Medical Leaders Urge Protective Measures

Todays News

Dr. Marguerite Barnett, a Sarasota surgeon, said a surge in COVID-19 hospitalizations threatens the livelihood of medical professionals. A former chair of the Sarasota Medical Society and Florida delegate to the American Medical Association, she says its critical community leaders still be allowed to take measures and limit the spread of the delta variant

“I don’t try and tell the government how to conduct business,” Barnett said. “I don’t call the Governor and say don’t call a special session. But I do know about health, and about public health care. Don’t tie the hands of those that are experts.”

Barnett spoke to media as part of a push by the Committee to Protect Public Health. She’s concerned that more medical hospitals will stop elective procedures; she just got word Tampa General Hospital was ready to make such a move. That threatening the livelihood of many health care professionals like herself — Barnett’s private practice does plastic surgery — who must “sit on their hands” without a place to do surgery. But she also said it prevents many non-emergency surgeries for cancer patients and others with conditions that must be addressed while technically counting as elective.

The state shut down all elective surgeries last year, a move ultimately walked back as an overreach that couldn’t be sustained without hurting hospitals and patients. But even if the state doesn’t shut down such surgeries again, Barnett said institutions overwhelmed with patients will do so. “We will still have people dying,” she said.

Sarasota Memorial Hospital reports that as of Thursday, there’s 63 individuals in ICU units, 32 of those COVID-19 patients. The hospital’s full ICU bed capacity is 78.

As the pandemic pushed a year and a half in the state of Florida — the first Florida case was detected in a Manatee County patient on March 1, 2020 — there’s been resistance to any potential measures impacting individual freedom. The Sarasota School Board recently voted to make masks optional for students in the coming school year, and Gov. Ron DeSantis issued an executive order prohibiting districts from mandating masks.

But Barnett said that’s the wrong impulse to follow. She said evidence shows masks and social distancing, while unable to completely stop the spread of the virus, limit the spread and the viral load intensity individually fight. With the delta variant of the virus now as contagious as chicken pox, Barnett said masking makes sense.

 

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