Dr. Michael Saag, an infectious disease expert at UAB who came down with COVID-19 about two weeks ago, spoke to a video conference meeting of the Birmingham Rotary Club today and praised Birmingham and Jefferson County’s reaction to prevent the spread of coronavirus.

“I couldn’t be prouder of Jefferson County and Birmingham,” he said. “I think we started early enough. I’m hopeful we’ve done enough, soon enough.”

City and county guidelines for shelter in place, business closures and social distancing should help prevent spread of the disease, he said.

“So far, in Birmingham, we’re doing pretty well,” Saag said. “You can’t abandon the course.”

UAB Hospital has 56 total cases of COVID-19, taking up two and a half units at the hospital, with 26 in the intensive care unit, Saag said. “It’s only going to get worse,” he said. “The morale among nursing staff is really being strained. We’ve got to protect each other if we’re on the front lines.”

Watch and listen to Dr. Saag’s talk.

Saag, 64, said he and his son contracted the disease on a trip to New York and his son began experiencing symptoms while they were driving back to Alabama. “I was doing all the things that they advise us to do,” he said. “Despite all that, I still became infected.”

New York has the most cases in the country and it’s stressing their healthcare system, he said.

“New York was a little late,” he said. “They are in a state of emergency.”

Saag said he is on Day 12 of having the disease and felt better on Tuesday, but then had a terrible night. “Last night I had another bad night,” he said. “It’s relentless, this thing. Nobody wants to get it. We’ve never seen anything like it. This is a bear and it doesn’t want to let go.”

Saag urged the public to stay the course on remaining home and social distancing.

“When we talk about backing off restrictions, we’ve got to be smart about this,” he said. “We shouldn’t just pick a date and say this is when we’re going to do this.”

Temporarily halting the economy seems severe, but an overwhelmed healthcare system would be worse, he said.

“Yeah, there’s going to be economic impact,” he said. “What else can we do? Ignore this?”

That would be at the peril of the nation’s safety, he said.

“How is it better to have the health system overwhelmed? What is the cost of that? Our country, our world, have been invaded by a virus.”

Asked how much longer the social isolation would be necessary, he said, “My honest answer is I don’t know,” he said. It takes about three weeks to bend the curve of new infections down. “In five to six weeks we should be where we want to be,” he said. “If we get overwhelmed, what about the average case such as a burn victim or heart attack? There won’t be a bed for that. None of us want that to happen.”

It may take three months of social distancing to be safe, he said.

Asked if warm weather would help, he said, “Possibly. It possibly could. They (viral infections) do seem to have a seasonal quality to them.”

The virus does seem to thrive and replicate at lower temperatures, he said. “Will it come roaring back when the weather turns cold again?” he said.

Saag noted that one unusual symptom was he lost his sense of smell. He also had a persistent cough, but didn’t experience a fever until about day six or seven. “Loss of smell is unique to this virus,” he said. “About 40 percent have that.”

Saag compared the necessary response of civilians to World War II, when Great Britain was being bombed by Germany. “We’re at war,” he said. “This is not something we can play politics with.”