NEWTON, Iowa — With the scale of the COVID-19 pandemic, the success of medical professionals is more important than ever. And even those not on the frontlines have a job to do.
Dr. Esgar Guarin practices family medicine at the Newton Clinic. He's not directly involved with patients of COVID-19, but he says that there's plenty to be done from his perspective.
"My primary care standpoint is to educate the people," Guarin said.
He says one of the primary struggles for medical professionals has been the comparison between coronavirus and influenza. He says a lot of the initial denial of the virus's seriousness within the community was based on that.
"People are forgetting that even though it is also a virus, it behaves differently," Dr. Guarin said. "The infection rate is different. The mortality rate, the complication rate is different. And that's what people didn't have clear, and that's one of the things that I've been making sure people understand."