DICKINSON COUNTY, Iowa — Dr. Zach Borus has cared for many coronavirus patients over the course of the pandemic. But he told Local 5 in an interview on Wednesday that the latest surge in patients feels different than the first wave.
"The feeling about it is a little different, at least among the medical community," said Borus. "Because we don't know. I would not be at all surprised especially as we get into the cold and flu season and the hospital is already busier...this could be the tip of the iceberg in terms of what we will see. I hope that's not the case, I hope we can mitigate this, but if you look at trends across the state, it's going up every week."
Borus is a physician at Lakes Regional Family Medicine and the chair of the Dickinson Board of Health. At the beginning of the summer, Borus said, there was an uptick in coronavirus cases in the community.
"We're home to Lake Okoboji, so we're a tourist area, and so we thought a lot of the cases came from people outside of the community," said Borus. "A lot of them were young people too. So we kind of fooled ourselves into thinking when the weather gets cooler and the tourists leave, the virus will leave. That hasn't happened because it's spreading among the community."
Dickinson County is in Regional Medical Coordination Center 3. According to the state coronavirus website, 117 patients are in the hospital, 25 in the intensive care unit.
RMCC's are used as a way to assess and move medical resources to combat a surge in coronavirus patients. The hospital Borus works at is currently seeing six coronavirus patients, and that already puts a strain on the staff.
"The staff is stressed," said Borus. "These COVID patients require more staff to take care of them. We're tired."
Borus said it's difficult to pinpoint one particular cause of the latest surge in hospitalizations, but he attributes it to school being back in session, Iowans going into crowded places, and people simply letting their guard down.
"I don't want people to live in fear," said Borus. "But we have to learn to live carefully and safely with this virus. Because it's not going away, at least not for many months, maybe even a year."
Gov. Kim Reynolds has not issued any new mitigation efforts to address the uptick in coronavirus cases and hospitalizations. Borus said having those extra rules might help relieve the pressure on the medical community.
"When we saw the crackdown on bars and clubs, that helped lower the number of cases," said Borus. "But then those rules were lifted, and from what I'm seeing and hearing, people are going right back to the bars and doing what they did before."