Dr. Ben NeumanTEXARKANA — A local expert on the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19 says the virus is "out of control" in Bowie County and the Texarkana area, with active cases in the hundreds as mask compliance drops.
In an interview Thursday, Dr. Ben Neuman of Texarkana A&M University-Texarkana shared his concerns about the virus now that fall has arrived and case numbers have surged nationwide.
Neuman, a virologist and the department chair for biology, is an expert on COVID-19 who helped name the virus. He's been interviewed by media sources across the globe.
"This corner of Texas is experiencing the worst outbreak of COVID that it has seen since the start of the disease. We're in much worse shape than we were when the state went into lockdown and much worse shape than we were during the major peak of infection in Texas, which was late spring, early summer," Neuman said.
That's not just Texarkana. It's also all the surrounding areas, including the Arkansas side nearby.
He said all the adjoining counties feed into Texarkana hospitals.
"So we are just sort of a hair's-breadth away from full capacity in our COVID wards in town because we're supporting the area and the area is being particularly hard hit at the moment," Neuman said.
Neuman said the previous worst in Bowie County was about 150 active cases at one time. That would peak for a day or two, then go back down. "So we were relatively spared by the first two waves of COVID-19," he said.
"But in this wave we have now had somewhere between 400 and 500 active cases a day for the last month and a half, and the numbers are going up rather than down," Neuman said, noting the area is punching way above its weight here with active case numbers.
An additional cause for concern is the unreported cases, the cases not caught.
"We know there are some because this is how people are becoming infected, for the most part. People keep getting tests, testing positive, isolating, but the virus keeps spreading," Neuman said.
On the conservative side, he said, estimates indicate we may be missing half the cases.
The takeaway? There's more COVID around than anyone realizes. Meanwhile, people are not taking precautions needed to stop the spread.
"The pattern seems to be that when people wear masks less of the time, the virus goes up. This is sometimes correlated with changes at the state level — like when different governors or mayors put in mask laws, you can see an effect usually," he said.
However, there's also compliance to consider. Texas has had a mask mandate for months since early July, but compliance fluctuates.
"Usually compliance tends to get a little higher when the numbers get worse, but we are not seeing that happen in the Texarkana area right now, which is what is driving the cases," Neuman said. "Fewer masks and more cases means far more cases in the future."
He suspects election season has people passionate about issues, so that contributes to not wearing masks. The reasons are political.
"It's sad and really unfortunate that public health has been tied to politics," Neuman said. "This is something that I think politicians have done rather than people from the public health side. I think masks and COVID are being used as a political football which is not to anyone's benefit in the long term."
It's going to take a lot more money to get us out of this, he said.
"There are ways to do this without shutting down the state, but what it's going to take at this point is going out and actively testing everyone, and testing them probably more than once a week and maybe doing this for a month," Neuman said. "Unity is what it is going to take to get out of this."
If he were a public health leader here in Texarkana, what would he do now?
For one thing, he says people are being released from hospitals while the coronavirus is still inside of them. But in countries where the virus has gotten under control, that's not done. And testing needs to improve.
"Funding and people is what is going to make the most difference," he said. "Every area with a decent population size needs testing capacity. They need to be able to be able to do the tests right there and turn them around quickly."
It still takes several days and often hundreds of dollars to get results for a PCR test, one of the ways to detect the virus, he said. These can be done in a laboratory and wouldn't necessarily have federal licensing approval, but it would give a yes or no answer in about two hours.
"There are robots that can do this really fast, there are people that can do this really fast," Neuman said. "It's more about the will, I guess. Once the will is there, you need the resources."
The coronavirus, Neuman said, is a stoppable disease. Our understanding of the virus has improved with well-funded labs throwing resources at the problem, finding useful ways to understand it.
"In terms of understanding the virus, I've never seen the understanding of a virus move this quickly," Neuman said. "This is science at the fastest I've ever seen it."
He suggests remdesivir, approved this past week to treat COVID-19, slows down the virus but is only part of the solution.
"It's half the solution," he said. "We need something that slows down the part of the immune system that's getting out of control while we're holding down the virus with remdesivir. Those two together can potentially be a solution. But half a solution is not really a solution."
He's optimistic a vaccine may appear soon, but the effects may not last beyond a few months. Overall, though, Neuman is concerned because the numbers are rising.
"Until I see the numbers turn around and go down and stay down — until I see the steps taken that will actually make the numbers turn around, it's hard to be particularly optimistic. I think you've got to have hope because this is still very much something humans can deal with and can stop," he said.
We have the means, but we need the will, including here in Texarkana. He would still avoid any indoor activity in places that involve taking a mask off. He thinks indoor activities with masks on are suspect, as well.
"Texarkana is, on a national scale, a hot spot right now," Neuman said.
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