Odessa area physicians and health experts during a Thursday Zoom news conference hastily dismissed a claim by Mayor Javier Joven that using mouth-wash will help prevent COVID-19.
Joven made the claim while live-streaming on Facebook following Tuesday evening’s city council meeting.
“No. Unfortunately (mouth-wash) does not work on COVID,” Odessa Regional Medical Center Chief Medical Officer Rohith Saravanan said during the news conference. “It can help fight plaque and prevent gingivitis, but not COVID.”
City council on Tuesday directed city administrators not to cancel any upcoming city-sponsored community events despite concerns that COVID cases have skyrocketed to record levels during the past month.
After Tuesday’s city council meeting, Joven took to the popular social media platform to announce the decision and offered suggestions on how residents can protect themselves from COVID.
“We’re not going to force anyone to close, or cancel events, and we need to support those and also do it cautiously and practice common sense; and whether you’re vaccinated or not vaccinated, that is not the question,” Joven said during his nearly 5-minute Facebook chat.
“If you feel the need to take precautions, continue to use mouth-wash, wash your hands, and mask if you have to; keep your distance and that nature to be able to keep our numbers and manage our numbers.”
Joven also acknowledged that he has “had COVID twice” and since been vaccinated.
In the past 2 weeks, the total number of new COVID cases in Ector County has increased by more than 1,000, or “about 150-160 new cases per day,” Medical Center Hospital President and CEO Russell Tippin said.
As of Thursday, there were an estimated 2,090 active cases in Ector County, the Texas Department of State Health Services website detailed.
During Thursday’s news conference, Saravanan and Tippin urged people to seek medical advice and treatment from “trusted physicians,” such as longtime family doctors. They discouraged people from trying unproven home remedies to treat COVID.
Some physicians are gambling with people’s lives by claiming that steroids or antibiotic treatments will cure COVID, Saravanan said.
Studies have shown that high doses of steroids can be effective in helping very sick patients, but not those with minor symptoms, Saravanan said. The problem is these experimental treatments have not been comprehensively studied yet and are more likely to cause long-term health problems.
“I understand that outpatient physicians are trying their best and want to try anything that might work,” Saravanan said. “This is an act of desperation to help patients in front of you.”
MCH reported a total of 94 COVID patients on Thursday, with 44 of those patients in critical care and 42 of those currently on ventilators. Thirty-eight of those people in critical care had not been vaccinated. Patients’ ages ranged from 13 to 88.
ORMC President Stacey Brown reported that ORMC had 26 COVID patients, with 21 of them in critical care as of Thursday afternoon. Nine of those patients were on ventilators.
Scenic Mountain Medical Center listed a total of 9 COVID patients on Thursday, with two of those patients in critical care and on ventilators, Brown said.
The number of COVID patients at MCH has remained in the 90s this week after climbing into the low 100s over the weekend, Tippin said. He said those lower numbers are deceiving because COVID patients are dying from what is believed to be the more aggressive Delta variant, while others are going home and new patients taking their place at the hospital.
“We haven’t seen over the peak yet,” Tippin said.
ORMC and MCH administrators said both hospitals continue to struggle with staff shortages. At MCH 27 staff members are off work due to COVID and 17 are missing at ORMC.
Tippin and Saravanan continued to encourage people to wear face coverings, use hand sanitizer frequently and try to avoid large gatherings. They also urged people to get vaccinated.
Getting vaccinated doesn’t guarantee that a person won’t get COVID, “but it does give you a better chance of surviving,” said Tippin, who acknowledged a close relative had died of COVID on Thursday.
