Dr. Gustavo Ferrer Discusses Florida Needing Staff, Supplies as Cases Rise, Miami-Dade ICUs at 130% Capacity
KING: South Florida is one of the hardest-hit areas of the country at the moment. Hospitals there overrun with coronavirus patients. In Miami-Dade County -- look at numbers here -- ICU capacity at is 130 percent, the highest it's been in the last five days. With me now is cardiovascular and pulmonary specialist, Dr. Gustavo Ferrer. Doctor, thank you so much for you time. I know you're busy in your community. I want to go through this and what does it tell you in terms of what you're seeing. Hospitalizations in Miami-Dade, up 30 percent in July 7, ICU patients up 50 percent and ventilator use up 67 percent. From your work, especially when you see the ventilator number, that was a warning sign when we were going through the early peak of this first wave. How deep is the problem?</s>DR. GUSTAVO FERRER, CARDIOVASCULAR & PULMONARY SPECIALIST: The problem is significant. Back three weeks ago, our ventilators in the ICUs where I work we were down to one or two patients with COVID-19 event. Today, we're reaching capacity, just as you said, about 100 percent in our ICUs. This is a problem that, unfortunately, will be with us for a while. We know that the increasing cases is followed by prolonged stays in the ICU and increased mortality.</s>KING: If you look through -- you're trying to find some glimmer of hope -- six days in a row, Florida reported at least 10,000 cases. Today, it was in the 9,000. So down a little bit. Let's hope that that continues. But one of the warning signs is if you look at the positivity rates. Arizona is above 20 percent right now. Florida right around 19 percent. Massachusetts, which had this problem earlier, is down 2.3 percent. That's where you want to be in single digits when it comes to positivity. And a closer look at Florida, statewide, just shy of 19 percent. Miami-Dade, in southern Florida, 28 percent positivity. If you have a 25 percent-plus positivity rate in your community, what does that tell you, sir?</s>FERRER: It tells me we'll still see a significant number of patients coming to our hospital, that we still need to do a lot of work together. We need to embrace the need of social distancing and embrace the need of use masks. And we need to work together as a community to help us lower the number of cases.</s>KING: And so, as we go through this right now, what -- what have you learned, if you will, from the lessons -- any lessons from the earlier states that dealt this or when you were dealing with a much smaller baseline of patients in tells of treatment? Obviously, you're overwhelmed and you're trying to do the emergency care that these patients need. But are there things that you're finding work today that are not on the table, say, two, three months ago?</s>FERRER: Absolutely. We see the number of people staying in the ICU longer. This is a lesson that we have all learned with this pandemic. We also have learned that for some patients Remdesivir tends to work. We have seen blood thinners tend to our patients. And obviously, the use of steroids has helped. But nonetheless, there's a lot of things that we can still do and the people that are out there in the community. And this is part of the research that I'm doing these days.</s>KING: Dr. Ferrer, thanks so much. Grateful for your time today. And when it comes to your research today, let's circle back as we go through this in the weeks ahead. Hopefully, we can have a day talking about lessons learned, not about numbers that simply alarm us. But grateful for your time, sir.</s>FERRER: Thank you. Thank you for having me.</s>KING: Absolutely. You're most welcome. Thank you. Coming up for us, unidentified federal agents shoots tear gas into a crowd of protesters in Portland, Oregon.