Malibu doctor shares her experience, knowledge with coronavirus
Michele Willer-Allred, Staff Reporter6:00 am PDT May 13, 2020
Malibu Surfside News
Last month, Dr. Lisa Benya and her team at Malibu Medical Group partnered with the City of Malibu and Community Organized Relief Effort (CORE) to conduct drive-thru novel coronavirus (COVID-19) tests at City Hall for Malibu residents and the surrounding community.
During that time, the group was able to conduct more than 3,000 tests there, starting with first responders.
“It’s a really busy time, but I’m really grateful to be able to do something productive and positive right now during the crisis,” Benya said about the experience. “There’s a whole team of people that I also feel grateful to be part of. We’ve all been able to come together and jump in and really do a lot to test the community, and we’re really happy to be able to do it.”
During a phone interview with the Malibu Surfside News on Thursday, May 7, Benya talked about the findings from those tests, how the focus of testing will change, advice on when someone should get tested and how, and protections people should take.
Benya also discussed how telemedicine has been beneficial for patients during the pandemic, and how she believes life will eventually return to normal, just with extra precautions.
Michele Willer-Allred: What can you tell us about the results of the COVID-19 testing that has been completed in Malibu?
Dr. Lisa Benya: The good news is in our area, we are not seeing large widespread COVID-19, which is great. We are identifying cases though. We definitely have them in Malibu and the surrounding communities, but there is definitely not a large number, which we’re happy with. We actually still don’t have all the results back yet, so we don’t have a full percentage. But, right now we can say that we have identified positive COVID-19 in Malibu and around Malibu, but we are not seeing a great deal of severe illness. Sadly, we had one gentleman actually pass away that lived in Malibu, but we have not seen the large number of illnesses like in New York City and the symptoms have been mild to moderate rather than severe at this point, which is really good.
MWA: As quarantine restrictions begin to ease up, how will testing change?
DLB: What we’re looking more towards is antibody testing. Initially it’s most important to start with to really find who has the virus, so we were focusing more on doing the nasal swab (test) to actually identify who actually has the virus and who doesn’t. That was our first goal, to identify who has it, isolate them, and separate them from the population.
Now as we start to look at really lifting some of those restrictions and people trying to resume some sort of normal life, what we’re looking at is antibody testing. Our efforts for here and the surrounding community will be still to offer testing for the virus, because it still will be present in our society for a while, so we’re still going to have to have the ability to test. However, we’re also going to roll in antibody testing so we can get an idea who might have already had it, who might have some sort of immunity and then they would have some sort of protection as we open up society again.
Our hope is for the next month or two, we are looking at opening up testing at City Hall again. We don’t have specifics yet, but we’ll keep people posted.
MWA: Should everyone be tested?
DLB: At first there was limited testing supplies, so we were only trying to test those people that absolutely we really felt like we had to know right away because they were very sick. Now the testing supply situation has loosened and we have been able to get testing supplies. Really, everybody should do it. The idea now is not only do we want to identify if somebody is sick and whether it’s COVID, we also want to identify people who are walking around who actually have COVID and are not symptomatic. Those are the people now that are most likely to spread it. So right now, there really isn’t a qualification to be tested. We want everybody, and it’s really important to do that.
MWA: How can someone be tested?
DLB: Our office does testing and we typically will have you meet with a practitioner. When we meet, we’ll decide which testing is appropriate and administer it. For those people who have already had the nasal swab test a couple months ago and haven’t been sick since, maybe we’ll check antibodies. For some people who had a cold a couple weeks ago and haven’t had the virus test, then we’ll want to test for the virus. Right now we are offering on a smaller scale those tests in our office. But we do hope to open it up again citywide and communitywide in the next week or two weeks so that we can do further virus testing and add in the antibody testing as well.
MWA: What do you recommend people do if they are caregivers or have elderly parents and they need to visit or take care of them? Should they get tested as well?
DLB: Great question. If you are going to expose yourself to somebody that is at risk, we recommend that you get tested and essentially isolate or quarantine until you get the test results. That’s because if you test and then you go to work and don’t wear your mask, well, the day you test you can go out and get exposed later that day, but then your results will still have come back negative. So, the idea would be test yourself, isolate yourself, make sure you don’t re-expose, and then if you’re negative you would be free to start to care for elderly parents or other people that could be at risk.
MWA: Should people still wear masks out in public?
DLB: Right now, the masks that we’re asking people to wear out in public are really to protect somebody else. So, essentially the mask that you wear doesn’t really protect you from somebody else, but it will protect somebody else from perhaps you spreading the virus. If everybody does it, then everybody is protecting everybody. All it takes is for people not to be wearing their mask before we get a vaccine and the spread of the virus continues. So, it’s really important that as we try to open up society, as we try to get businesses, restaurants and stores open, we still maintain all the things that will keep us safe. And the only way to do that is to open up, but maintain our social distancing, and to maintain all of the recommendations from public health that are out there now, which is wearing those masks, hand washing and staying six feet away. If we can maintain those, we have a better chance of opening up society and opening up the economy without increasing sickness and death.
MWA: Could you tell me about other services, such as telemedicine, that your practice offers and how is this beneficial for the community during the pandemic?
DLB: We have been actually offering telemedicine as part of our practice for years. Part of my practice is something called CURE, and it is a service that we’ve offered to clients who basically travel a lot or their profession has them touring the world. This way we are able to offer them telehealth wherever they go in the world and they are always able to access me and my team.
When this pandemic came out, we actually just started rolling telehealth out more on a larger scale. We’re finding it obviously so helpful. Now we can roll it out to the community at large, and it’s been amazing for people who are stuck in their homes, don’t want to go out while sick, and we can still deliver the care to them. So, adding telehealth to the whole community has been amazing. And we even offer as part of our telehealth other services like hair care and skin care, nutrition and fitness, and mental health as well.
MWA: Why do you personally think it’s important to help and reach out to others during this pandemic?
DLB: As a physician, it’s my job to help in any way I can with anyone’s health. So, because this is really a health crisis this is my job, and I feel really grateful that in something like this crisis, I am able to help. What I’m also seeing is, without people having practictioners in the community and the support of a city to actually go out and test and roll out protocols, then it’s really confusing and dangerous. As you can see, if you got a community that doesn’t have that, then you have a community that’s either watching the news or trying to figure where to get tested, where they should get tested, are they getting the right test … and it’s confusing and scary. So, we really have been grateful again to be able to take the lead with the support of the city and the support of Sean Penn’s (CORE) foundation and tons of other people that have donated … to offer clear guidelines and to be able to deliver testing and to deliver treatment to the masses. It’s really what the community deserves. It’s my honor to be able to do it.
MWA: Do you think things will return to normal soon? What are your thoughts about what the future will bring with the pandemic?
DLB: I can say with certainty that we as a community we will be okay and we’re on the path. Unfortunately, it’s not going to be a quick light switch, turning on and off. It’s going to be more like what we call a dimmer. That dimmer switch is slowly going to come on. Once we find a vaccine and/or a treatment, then society will open up as it was, but only I think with the changes may be being in place that we’ve learned through this crisis.
I think we’ll always be a little bit more careful about hygiene and being in social gatherings and washing hands, using hand sanitizer and probably other things like that. Concerts, sporting events, and other activities will occur again, but it won’t really be without worry until we get those vaccines. Right now, our first focus is how do we get back to essential businesses and our life safely, and the next will be how do we add our entertainment and all of the icing on the cake safely. This will be in stages, but it will happen. I do think though there might be kind of like a new norm. It might be the checking temperatures and having hand sanitizers everywhere in big arenas and again making sure that none of that happens until there is a vaccine.
I hope 2021 offers us a “normal” year. I don’t think any of us think prior to 2021 that the light switch will be fully on. But, we do know that we are going to be OK.