‘COVID Hunter’ doctor says he’s fighting 2 battles in Texas: Coronavirus and stupidity
A popular Texas doctor is letting out his frustrations about the rise of coronavirus cases.
Dr. Joseph Varon, the chief medical officer of United Memorial Medical Center in Houston, said that his growing irritation of people not heeding the advice of medical professionals about the spread of COVID-19 is wearing on him.
“My motto has been, you know, at the present time, I’m pretty much fighting two wars: a war against COVID and a war against stupidity,” Varon said to KTRK/ABC News in an interview. “And the problem is that the first one I have some hope about winning. But the second one is becoming more and more difficult to treat. Why do I say that? Because people are not listening. Whether it’s backed up by science or just plain old common sense, people are not listening throughout the country.”
Varon, who is also a lung and critical care specialist, and his staff have been alarmed over the flow of coronavirus patients coming through the hospital, but he’s not giving up.
In an interview with the BBC this July, Varon said that he has adapted a known treatment protocol that has ended up giving his patients a 95% chance of recovery – a protocol that earned him the nickname “the Covid Hunter.”
“They call me a covidologist, a covid hunter – look at my back,” Varon said to the BBC before turning around, revealing the words “COVID hunter” written in black marker on his back along with red tape. “By default, we became covidologists.”
Varon said he has been learning from global coronavirus experiences over the past four months and that when patients are put on ventilators, the chance of death rises.
“When you put a tube in somebody’s throat, the chances of them leaving the hospital are less than 20%,” he said to BBC. “The chances of my patients leaving the hospital are 95%.”
The procedure is called a tracheotomy, where a hole is bored into the necks of his struggling patients and a tube is inserted into their windpipe to help the patient breathe.
“I’ve never seen an illness that is so tricky. Everyday I get surprised with corona,” he said.
Varon is no stranger to mass casualty situations, but says that this virus is the worst thing he’s seen and not just because of the death rate, but because of people’s responses to curbing it.
“I have been in the middle of earthquakes, in the middle of bombings, in the middle of tsunamis. I’ve been involved in every possible catastrophe that you can imagine. And by far, this is the worst. And this is the worst because this is a continuous situation,” he told ABC.
“And what is probably the most disappointing thing, the thing that annoys me the most, is that we keep on doing our best to save all these people, and then you get another batch of people that are doing exactly the opposite of what you are telling them not to do.”
Regardless of Varon’s optimism in the procedure he uses at UMMC, the stress weighs on him.
“I’m afraid that at some point in time I’m going to have to make some very serious decisions,” he said to The Atlantic in a photo essay documenting the work done by the doctor and his staff. “I’m starting to get the idea that I cannot save everybody.”
On Thursday, the COVID-19 cases in Texas rose to more than 418,000, surpassing New York in its case count, CNN reported. The state was one of the first to open in May, but paused in June when cases started to surge.
