Dr. Cameron Webb: Treating COVID patients, raising 2 kids and running in a close House race

Every other week, Dr. Cameron Webb’s busy life gets a little busier.

He has two kids, teaches at the University of Virginia’s School of Medicine, plus he’s running for Congress – and he takes shifts at the hospital every other week, where many of his patients have been diagnosed with the coronavirus.

He works nights, he told Fox News, in order to keep his daytime schedule clear for family, teaching and the campaign trail.

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On his busiest mornings, he returns home from the hospital in time to get his kids ready for school and see his wife, also a doctor, off to her shift in the emergency room.

“Is this not normal?” he joked. “We pack my schedule in, literally from about 6 a.m. to about 10 p.m., and that includes packing in meaningful time with my family.”

He said he values family, education and hard work. And he went to both law school and medical school before serving on the White House health care team and My Brother’s Keeper Initiative under former President Barack Obama. And he led the White House drug pricing task force for President Trump.

The Virginia Democrat is in a close race in the state’s 5th Congressional District against Bob Good – a former banker turned collegial athletics administrator with an MBA from Liberty University and a slew of endorsements from high-profile Republicans.

Good ousted the district’s incumbent GOP Rep. Denver Riggleman at the party convention over the summer. His campaign did not respond to a Fox News request for comment.

Riggleman, a member of the House Freedom Caucus who had been endorsed by President Trump, may have upset some Republicans in the district last summer after officiating the wedding of two male campaign aides.

The Webb campaign recently touted internal polling numbers showing the doctor leading Good by 3%, the first time he’s been ahead in the race, according to the Fauquier Times, a newspaper based in the district.

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And although Webb began running long before COVID-19 was threatening the health and livelihoods of millions of Americans, he said his medical expertise has added relevance now.

“As a candidate and doctor, I have a very well-rounded perspective on the impact of COVID,” Webb said.

That experience includes treating coronavirus patients in the hospital and touring the community to meet with residents who have had to deal with the pandemic’s dire economic consequences.

“I feel the weight of the economic impact and the health impact,” Webb said. “They’re both significant, and they both demand our attention.”

“Limiting the health impact is our best course to make sure that we limit the economic impact as well,” he added.

To that end, medical researchers are getting closer to a coronavirus vaccine, he said, and could have solid data on the ones currently being tested by sometime in November. It would probably be made available first to high-risk health care workers and people more susceptible to the virus.

The virus affects some patients much more severely than others, and people likely won’t know how susceptible they are unless they contract it themselves, he said.

“[The virus] is different for everybody, and that’s why everyone needs to be safe,” he said.

And in the meantime, he said, Americans should follow the advice of medical experts and consider getting their flu shots.

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“COVID is a very lonely illness, and I think seeing people in the hospital without the benefit of having their family beside them, there’s a level of difficulty with this virus that we don’t often see in health care settings,” he said. “I think that adds to the gravity of it. This is very emotionally hard on people. Being sick, being scared without your loved ones beside you.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.