"We're in a war": UAB officials, Dr. Michael Saag implore public not to let up on coronavirus precautions

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to surge through Alabama and specifically Jefferson County, Dr. Michael Saag in the division of infectious diseases at UAB said he can’t help but feel tired.

But just because he and other doctors are tired doesn’t mean they can give up, he said.

“We’re in a war,” he said. “Just because I’m tired or because there’s a bad day here and there doesn’t mean I can quit.”

He compared it to being a World War II soldier in the trenches somewhere in France.

“This is a serious battle,” he said. “I’m not going to sit there and say, ‘Well gosh, I need to go play a round of golf.’”

Even before the coronavirus hit Birmingham, Saag focused on efforts to end epidemics. He worked at the Center for AIDS Research at UAB searching for a way to put an end to the HIV epidemic.

“I’ve been involved in the AIDS epidemic almost since its beginning,” he said. “I’ve seen how all of us pulling together and using science in the best way possible has made a huge difference. It took a long time, but we’re light-years better than we were in the 1980s.”

When his efforts in the division of infectious diseases shifted to fighting coronavirus, he said he took lessons learned from the AIDS epidemic and applied them to the coronavirus pandemic.

“That’s what I’m here to do,” he said. “That’s my mission.”

He doesn’t just aid research efforts though — he actively participates. When Saag visited his son in New York in March, they made it a priority to wipe down surfaces. But this was before the U.S.Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended wearing masks to contain the spread of the virus, and Saag and his son realized they were sick with coronavirus after the trip was over.

From the beginning, even while still sick, Saag began donating his plasma to research.

“On day two of illness, I volunteered and said, ‘Here, draw blood from me and store it,’” he said. “And we’ve been drawing that blood every four weeks or so to detect antibodies and see how my cells perform.”

In mid-May, he did plasma pheresis, where he donated about 500 milliliters of plasma and about 8 billion cells that doctors can use to further research the coronavirus.

“These are extraordinary times, and I think we should all be doing our part,” he said. “As a scientist and a clinician, I have volunteered to do things that I feel will help. But what I ask in return is for all of us to do our part.”

Saag also attends an outpatient COVID-19 clinic about two-and-a-half days a week. The patients there are sick, but not sick enough to need to be in the hospital. It’s a place that these patients can safely be evaluated without exposing their primary care doctors.

“If they have been diagnosed with COVID, or if they have very suggestive symptoms, we’d prefer for them to come see us in this very secure location where we have all the precautions in place, can see them in a controlled way, and hopefully give them whatever interventions we can to help them weather the storm like I did and not have to go to the hospital.”

As if all of this life-saving work wasn’t enough for Saag, he and the dean of the UAB School of Medicine, Dr. Selwyn Vickers, have implemented a statewide testing initiative to test every college student in the state — public and private —for coronavirus before they return to class.

This massive testing won’t cost college students a penny, though. Saag said the funding will come from the CARES Act, the $2.2 trillion economic stimulus bill passed by Congress in March. Most colleges will require the testing be done for the student to regain entry onto campus.

“A dormitory is such an easy place for the transmission of a virus to happen,” Saag said. “So by knowing that the students walking into the dorms, residence halls and fraternity and sorority houses have tested negative at one moment in time, then we have a better chance of keeping the campus relatively safe at a baseline.”

Cases will still be inevitable as students return to campus, he said, but as new cases are identified, contract tracing and quarantine measures can be implemented. When Iron City Ink spoke to Saag in mid-July, he said he was expecting student testing to begin before August.

Dr. Jeanne Mazzarro, who directs the infectious diseases department at UAB, said the safety of back-to-school plans for elementary-aged children depends on the school. How much space does each classroom have? How many students will be in each room? Will they be able to social distance? These are the questions each school should consider, she said.

“I hate the thought of kids not going back to school,” Mazzarro said. “I feel like for them, developmentally, this is going to be a very challenging year. Parents are already going crazy — they can’t get to work, they’re totally stressed out. It’s just bad all around.

“So I’m not one of these people who thinks everything needs to stop until we get this under control. I think we need to think differently.”

Similar to Saag, Mazzarro admits she’s tired.

“It’s exhausting on many levels — and I’m not even in the intensive care unit taking care of people,” she said. “I’m taking care of my faculty and staff. ... It keeps me up at night worrying about how they’re doing and how we’re going to keep it together for them.”

She is also fatigued from saying the same things over and over again, she said.

“This is not rocket science,” she said. “We should be able to do what so many other countries have done well. To have knowledgeable, evidence-based people who want only the best things for our communities to be disbelieved and sometimes marginalized is really demoralizing.”

Everyone has a role to play, which should be people’s number one takeaway, Mazzarro said.

“Even if you think you are not at risk for infection, remember that not everyone is as fortunate as you,” she said. “We need everyone to pull together and understand that in order to get ahead of this thing.

“The virus is the most apolitical thing you will ever encounter. It loves it when we don’t agree. It loves it when there’s chaos. It will take advantage of every slip-up we have because that’s just how viruses are. So let’s not let it defeat us.”

People need to ask themselves what they have done to join the fight, Saag said.

“We are being challenged by a virus that is declaring war on the world, and each country has got to fight this off using all of the knowledge we’ve gained from the Spanish flu epidemic — which is where the concept of masks and social distance came from — as well as our knowledge of science to develop vaccine and treatments,” he said. “Even if you’re not a scientist or a clinician, you’re a member of the public, and we all should be doing what we can to prevent the spread.”