“A scientific achievement can never have success on its own unless if it has acceptance in the social context by the masses. I think that the concerns brought forward by the vaccine-doubters cannot be dismissed as ignorance, and it is hard to con…
Category: COVID-19 / coronavirus
Could a glass of wine diagnose long COVID?
Acute COVID-19 infection ranges from no symptoms (asymptomatic) to life-threatening. What about long COVID (the symptoms occurring more than three weeks after infection, also known as post-acute COVID syndrome)? Could there be thousands of people wit…
Loved ones are hospitalized and alone during COVID
This has been a very difficult year. COVID-19 has rampaged the country, worked hospitals to their breaking point, torn families apart, and kept families apart. The grief seems never-ending. At the beginning of 2020, we watched in horror at the destruct…
I remain hopeful: a personal reflection of the pandemic
I did not lose a loved one. I did not lose a friend. Yet, COVID has forever changed me in ways that I cannot even begin to rationalize. I feel old — my body, my soul, my heart. It has been one year since I have hugged my parents. It has been one year s…
Influenza: a deadly risk in schools before COVID
The Washington Post published an interesting article in its weekly health section on March 2. 2021. The article had an impactful graphic using data from the Centers for Disease Control that showed the number of pediatric deaths due to influenza over th…
When is it ethical to stop a vaccination program?
There is fear in the air. Fear that the COVID pandemic may not get under control because the virus is mutating so fast. Fear that the vaccines may not be effective against these new variants. But fear should not be the driving force behind public healt…
The pandemic plight of CHF: one center’s response
We swore an oath: “Primum non nocere” — First, do no harm. When pandemic stress began to bear down on our hospitals, we scrambled to manage the burden of volume and simultaneously mitigate the threat of contagion. In our war effort…
A perspective on herd immunity for COVID-19
On February 18, Dr. Marty Makary published an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal which struck an unusually optimistic note as to the stage of the American COVID-19 pandemic. Dr. Makary predicts that based on the current trajectory, COVID-19 will…
COVID and the Texas freeze: death by a thousand cuts
In February, Texas lost power and water. A winter storm disrupted a power grid ill-prepared for freezing temperatures, shutting off power to homes, businesses, and water treatment facilities. Water pipes burst, water pressure dropped, and the water be…
Let 2021 be the year we end the pandemic
I listen to the wind howling outside on this night that’s stranded between the departing season of winter and the coming of spring. I await the arrival of longer days filled with sunshine, days that welcome new growth, new life. During the year t…
