News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
COVID rates are increasing across the Upper Cumberland and case numbers will likely go higher thanks to a new LB.1 variant.
Dr. Don Grisham is Medical Director of the Upper Cumberland Division of the Tennessee Department of Health. He said Putnam County alone has seen its COVID cases triple within recent weeks. Surprised to see cases rising during the heart of summer? Grisham said it is more about the virus.
“Well the variant will change,” Grisham said. “The infectious quality of the variant can change, the contagious part of it. School has started back and the vacations are over. When people stay inside more they tend to transmit the disease easier.”
Grisham said statewide COVID-related emergency room visits have increased slightly to four percent in the last week. Grisham said a new vaccine expected in October to deal with the new variant.
Grisham said only 64 percent of Tennesseans received one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine with just 27 percent only receiving a second dose. Grisham said the vaccines are the best way to protect yourself from the virus.
“The vaccine is very important in preventing serious illness,” Grisham said. “It won’t prevent you from getting COVID, but it may prevent you from being in the hospital. The risk of having some serious problems from the vaccines is estimated to be less than one in a hundred thousand people who take the vaccine.”
Grisham said for those who are at risk with underlying medical problems the best treatment is Paxlovid a medicine prescribed by a licensed physician for those who are diagnosed with Covid. Grisham said those who feel sick should stay home from work and only return to work if they have been fever-free for 24 hours.
Grisham said COVID is always changing to different variants and the CDC is trying to play catch-up.
“It’s been a variant change since the beginning,” Grisham said. “The variants have changed. There was Omicron and now it’s changed into something else. The virus is adapting to its environment, so the virus that survives is the one that will be spread throughout the population.”
The COVID case of President Joe Biden followed by Olympian Noah Lyles brought the virus back into the news cycle.
