The doctor who oversees WhidbeyHealth Medical Center’s emergency room is worried that a byproduct of the coronavirus is that people aren’t getting the help they need for other medical problems in a timely manner.

Dr. Nicholas Perera, medical director of the emergency department and chief of medicine, said ER visits are down dramatically across the country, and WhidbeyHealth is no different. People are staying away when they shouldn’t, he said, because they are afraid of going to the hospital and being exposed to COVID-19.

“We are seeing people who should have come to the hospital a lot earlier,” he said. “People who’ve had heart attacks, strokes and appendicitis.”

Perera said people really shouldn’t be afraid to go to WhidbeyHealth. On Friday, he said he hadn’t seen a coronavirus case in two weeks.

Positive COVID-19 tests have been trailing off in Island County, with four new positive results in the last week. A total of 175 have tested positive and only a small number of those were hospitalized, according to Island County Public Health.

“I feel safer at the hospital than Home Depot because we take such extraordinary precautions,” Perera said, explaining that personal protective equipment is more effective when it’s used by people who have had training.

The general rule of thumb, Perera advises, is that people should call 911 or go to the ER now if they are sick enough that they would have in January.