Infectious Diseases

Yahoo!News quoted Thomas A. Russo, MD, SUNY Distinguished Professor of medicine and chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases in the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, for its story on a recent announcement that both CVS and Walgreens will be distributing free N95 masks through their pharmacies as part of a new plan from the White House. Russo says N95 masks are not for everyone. “N95 masks have rubber straps that go over your head, and some people don't tolerate that well,” he explained. And they might not be right for every situation, as they can be uncomfortable to wear for longer periods of time. “You still may want to have it to run into a crowded grocery store, but maybe not for longer use,” he said.

Thomas A. Russo, MD, SUNY Distinguished Professor of medicine and chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases in the Jacobs School, told Prevention that there’s no hard and fast rule on how many times N95 and KN95 masks can be used. In pre-pandemic times, when N95 respirators were mostly used by health care and construction workers, they were tossed after one use. “Initially, people would say that these types of masks were one and done,” said Russo. “But now, given pandemic shortages, that’s not very pragmatic.”

PolitiFact turned to Thomas A. Russo, MD, SUNY Distinguished Professor of medicine and chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases in the Jacobs School, for comment on misinformation that WHO claimed COVID-19 is no worse than the flu. Russo said an undercounting of people infected with COVID-19 and an undercounting of deaths makes reliable data on deaths per infection difficult to come by. He estimates that the true infection mortality rate is between 0.4% and 0.8%. While flu is a lethal disease, Russo said, he thinks the misinformation campaign underestimates the risk from COVID-19. “I think we can all agree, we never with influenza see the carnage that we’re seeing with COVID,” he said.

Yahoo!News quoted Thomas A. Russo, MD, SUNY Distinguished Professor of medicine and chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases in the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, for a story on school district staffing shortages as cases of COVID-19 soar due to the highly infectious omicron variant. The U.S. reported 797,216 new COVID-19 infections on Tuesday alone, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "Until we get on the other side of this Omicron wave, there will be an ongoing risk for staff storages due to the highly infectious nature of Omicron and the large number of people at risk for infection," he says. 

The Buffalo News quotes Thomas A. Russo, David Holmes and John Sellick – all faculty members in the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Science at UB – in a story titled “Get sick with Omicron and your symptoms might not feel 'mild.' What you need to know.” “You're treating the symptoms and basically waiting for your immune system to kick in and fight off infection,” Holmes said. “A fever is actually a good thing because that's the body's way of helping to fight off the infection.”

Thomas A. Russo, MD, SUNY Distinguished Professor of medicine and chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases in the Jacobs School, was quoted in Health magazine in a story titled “Can You Get Omicron and Delta COVID-19 Variants at the Same Time? Yes, But It's Rare—Here's What to Know.”

Prevention quotes Thomas A. Russo, MD, SUNY Distinguished Professor of medicine and chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases in the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, in an article titled “Is Omicron Reinfection Possible? Here’s What Experts Want You to Know.” Reinfection means that you got sick once, recovered from the illness, and then later got that same illness again. “Yes, it’s definitely possible,” says Russo.

Thomas A. Russo, MD, SUNY Distinguished Professor of medicine and chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases in the Jacobs School, was quoted by WKBW on when omicron cases might peak in the greater Buffalo area. "I'm hoping we may have hit our peak. However, I think we're going to need a few more days to see where we stand. It looks like downstate may have turned the corner, and I think we're lagging downstate by a week plus," he said.

Thomas A. Russo, MD, SUNY Distinguished Professor of medicine and chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases, quoted in Prevention in an article titled “Could Your Headache Be From Omicron? What You Need to Know.” “A headache commonly occurs with inflammation of the sinuses,” he points out. Add in other factors like the stress of having COVID-19, and he says it’s “highly plausible” that people infected with Omicron would develop a headache.

Thomas A. Russo, MD, professor and chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases at the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Science at UB, was interviewed on the South Korean radio show Morning Wave. In the segment, Russo discusses “flurona,” which is when someone tests positive for COVID-19 and the flu. “We have seen a few cases that have actually been diagnosed,” in the United States, he said.

Thomas A. Russo, MD, SUNY Distinguished Professor of medicine and chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases, was quoted in the Austin American-Statesman, which published a Politifact story refuting the claim that “omicron favors the fully vaccinated.”

Thomas A. Russo, MD, SUNY Distinguished Professor of medicine and chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases in the Jacobs School is quoted in a Health article titled “People Are Asking if They Should Try to Get COVID Since Omicron Seems Milder—Here's Why That's a Bad Idea.”  "Although Omicron appears to generally cause a milder course of illness than other variants if you're infected, we cannot equate this to the common cold virus, which is relatively harmless," he said. 

Prevention quotes Thomas A. Russo, MD, SUNY Distinguished Professor of medicine and chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases in the Jacobs School, in an article titled “What Is Croup? Experts Explain the Health Condition Recently Associated With COVID-19.” Children are the most at risk of contracting croup, especially those between the ages of six months and three years because they have small airways, he says. “As you get older, that space in your airway gets larger so you have a greater margin of error with swelling,” Russo says. The article was carried by Yahoo! News and MSN.

Dozens of affiliate stations owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group, including CBS 2 Iowa and ABC St. Louis, quoted Thomas A. Russo, MD, SUNY Distinguished Professor of medicine and chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases in the Jacobs School, in a story on how some states are reconsidering how they count COVID-19 hospitalizations.

Thomas A. Russo, MD, SUNY Distinguished Professor of medicine and chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases in the Jacobs School was quoted by WIVB in a story on the spread of the omicron variant and home testing kits.