How do we feel after nearly 3 years of a deadly global pandemic? Like the Avengers! We are just as ready as anyone we know for the COVID pandemic to be over. Just this past week, World Health Organization leader Dr. Tedros proclaimed that the end is near for COVID but in the same breath mentioned that we must not stop running with the finish line in sight.
As we look around us, we notice that a lot of people have, indeed, stopped running long ago. Even amidst the summer surge, with nearly 500 deaths every day in the United States, people were going about unmasked and in crowds, whether in stores or on airplanes or in gatherings. It is possible that American optimism-despite-the-evidence is the fault in our stars yet again. I have previously written about this in an op-ed published by the Baltimore Sun more than 10 years ago. That time, it was not about a global pandemic but rather how shocked and unprepared we were for Hurricane Katrina, the 2008 market crash and the crisis of a broken healthcare system. As my dad, a Cubs fan, used to say, "Hope springs eternal." This unflagged-optimism-despite could account for how the United States has fared worst among developed countries when it comes to the case numbers and deaths from COVID.
The fight against COVID-19 is by no means a losing battle any more. The virus is on the retreat; however, the rear-guard skirmishes continue, and people are still being taken out, whether permanently or temporarily. We have to keep running to cross the finish line, and this requires a collective global effort!
How will deadly COVID be put in the past?
GET VACCINATED, EVERYONE! Everybody will need what we are calling the seasonal COVID vaccine. If you are more than 8 weeks past your last COVID booster and/or had COVID illness more than 3 months ago, then now is the time. We do not recommend delays in getting up-to-date to prevent OMICRON variant spread, which is what this new COVID shot is expected to do. Options include Pfizer or Moderna. If you are completely unvaccinated, please do your part. Get the Novavax series, if you'd like. We are scheduling Moderna vaccines along with flu vaccines on Tuesdays and Wednesdays through the end of September, with October dates t.b.a.
MASKS should still be worn in public spaces where the vaccine status and/or vulnerability of others is unknown. Masks are currently required in our healthcare setting. The type of mask should be KN95 or N95, especially in airports or on airplanes or other forms of transit. Cloth masks are not very protective. Neck gators do not work.
ELDER CARE is good for the soul, to think of being tested right before visiting older adults or taking other steps like meeting outside at a distance when you are going to gather with someone older. Unvaccinated and unboosted (not up-to-date) people need to avoid visiting much older adults.
SUSPECT AND TEST for COVID when you have sore throat, cough, fever, congestion, stomach illness, etc. Consider quarantining and retesting three and five days into your symptoms as well, if you test negative. This Omicron variant of COVID has taken longer to show up on the home tests. One positive home test does not need to be repeated. You have COVID if you test positive. Contact us or whoever your current doctor is to set up a televisit.
GOOD POLITICS It will be critical to elect leaders who are careful and responsible with scientific truth. With COVID in the United States, having leaders who minimized the risk early on turned out to have real life and death impact.
PEACE WITH PUBLIC HEALTH Wars will have to come to an end. Good to hear that Narendra Modi chided Vladimir Putin this week by stating that this "is not a time for war". No kidding. This time Modi got it right, even though his COVID disinformation likely cost India over a million lives. In dictatorships, statistics are often woefully skewed, even as human rights are disregarded. Wars are terrible spreaders of disease, notwithstanding the far worse atrocities that have been committed. What a wonder when dictators take one another to court! Of course, the Ukraine invasion should never have taken place! Wars on multiple fronts throughout the pandemic have caused disruption of food and medical supply chains. Consider Yemen, the most materially impoverished country in the Middle East, with a cholera outbreak even before COVID. We must also find peace in our own homes and our own country. Within families often exist fierce debates, sometimes over-confident arguments, about what to believe amidst a changing situation with the pandemic. It is time to be at peace with expert advice from public health experts who are often under-paid, unsung, criticized, threatened or even attacked.
UNIVERSAL ACCESS TO HEALTHCARE There will be no way to completely end COVID deaths until everyone has access to high quality healthcare. The impact of centuries of racist healthcare policies translated to much higher death rates from COVID among African Americans and other minority populations. Though chronic conditions are often considered the result of individual lifestyle decisions, it is never quite so simple. Structures and categories of inequality (like having health insurance, family wealth, homeownership, education) have all shown their worst impact in the outcomes of the COVID pandemic. It is time for this to change. Because of ill-treatment in healthcare, trust has been broken. This has impact on whether or not all of the above other issues have a chance. It's time for the healthcare system to be a healing place, a place of restoration and justice, of healing and help for those who have experienced brokenness, of welcome and walking forward into a future where our whole society will be thriving together.
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