Enterprise’s Dr. Beverly Jordan breaks down COVID-19

With a lot of confusion and misinformation floating around every day in regards to the COVID-19 virus, Enterprise’s Dr. Beverly Jordan spoke to The Sun and broke down what the virus is, its risks, shed light on some misconceptions and gives some positive information.

Jordan is currently a sports medicine and family medicine physician at Professional Medical Associates in Enterprise and is a graduate of the University of Alabama and a Zion Chapel native. Jordan uses Professional Medical Associates official Facebook page to give updates on the COVID-19 situation and give Coffee County resident useful information.

Jordan noted that COVID-19 is a strain of the Coronavirus, which causes the common cold, but has been mutated it its current form, which is very similar to the deadly SARS virus.

“It has mutated from its normal common cold version to a much more infectious and serious version of the virus,” Jordan said. “It’s very similar to the SARS virus that we saw around the 2007 timeframe, which had similar issues where we saw a severe upper respiratory issue coming out of the Asian providences coming over to America and causing severe illnesses and spreading around the world.

“This is actually considered a type of SARS; in the medical definition of the virus it is considered a SARS-2 or second generation SARS virus.”

Jordan said that the biggest reason that the virus has been so dangerous is simply because it’s new and no one has an immunity to it.

“The biggest reason that it is dangerous is because it’s not something we have immunity for. Herd immunity is the term we use in medicine,” Jordan said. “Viruses come and go around all the time but a certain percentage of the population, after having been exposed to the virus, has an immunity built up to it.

“A good portion of people – or at least a certain percentage of people – would naturally be able to fight the virus off if they were to ever get it again without getting active signs of infection. Because this is a novel virus – or a new virus – no one has immunity so the entire population is susceptible to it, which is only found in new or novel infections. That’s why it’s considered such a big deal in medical circles.”

COVID-19 also easily spreads from host to host but much of that also goes back to the lack of immunity.

“It does seem to spread pretty easily,” Jordan said. “Our best guess is around 50 percent of the people that come into contact with the virus will contract it.

“That is a high number but a lot of that has to do with the (lack of) immunity and not just how virulent the virus is in spreading.”

One positive point that Jordan pointed to was that large majorities of people that contract the disease have very mild symptoms or none at all.

“The good news is that about 80 percent of those that contract the virus have such light symptoms that they really don’t even seek medical care for their symptoms,” she emphasized. “That in itself is a very positive number.”

One of the many misconceptions about COVID-19 is the thought process from some that everyone is simply going to die during this pandemic.

“Probably the biggest (misconception) that I’ve heard is that everyone is going to die or that a huge number of people are going to die,” Jordan said. “Certainly the virus is dangerous and has about a 3 percent fatality rate. That rate ranges somewhere between 1 and 6 percent depending on your population and access to healthcare.

“Inside the United States the predictions have remained pretty steady around 3 percent and our numbers really bear that out. Although 3 percent of the population dying is a big number, it certainly isn’t everybody.”

Jordan said that she’s also seen a lot of people surprised when they realize how many people recover from COVID-19.

“One of the things I’ve seen is people asking questions and being surprised about people recovering from the illness,” Jordan continued. “Mathematically, if 3 percent are going to die then 97 percent are going to recover. So, really we have to recognize that the vast majority of people will recover.”

Jordan emphasized, however, that while the vast majority of those that are infected will recover, the virus’s death rate is certainly nothing to scoff at.

“The 3 percent is a scary number, though, when you consider that the flu – which we have a vaccine for and some generalized herd immunity for – kills about .1 percent (of those infected),” she said. “So, not even 1 percent. So, this disease is about 100 times more deadly than the flu, mainly because we don’t have a vaccine to prevent it and we don’t have herd immunity built up to help people have the ability to fight it off on their own.”

On the other side of the coin there has also been those – especially on social media – that downplay COVID-19 and its seriousness.

“I certainly think that both sides have valid concerns and as usual with everything there is some common ground somewhere in the middle,” she said. “I certainly think people need to be concerned about the virus and need to be aware that there are people around that have the risk to have severe outcomes of the virus due to their chronic medical conditions or age, however.”

Something that Jordan is concerned with is the virus’ effect on those battling obesity.

“One of the unfortunate things we’re seeing play out across America is that people that are overweight seem to be more at risk for severe complications of this than we initially realized,” she said. “Unfortunately the southeastern part of the United States is not only the Bible Belt but also the ‘Obesity Belt.’

“So, I think this is going to negatively impact the younger population of our community sheerly because of the obesity rate in our communities.”

Jordan said that the social distancing measures the country has taken has begun to slow the spread of the illness and that those measures are the only way of preventing the illness until a vaccine is available.

“These measures we’ve taken to separate people – social distancing and those types of things – really have done a good job in slowing down the spread,” Jordan said. “We don’t have a vaccine yet available, so the only other prevention we have at this time is not coming into contact with the virus.

“Unfortunately the virus is so prevalent in the state and in the nation our best prevention is to pretend in our mind that everyone we come into contact with is infected, so that we use those skills – the hand-washing and social distancing – to avoid people as much as possible.”

Jordan said that while there is no vaccine yet, experimental treatments are available currently.

“If you have the virus there are certainly treatments available,” she said. “None of them have been proven by the American standard of years of trials through the FDA but we don’t have time for that.

“Trials are already started and we’re getting early data so we can adapt rapidly and change our treatment plans based on that. UAB has been very open with the physicians across the state as to what their trial treatments are and what their results are and what things we need to do and what to change. That has been very helpful.”

Jordan emphasized, however, that those treatments should be reserved for patients that are hospitalized.

“We’re reserving the treatments for patients that are so sick that they need to be hospitalized,” she said. “We don’t know the potential negative effects of the treatments, so patients that aren’t sick enough to be in the hospital wouldn’t want to risk negative outcomes sheerly from the treatment.”

Another positive that Jordan pointed to was the number of people that have been hospitalized.

“Less than 10 percent of patients are hospitalized and half of those require ICU support and less than half of those require ventilator support,” Jordan said.

A concern that has popped up from doctors recently is that COVID-19 could become a seasonal virus.

“I think any virus has that potential,” Jordan said. “My concern – and part of the concern in the healthcare community – is that we’ve taken all these precautions to slow the spread, to protect that 3 percent that are likely to die from the disease, that over time we will space this out a little bit,” she continued. “But it may mean the virus comes back once things settle back in to what we used to call normal. It is possible but it’s too early to tell if something will become seasonal like influenza but time will bear that out.”

Jordan said that while there are certain things about our “new normal” during the COVID-19 crisis that she hopes sticks around, it isn’t feasible for social distancing to continue for a prolonged period.

“I certainly hope we keep the hand washing more often,” Jordan joked. “I think it’s unreasonable to think that we will keep, for any prolonged period of time, social distancing.

“Another thing we’re telling people to do now is to wear facemasks in public whenever possible. I don’t think either one of those things are reasonable methods to maintain for a prolonged period of time.”

Jordan said that she hopes this pandemic will make people more aware of the things that we can still do in the future to be more safe.

“What I hope is that this has raised awareness of the fact that we need to be careful of washing our hands more often,” she said. “We need to be more thoughtful of others that are at risk for severe complications of illness that may only show mild problems in others. I do not believe these (other) methods that we’ve changed will really be a prolonged change inside our community, though.”

The balance between protecting those that are at risk and restoring our economy is something that also becomes a point of contention in America.

“I think people need to understand what their risks are and be very reasonable, while at the same time I understand that we all have jobs to do and bills to pay,” she said. “We can’t sustain economically a prolonged social distancing program. It would cause severe economic harm to everyone.

“There is always a balancing act of how much do we do to protect the few at the expense of the many. In some ways we are all responsible for not giving disease to other people but at the same time we have to have the freedoms to make our own decisions and make a living and move around.”

When it comes to the topic of sports Jordan said that she is hopeful that things will be back in full swing by the fall.

“I have a lot of hope that by the fall we will be back to a routine sports season,” Jordan said. “We value entertainment in this country and sports is a part of our entertainment.

“Sports is also a great form of exercise for all of us that participate as well as something that teaches some very valuable life lessons to our kids. So, I am very anxious to get back to sports but at the same time I understand why we have the current restrictions. Sports where we all touch the same piece of equipment is a great way to spread the virus.”

Jordan said that she and her colleagues in the sports medical world had a way to get people to practice social distancing much sooner than when it became prevalent.

“Those of us in the sports medicine community said that if we had early on announced that if everyone stayed home then we could have a football season,” Jordan continued. “People probably would have been much happier to do that then.”