Officials with Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital hosted another livestream late Friday afternoon to answer questions submitted by members of the community, including how the hospital is treating patients with COVID-19 and the effects of the “Safer at Home” order.

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Larry Kidd, Ph.D., Henry Mayo’s Senior Vice President & Chief Clinical Officer, and Bud Lawrence, MD, Medical Director of Henry Mayo’s Emergency Department sat down Friday afternoon to answer questions submitted by members of the Santa Clarita community.

“We will be addressing your questions once again related to developments in the COVID-19 era, both here at the hospital and then some general updates in terms of the direction that the CDC and others are taking related to managing this pandemic and hopefully getting us out of this situation before too long,” Kidd said.

The very first topic that the pair addressed Friday was the extension of Los Angeles County’s “Safer at Home” order to May 15, which was announced earlier in the day.

“I know that might be unfortunate-sounding, but really what we’ve noticed, at least on the hospital side, is that the good work you’ve been doing at home has made a significant difference in how we’ve been able to manage our COVID-19 patients,” Lawrence said. “We are not being overrun with patients in the emergency department of the hospital like you have seen in New York and Italy and these kinds of places. The work that you’re doing is amazing.”

Both Lawrence and Kidd emphasized that the social distancing everyone has taken up as part of the Safer at Home order has actually helped curb the spread of the virus.

“(We) can’t emphasize enough how important the social distancing is, and that it does appear to be working,” Kidd said. “While we are seeing a glimmer of hope that things will improve sooner than we anticipated, we can’t let up not one inch until we know that we’re definitely on the trend of minimizing exposures and getting a better sense of where we’re going to be a couple of weeks from now.”

The two also talked about how COVID-19 patients are being treated at Henry Mayo.

“We are very well adept at taking care of very ill patients,” Kidd said. “The care of the COVID patients (is) not a lot different from other critically ill patients, and (is) dependent on their progress. How they are presenting determines their treatment plans.”

Kidd and Lawrence also answered questions regarding topics such as whether or not people who feel ill should still go to the emergency room and how the virus is transmitted. To watch the full stream, check out the video above, or click here.

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