“As we continue to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic causing spiking numbers of cases, the scientific and medical communities continue to search for effective treatments and preventive measures. We have clearly established the importance of wearing…
Category: Infectious disease
How a death prepared me for a pandemic
Since last March, every day has been filled with news of COVID-19 statistics: surges, declines, the myriad of symptoms, and the staggering number of deaths. As a 23-year-old pre-med post-bacc student, I was suddenly moving home — with my apartmen…
These 2 Canadian provinces are getting it right in the COVID-19 pandemic
I recently returned from Northwest Territories, where I’d been working as a physician for six months. Now, back in Nova Scotia, I’m reflecting on what it’s been like to have worked in areas of Canada with relatively few cases of COVID-19. A large part …
Asian racism magnified during COVID-19
The “model minority” is a term that denotes Asians in the U.S. East Asians, in particular, have been the target of xenophobic hate crimes and microaggressions since the outset of COVID-19. When a former presidential administration used hate and fear t…
How do we address the heterogeneity in vaccine hesitancy?
There is light at the end of the COVID-19 pandemic tunnel, but public trust in national and global public health institutions is at an all-time low. What happens if folks don’t want to travel to the light? As the pandemic drags on, the banality of pers…
How do we treat the unvaccinated? And how can they treat us?
As the challenges to get an appointment for a COVID-19 vaccine get harder and not easier, and as the pressure for schools to open their doors for in-person learning, as long as teachers will get vaccinated, rises, the question remains: What about those…
6 ways to build trust with communities of color when distributing the COVID-19 vaccine
As a Latina physician on the frontlines of COVID-19, it feels like a race against time to get as many vaccines as possible to the communities of color that are more likely to be infected, hospitalized, and die from the virus. A lot of effort right now …
The eradication of polio in the U.S. is truly a testament to vaccination’s extraordinary power
I opened the exam room door and hit something. Peeking around the door, I saw an elderly woman wearing a pink sequined hat who was perched in a motorized scooter parked awkwardly in front of the door. I slinked around her to my stool and sat down as I…
Enthusiasm over evidence? What the Israeli vaccination data actually show.
Coronavirus vaccines are crucial to taming the pandemic. Everyone should get one. Please, please, get vaccinated. Now, that’s out of the way—I’m no anti-vaxxer. I am a huge supporter of vaccines and believe vaccination will help bring an early end to t…
Overcome COVID vaccine hesitancy and boost vaccine confidence: How you can help
This article is sponsored by HERO-TOGETHER, a paid, prospective, observational study of 20,000 adult U.S. health care workers who received a COVID-19 vaccine within the past 60 days. With over 27 million cases and 470,000 deaths reported to the Center…
