COVID-19 is a deadly disease that has long-term complications, Washington state says
Patients recovering from COVID-19 can have lingering effects that last weeks after they become ill, Gov. Jay Inslee said Thursday.
“We are not dealing with the common flu,” Inslee said at a virtual press conference. ”We are dealing with a deadly disease that has long-term complications.”
About 35% of COVID-19 patients have not returned to their prior health when interviewed two to three weeks after they tested positive, Inslee said, citing a study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“Among persons age 18 to 34, including specifically those with no underlying health conditions, 1 in 5 had not returned to their usual health,” he said.
Dr. Francis Riedo of Evergreen Health in Kirkland joined Inslee on the call.
Riedo, who deals with infectious diseases and has been on the front lines of COVID-19 in the state, said health care providers are seeing patients who, even three months after infection, complain about exhaustion, persistent headaches, muscle aches and difficulty concentrating as well as changes in their sense of smell and taste.
“This is peculiar. We don’t see this with other viral infections,” Riedo said. “... We hope that people improve because there is quite honestly very little in terms of therapy for this.”
Answering a reporter’s question, Riedo said: “I think the complication that we’re seeing the most is the fatigue. It is really a crushing fatigue. These are individuals who have a hard time putting more than a couple hours of effort into their day. I think that’s the most debilitating.”
Riedo also talked about advances in treatment of patients with COVID-19.
“We learned that it was better to not put people on ventilators right away,” he said. “That turning people on their stomachs actually helped them breathe.”
Investigators in the United Kingdom have found steroids benefit patients, and studies from the National Institutes of Health have confirmed remdesivir is “effective in hastening improvement,” he said.
It’s just as important, Riedo said, to learn what doesn’t work. Studies have shown “Hydroxychloroquine was of no benefit,” he said.
Riedo also noted Dr. Lisa Jackson at Kaiser Permanente in Washington state “was the first to initiate phase 1, phase 2 trials of a vaccine that has now entered broadly phase 3 testing.”
And he asked people to wear masks, wash their hands, social distance, and stay home from work when sick.
“We need your help to slow this down,” he said.
Okanogan County and the Immigrant Relief Fund
On Thursday, Inslee also spoke about a visit he made to Okanogan County, which he said is “one of the hottest spots certainly in our state” for rising COVID-19 numbers.
He said the need for increased testing was “one of the things that the folks told me about,” and that a National Guard mobile testing unit is deploying to Okanogan County to provide that.
The governor mentioned a $40 million Immigrant Relief Fund announced this week to help undocumented workers in the state, and a $3 million Food Production Paid Leave Program to help workers — regardless of citizenship or immigration status — stay home when they’re ill.
Mail-in-voting
Inslee also accused the president, who has said he will block emergency funding for the postal service, of “trying to sabotage mail-in-voting by degrading the ability of U.S. mail to do its job of delivering these ballots.”
Mail-in-voting, Inslee said, “has been such a success in Washington state. This argument that it is somehow full of fraud is just a bunch of bunk. It’s absolutely untrue.”
Inslee went on to say: “As a result of the president’s policies, it’s possible people who register eight days before the election wouldn’t be able to get their ballot on time.”
State parks, colleges, mental health
Asked whether the state will close parks and beaches given the hot weather forecast for the weekend, Inslee said he thinks people can figure out how to enjoy the outdoors safely, by staying 6 feet from people outside their households and wearing masks.
“It’s just not that tough,” he said.
If there are large, ongoing congregations of people, it’s possible some facilities would shut down, but “that should not be necessary,” the governor said.
Asked if he’d advise the closure of private colleges if hygiene plans aren’t working and cases increase when classes resume, Inslee noted the recent recommendation for K-12 schools.
He strongly recommended, but did not mandate, that districts not have in-person classes in places where there are more than 75 cases per 100,000 people during a two week period.
“I think that probably is a general concept that would apply to colleges as well, but I have not made a specific recommendation in that regard,” he said.
Inslee also talked about the serious mental health challenges of the coronavirus pandemic, and encouraged those who are struggling to speak with friends, family, or mental health providers.
“We’re all feeling anxious and we’re all tired and we’re all a little bit cranky on occasion, and some people are having some real profound challenges in their lives, and we have a lot of uncertainty right now,” he said.
He said his wife was watering one of their plants recently, when a hummingbird showed up and took a bath in the sprinkler.
“For some reason that just made our day, and I think all of us have to find something like that,” he said.
This story was originally published August 13, 2020 at 3:44 PM.
