CLICK BELOW TO HEAR JACK HALL’S FULL INTERVIEW WITH DR. BILL HOOK, OSF
Things are improving at Escanaba’s OSF Saint Francis Hospital when it comes to the number of people hospitalized there with COVID-19.
“I’m really happy to report that it is going better this week,” specialist Dr. Bill Hook told the Radio Results Network Thursday. “Fewer beds are occupied, so there’s a little lower bit of numbers this particular week. Fewer hospitalized patients with COVID. It’s the best week we’ve had in quite some time, probably since back in September. It’s been a little bit of a respite for our staff.”
Now that we’re two weeks out from Thanksgiving, Hook remains encouraged.
“Quite frankly, we didn’t have the huge immediate spike that we thought,” Hook said.
He says they are excited to have a new drug at OSF to treat COVID patients. It’s Bamlanivimab, or BAM for short. Hook says the drug blocks the protein that the virus gets into to invade our cells, allowing our immune system to finish the job.
Hook says it works on people who have within a few days of showing symptoms, and is being used to let people recover at home instead of the hospital.
“If you’re sick enough to be in the hospital, you should be in the hospital,” Hook said. “But this drug is a pre-hospital drug. It works better a few days in than it does if you’re eight days in. If you’re sick in the hospital, it’s just not that effective, and we’ll go with other treatments. So the idea is to keep one out of the hospital.”
He says things are moving extremely fast, as they just started using the drug last Wednesday after the FDA gave it emergency approval. Since then, Hook says 16 patients locally have received the drug, with overall good results.
“This is a glimmer of hope,” Hook said. “We’ve had some folks say they felt very much improved within a day or two. Some other folks not so much; not worsening but not better. I am very encouraged.”
The laboratory-made antibody mimics a naturally occurring one, which is known to fight off the virus that causes COVID-19.
The Eli Lilly drug received an emergency use authorization (EUA) by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) last month. Now the drug is being administered in specially designated outpatient infusion sites throughout the OSF HealthCare Ministry.
Patients who qualify for BAM have been found to be at high risk for severe COVID-19 illness, and might need hospitalization if untreated. BAM is most effective when given early, and needs to be administered within 10 days of the onset of symptoms. BAM is not intended for routine use in the management of COVID-19, and is not approved for hospitalized COVID-19 patients.
“The categories that the EUA has selected are the patients that we have seen historically over the last eight months have a higher risk of having a bad outcome from COVID,” explained Brian Curtis, M.D., vice president, clinical specialty services, OSF HealthCare.
“Other diseases aren’t going away because COVID is here,” added Mark Meeker, D.O., vice president of physician services, OSF HealthCare. “People still need surgeries. They need screenings. They get sick with other diseases, so we need capacity to take care of them. I am really hopeful that this antibody indeed lowers the progression of disease in this high risk population so we can keep our hospitals out of full capacity.”
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