General Wellness

I thought I was done posting for the weekend but I needed to add one more.

I heard an interview this morning with a doctor who works in a medium sized south-west Texas hospital. Because of both doctor and nursing shortages, he has not had a single day off in 254 days! And his days are grueling. He just does not have the relief to take care of the patients. That is dedication but clearly not sustainable. I know what it is like to deal with a patient here and there with Covid in the hospital, and it’s terrifying and exhausting, but to do it all day long, every day for that many days in a row is unimaginable.  That’s a true hero. 

If the deniers including our leaders could just spend 5 minutes in his shoes, our pandemic response might look a whole lot different.

So why is there such a shortage of healthcare providers? Getting sick is one problem. Despite the PPE, when you deal with sick patients all day long, the odds are you’ll get sick eventually. I know a few docs who have really been kicked in the butt with this disease. Early retirement is another. The trend, even before Covid, was for people in healthcare, especially doctors, to retire earlier and get out of the rat race of paperwork, administration and fear of litigation. However, more people have felt compelled to come OUT of retirement to help with Covid than have left medicine and healthcare. More true heroes. 

The BIGGEST problem is how widespread this infection and the disease is all over the country. Every state is on the rise. Most hospitals are strained to the max.ICUs are out of beds. We are breaking all records every day. Yesterday was the highest death count in 6 months, 2100.

Back in April and May, there were pockets of significant disease, like NYC where there were mobile morgues on the streets to deal with all the dead. Back then, healthcare workers from many unaffected areas were flocking to the hotzones to help out, just like first responders did during 9/11. Now, their own locations are hot zones so they can’t leave. The WHOLE freaking country is a hot zone! There are mobile morgues in South Dakota and in Texas, inmates are used to move bodies around!

The whole system, all over the country, is being taxed to the limit and a few weeks from now, after Thanksgiving, what some epidemiologists are calling the “mother of all super spreader events”, we are likely to have the collapse of the whole healthcare system.

I hope not, and I try to be optimistic, but hearing that doc this morning, with no day off in 254 days, and no help in site, I’m concerned.

PLEASE stay safe and keep all those around you safe.

You know the drill so I’ll skip it this time.

AC

Thanksgiving is not cancelled. It’s just different this year.

A wedding, which took place back in August, had 55 people in attendance. There was no distancing and masks were not required. 30 people who attended the event later tested positive for Covid-19. That wedding led to 3 separate Covid-19 outbreaks, leaving 178 people infected, 10 hospitalized and 7 dead. None of those who got seriously ill or died even went to the wedding, and many lived far away from the event.

I’m sure that no one is planning a 55 person Thanksgiving celebration, however, get-togethers will inevitably happen. Please pick your events, how you conduct those events and those you share them with, carefully. The stats are not great. In most metropolitan areas, positivity rates are at least 10%. That basically means that if you are in a group of 10 people, count on 1 person being asymptomatic and infected and if you are spending a meal together, the chances are good that it will spread to at least 2-3 people in that group. In the last week alone, we had just over 1.2 million new Covid-19 cases in the US. In the previous 9 months, there were 12 million. That’s a 10% jump in just one week! Numbers are going up exponentially. Hospitalizations have reached a new record high. However on the good side, the death rate is not rising. It’s high, 1000-2000 a day, just not rising, most likely the result of more younger people getting infected. And let’s not forget that so far, 256,000 have died from Covid-19, not to mention almost that amount who are thought to have died because of lack of access to or timeliness of care due to Covid-19.

PLEASE take care and think, not only about yourselves, but about all those around you. This is not about “my rights” or “i’m not worried about getting it myself since most people do OK”. It’s about everyone else. Your relatives may want to see you, however, not to sound too morbid, it could be for the last time if someone gets sick.

Scenes from airports are pretty crazy. People waiting to board, crammed together like it’s a freaking rave. Many maskless. Little to no distancing. Insanity. I saw an interview with a young woman at the airport who said “I know there are risks but I want to see my family”. First of all, she is clearly not aware of the real risks. Secondly, she is oblivious to the risk she is imposing on her family. Selfishness.

I’m concerned about where we will be in 2 weeks, as if where we are now isn’t bad enough! 

Of course it is great to see people and we need each other, but there will be more occasions when all this is over. Personally, we are considering just a short, outside beverage and possibly some individual appetizers with a few select relatives, weather permitting, but we will only be eating indoors at home with our immediate nuclear family. It will be great. Smaller and different, but great. No doubt, there will be a few zoom get-togethers also.

Thanksgiving is about giving thanks and despite all we are going through, there is much to be thankful for.

I am grateful for so many things. I live in a beautiful, rural area with a garden. My job, in which I get to help a lot of people, keeps me motivated. I have great partners and staff who make doing my job so much easier. I have phenomenal children who are weathering this pandemic well, the best way they can. My awesome wife makes my privileged life possible. My parents are safe, healthy and have a wonderful bubble of friends. I still have a 97 year-old grandmother in a fantastic facility in Toronto. She is amazing. I’m also blessed with great friends who I can’t wait to see more of in the future.

In some weird ways, I am also grateful for Covid. Not of course for the illness and death it has brought, not to also mention the disruption in our lives, but for the opportunity for us to learn and grow from the experience. Some people have actually flourished during the lockdown. The environment has certainly benefited from the drop in travel. I have to be optimistic because the alternative is not acceptable.

One thing we should absolutely appreciate is that Covid is the universal equalizer. Every person on the planet, rich or poor, healthy or not, has this threat in common. We are all equal when it comes to the virus. It does not discriminate and neither should we. We are all connected and equal. 

Dr. Wayne Dyer had a saying: “When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change”. Thanksgiving, New Years, all the holidays this year, will be different no doubt, but you can still take advantage of what we do have. It’s just a matter of looking at it, approaching it and appreciating it differently.

In preparation for the holiday, please be careful and do the basics. THEY WORK:

MASK UP. Wear it properly, right side up and covering your nose. And don’t touch or adjust it every few seconds!! If you think you need to, the mask is not fitting correctly and you need to get a better one.

DISTANCE. Physically and sadly, socially.

WASH YOUR HANDS and if you do see people, have some extra sanitizer around.

DON’T TOUCH YOUR FACE.

COVER YOUR EYES.

VENTILATE.

VACCINATE. Not just for Covid when it’s available, but also for the Flu and, if over 50, shingles also.

GET HEALTHY! As Dr. Dean Ornish says, “Eat better. Love more. Move more and Stress less”.

Have a great and safe holiday.

Stay safe and be well. 

AC