“You were doing it wrong.” The patient in my pulmonary clinic for follow-up after her discharge from a hospitalization in January of this year for COVID-19 pneumonia was explaining why she would not reconsider getting vaccinated despite her…
Category: Infectious disease
To treat future covid variants, we need more than vaccines
The world is constantly trying to keep up with the latest COVID-19 variant – from Alpha to Omicron and now Omicron’s cousin BA.2, we have seen how contagious and virulent these variants can be. Viruses are wily adversaries, and they mutate both t…
An epidemiologist talks about the “next” COVID-19 pandemic
An interview with Rich DiPentima, MPH, former chief of communicable disease epidemiology at the New Hampshire Division of Public Health. Rosenberg: As the former chief of communicable disease epidemiology at the New Hampshire Division of Public Health …
An epidemiologist talks about the “next” COVID-19 pandemic
An interview with Rich DiPentima, MPH, former chief of communicable disease epidemiology at the New Hampshire Division of Public Health. Rosenberg: As the former chief of communicable disease epidemiology at the New Hampshire Division of Public Health …
Writing letters for vaccine and mask exemptions
The COVID pandemic has me confused with various state health departments, the CDC, the WHO, and hospitals repeatedly changing mask guidelines/mask requirements. Furthermore, I’ve had many patients complain about anxiety over both the pandemic and about…
How to cope with pandemic fatigue
The COVID-19 pandemic has been raging in the United States for over two years. Health care workers across the country have been chronically pushed to their limits as we navigate difficult situations on a daily basis. The advent of the COVID-19 vaccine,…
Am I a doctor or a contingency plan?
Before COVID-19, meal planning and grocery shopping were the most time-consuming tasks of my life as a physician and mother of three young children. Now, meal planning is an indulgence compared to “COVID contingency planning” — the taxing b…
Leprosy: a disease that turns hands into paws, feet into stumps, and eyes into darkness
I have been a staunch advocate for the fight against leprosy since 1991, when I first witnessed afflicted human beings in their advanced stages of the illness traipsing the streets of India and Bangladesh, most if not all begging to survive. In medical…
People over profit: Pfizer and Moderna must share vaccine technology
One year ago, the FDA granted emergency use authorization of mRNA COVID-19 vaccines in the U.S., and nearly 549 million total vaccine doses have been given since. These vaccines have been safe, effective methods in preventing infection and death from C…
Individualism vs. the common good: It is time for the pendulum to swing back
Health care is now at a crossroads. We’ve been hearing that phrase more often recently, but what does that mean? Being at a crossroads signifies that now is the time to make a decision that will affect the future in substantial and irrevocable wa…
