HOUSTON — With the presidential election now over, health experts in Houston say the focus must shift to coming together to contain a worsening COVID-19 pandemic.
"This has the possibility of getting catastrophically bad," said Dr. Linda Yancey, an infectious disease specialist at Memorial Hermann Hospital Katy.
Dr. Yancey sees COVID-19 up close everyday.
"As of today I've lost 119 people to COVID, and that's just me in my hospital," said Yancey. "This has impacted a huge number of people. It's a terrible disease."
The U.S. is averaging more than 100,000 cases per day. Texas will soon be the first state to hit 1 million cases. Texas positivity rate has eclipsed 10 percent, however other states are far worse.
"This is the most important threat to the health and safety of this country that we've seen in a long time," said Yancey.
It's why Yancey says tackling COVID-19 must be priority number one for the incoming administration.
"I'm hoping now that the election is over, the temperature gets turned down on a lot of these controversies," said Yancey.
She's encouraged by news President-elect Joe Biden will name his COVID-19 task force Monday, but says the time between now and Inauguration Day will be most critical.
"The next few months are going to be extremely important," said Yancey. "We know now what we need to do."
That includes ramped up testing and a national plan where social distancing and wearing masks play a central role.
"We need to emphasize the scientifically proven ways we can mitigate this," said Yancey. "Politics has no business in science, and it certainly has no business in science of medicine. We're all operating with the same facts, and we should all be responding to them with logic and reason."
The good news is Yancey believes Houston is well-prepared should a spike occur here. But we should all do what we can to make sure that doesn't happen.