2020 - Dennis Prager Show
05:14
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| Time | Text |
|---|---|
| On the line, Dr. Bo Brees, B-R-I-E-S-E. Dr. Brees, whom I know for many years, and you are one of the most intellectually honest individuals I have had the honor of knowing. | |
| Well, Dennis, that definitely applies to you, for me. | |
| Thank you very much. | |
| Do you feel free to say what hospital you're with? | |
| Yes, I'm with Houston Methodist Hospital. | |
| Which is the hospital that has been in the New York Times and others as the place that they go to to show what a crisis we're in, correct? | |
| That seems to be the media portrayal. | |
| It doesn't match the reality on the ground. | |
| That's the way they're portraying it. | |
| Okay, that's why I want to talk to you. | |
| So tell us what the reality on the ground is. | |
| It's busy. | |
| There are a lot of patients that are arriving with symptoms of COVID or in a second peak, which was expected. | |
| We were talking about there being a second peak all the way in January. | |
| But it is busy like other periods in which we've been busy during flu fusions in prior years. | |
| The number of deaths per day that we're having in Houston has been roughly the same since April. | |
| So while we're seeing a lot of cases, the number of deaths per day has been pretty steady. | |
| So it requires us to change some of our processes to adapt and expand capacity, but in ways that we anticipated, in ways that we planned for, in ways that we're enacting. | |
| So when you read these reports, which are now almost universal in the media, of Houston as the new epicenter, and therefore this means another lockdown, how do you react? | |
| It seems to me that they're pushing a narrative that isn't based on reality. | |
| They're pushing a story that leads to a certain narrative about freedom versus a more controlled response, like you saw in Seattle and New York. | |
| In Seattle and New York, many of the places that enacted more severe restrictions had much higher mortality rates than we did in Texas, where we had sort of a more freedom-based approach. | |
| To voluntary self-isolation until it became mandatory, you know, masking all the rest of that. | |
| And so I think the idea behind it is to create a narrative that, in fact, our more freedom-based approach was faulty, and now we're getting our comeuppance. | |
| But I don't think that the reality on the ground matches that. | |
| I mean, I think we can handle what we've got. | |
| I think we can handle where it's going. | |
| And it's a lot of work, but it's work that we're prepared for. | |
| I mean, this is why we have emergency medical systems. | |
| This is why we all train to do what we do. | |
| Are we a lot better at treating COVID patients today than, let's say, in April? | |
| Yes. | |
| There's a lot less mystery about the disease. | |
| Of course, in two years, a layman will know more than any expert does today on the disease. | |
| We know strategies that work. | |
| We know how much uncertainty we have about which drugs may or may not work. | |
| And we know how to recognize it much more easily. | |
| So I think it's much easier to treat now than it was in April. | |
| I mean, I've taken care of over 100 patients. | |
| I've lost track. | |
| And it is much easier to take care of them today than it was a few months ago. | |
| How long are they in for on average? | |
| Well, it's an interesting question, right? | |
| So when they come into the emergency department, they arrive and we discharge most of them. | |
| Because most people are feeling sick and they're wondering what's wrong. | |
| Sometimes they're feeling quite uncomfortable, but they're actually quite stable. | |
| So the vast majority of patients go home the same day. | |
| Forgive me, with COVID or without COVID? With COVID. The vast majority of patients with COVID go home from the emergency department safely with medications in place to make them feel comfortable while they get over a disease that is like an extended cold for most of them. | |
| It makes them feel uncomfortable in ways they haven't felt uncomfortable before, but not one that's going to risk their lives. | |
| Has anyone you've treated died? | |
| Yes. | |
| One patient died that I took care of. | |
| How old was that patient? | |
| 80. And did the person have other conditions? | |
| Many. | |
| Many other medical conditions. | |
| And they came in as a delayed presentation after they've been sick for a while. | |
| And family had been asking them to come in for a while. | |
| And they died 10 days later. | |
| They didn't die. | |
| All right. | |
| When we come back, I want to ask you, if you were the czar of Texas, with whatever you said went, what would you prescribe? |
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