COVID-19 Update and A Plea

COVID 19:

Hi there my beautiful lovelies! Hope you guys are doing well and staying safe! Today I want to share an urgent public health message about saving lives! Please read this message and share with everyone you know. I am not trying to sell anything just want to advocate a crucial public health message.

Current Health Crisis:

Currently, in the US, over 10.6 million people are infected and over 243,000 died from COVID. The upward trajectory of coronavirus cases in the U.S. continued yesterday with the country setting a new mark with more than 160,000 new infections, according to Johns Hopkins University data. This came just days after the US reached 1 million cases in November alone, and COVID-19 hospitalizations surpassed 60,000 for the first time. Hospitalizations have more than doubled in less than two months, the COVID Tracking Project reported Wednesday.

According to the USA today report from Wednesday, Almost 62,000 Americans were hospitalized because of COVID-19 on Tuesday. A record number of 65,368 hospitalization due to COVID occurred on Wednesday. The previous record for hospitalizations was 59,780 on April 12, after which the number began a gradual decline that reached 28,608 on Sept. 20. Since then, however, the number has been rising steadily. Finally, there were 1,893 coronavirus related deaths on Veteran’s Day.

As an Epidemiologist, I can tell you this is devastating and horrifying. Across the US, hospitals are facing severe constraints in the weeks ahead. This is to the point that hospitals are transferring adult COVID patients to pediatric hospitals to take of the patients. Imagine this, you are a pediatric nurse having to take care of an adult patient with COVID. I have worked at a pediatric hospital for a decade and the only adult I have seen in the hospital with unique congenital diseases who have been seeing the same specialist all their lives. As an adult patient, you want to be treated in a place where the healthcare providers are specialized in the adult population.

It has been clearly established, over the past nine months, that wearing masks and social distancing is key to prevent further infection. How hard is that to understand.

Population Behavioral Changes Critical to Combat Coronavirus:

We wear a seatbelt when we drive because it keeps us and everyone else protected. Among drivers and front-seat passengers, seat belts reduce the risk of death by 45% and cut the risk of serious injury by 50%. Seat belts prevent drivers and passengers from being ejected during a crash. People not wearing a seat belt are 30 times more likely to be ejected from a vehicle during a crash. So why can’t we do the same for the mask? The US is already hitting over 100,000 new cases per day.

From Emergency Medicine Journal – The BMJ

In public health, for every prevention program to be successful, behavioral changes in the population, whether it’s getting vaccine on time, or practice social distancing, is critical. Hence, to combat the COVID pandemic, behavior changes, such as following social distancing, wear masks. washing hands and good hygiene, and avoiding social gathering, are critical.

Below you will find the guidelines provided by CDC on mask-wearing and social distancing:

Current Research On Mask:

According to the CDC, multi-layer cloth masks block the release of exhaled respiratory particles into the environment. Cloth masks not only effectively block most large droplets but they can also block the exhalation of fine droplets and particles which increase in number with the volume of speech. Studies demonstrate that cloth mask materials can also reduce wearers’ exposure to infectious droplets through filtration, including filtration of fine droplets and particles

A study done in Thailand showed that, among more than 1,000 people, who reported having always worn a mask during high-risk exposures experienced a greater than 70% reduced risk of acquiring infection compared with persons who did not wear masks under these circumstances. Similarly, a study of an outbreak aboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt, an environment notable for congregate living quarters and close working environments found that the use of face coverings on-board was associated with a 70% reduced risk.

Lesson Learned:

Experimental and epidemiological data support community masking to reduce the spread of coronavirus. The prevention benefit of masking is derived from the combination of source control and personal protection for the mask wearer. The relationship between source control and personal protection is likely complementary and possibly interdependent so that individual benefit increases with increasing community mask use.

My dear lovelies. We are at a critical point of the pandemic with the cold season and the start of the flu season. There is a kid out there who is worried sick about his/her mom/dad fighting to survive in the hospital. Just imagine that. Watching my mom fighting for her life, made me think about this more and more. We have to do better, for the worried children, for the thousands of frontline healthcare professionals, who put their lives and that of their loved ones to take care of the sick. They are exhausted.

My friends, we are all exhausted. However, we all have to do better for our children, our parents, and thousands of essential workers who are keeping the country going. Saying thank you is not enough, we all have to be serious and make a serious behavioral change to combat the pandemic. We have to do this for our families, our neighbors, our community, our country. Now I think about JFK’s famous quote more than ever: “Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.

Conclusion:

My dear lovelies! Our kids, our families, neighbors, communities, and our country is looking at us with hopeful eyes, asking if we are going to make the right choice for them. I say yes? Are you? I leave the decision up to you. However, before you make a decision just remember the most conservative models show at least another 200,000 COVID-related death by February 1, 2021. Think about it. I am talking about 200,000 parents, children, grandparents, loved ones. I have watched my loved ones fighting for their lives and survived COVID. In fact, my aunt’s entire family is fighting to combat COVID.

What will you do to protect your children, partners, parents, grandparents, neighbors, community, and your country. I leave the ball on your court. What will you do?

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