Local physician highlights importance of social distancing

When Dr. Chris Montgomery goes home to his family at night, he changes clothes in the garage and takes extra precautions to ensure, he hopes, he is not bringing COVID-19 home to his children.

Montgomery has been a physician for 19 years, during which he volunteered to provide medical care in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. The Gulf Coast saw one of the greatest emergencies in our country’s recent history, and faced one of the greatest shortages of medical supplies and personnel at that time.

It is experience like that which drives his passion to ring alarm bells about COVID-19.

Data as reported to the World Health Organization by national authorities as of March 24.

Alarms, but not panic, according to Montgomery, who works at Physicians Park Primary Care in Poplar Bluff. He is also part of the Butler County response team helping coordinate activities by officials and the medical community.

“The social distancing component is hard, but it is so, so important,” said Montgomery, adding, “Really if you are young and healthy, don’t feel too comfortable. I think that’s probably the most important thing.”

Not only do young people have the potential to pass the virus on to others they come into contact with, Montgomery said, there is also a possibility the illness can be serious for them as well. People under the age of 50 are also being hospitalized with serious COVID illness, he said.

The medical community will be better able to respond when they can determine quickly if a patient has COVID-19 or not.

“It all comes down to if I can test you for an illness, I can tell you whether or not you have it,” Montgomery said.

And ultimately whether the patient is contagious.

Randall Williams, head of Missouri’s Department of Health and Senior Services, said recently the state is currently doing about 2,000 tests per day through academic and private partners. Williams said Missouri’s 28 mobile testing sites have played a role in the increasing testing capabilities and added that he expects the number of tests to continue rising.

“The frustrating thing as a doctor who’s just trying to protect people is, we’re not just three weeks into it. We’re three weeks into it on our national conscious,” Montgomery said. “We were eight to 10 weeks late to the party anyway, and it started in November. November is a long time ago.

“The problem is, we’ve gotten such an enormous amount of people (sick) that our acceleration and doubling time is getting shorter.”

As an example, he said, he was in Chicago, Illinois, two weeks ago, when the state had four cases. The CDC reports the state now has between 500-1,000 reported cases.

Nationwide, the CDC reports there have been more than 44,000 confirmed and presumptive cases in the U.S. since Jan. 21. There have been more than 500 deaths.

Many in the medical community have warned these numbers could be higher, because of the lack of testing available.

Montgomery is concerned.

He is concerned about the amount of medical equipment Butler County has on hand to treat both sick and well patients, should the number of cases increase here.

He is concerned about the personal protective equipment in stock to protect an even more limited resource here, our care givers.

He is concerned social distancing practices will be loosened before an effective and rapid response test is widely available to our area, potentially increasing the spread of COVID-19 despite recent efforts to slow it.

He is concerned the medical community does not have enough data to effectively say those under the age of 60, with no underlying medical conditions, are less in danger of hospitalization if they become sick.

Montgomery, like all of us, is watching the coronavirus disease play out across the country and the world, hoping our state and national leaders will learn from the communities impacted first.

Missouri health officials said Wednesday the state now has 356 confirmed cases, an increase of 101 since Tuesday.

Gov. Mike Parson said Tuesday everyone wants more tests.

“Every governor would tell you, I think, the same thing I’m going to tell you — we wish we had more tests on hand. There’s no doubt about that,” Parson said.

Parson said Missouri is not a top priority, as it is not a state that is currently a major hot spot for COVID-19.

Montgomery believes loosening social distancing rules too soon, before testing has caught up with the problem, could hinder the state’s ability to reduce the number of new cases.

“What we’re trying to do is buy as much time as we can, so that we can figure out, what are we going to use to treat this with. How can we prevent it. When are we going to have a vaccine. And then at the same time, try not to overburden the hospital,” he said.

Medical staff of the Intensive Care Unit of the Casalpalocco COVID-19 Clinic in the outskirts of Rome tend to patients, Wednesday, March 25, 2020. The new coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms for most people, but for some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness or death. AP Photo/Domenico Stinellis

Reports from the Associated Press and Missouri News Network contributed to this article.