“Please wait. The meeting host will let you in soon.” I am in the virtual waiting room for my weekly therapy session, the little waiting room box dragged to the side of my screen as I respond to clinical messages. I put off stretching to …
Category: Infectious disease
Getting the COVID vaccine: a behind the scenes look
Don’t let images deceive you. You may think you see everything in my picture after getting the vaccine, but you don’t. Let me take you behind the scenes of my life this past year. As I can only imagine what being behind the scenes of your life has been…
COVID vaccines: side effects, myths, and madness
I received my COVID vaccine on December 21st before starting an ER shift; sitting in the cold, plastic chair in a hallway-turned-vaccine-clinic, I tipped my head back to blink tears into submission as I reflected on making it this far in the pandemic w…
Unmasking inequality: the power of community organization during COVID-19 [PODCAST]
“Touted by some as a ‘great equalizer,’ the COVID-19 pandemic has brought to the forefront long-standing disparities in access to health for Black, Latinx, immigrant, and low-income communities. While we are all in this fight together…
I lost my father during the global pandemic
I had a dream last night. I dreamt that my father wasn’t dead. It was jumbled in so many ways. But I was able to talk to him in my “sleep.” I watched This is Us before bed. The episode where Randall questions whether William lied to him about his mothe…
State sanctioned executions in the age of COVID-19
When the federal government executed Corey Johnson at the United States Penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana, on the 14th of January, 2021, he was COVID-19 positive. He was executed while suffering from a highly contagious respiratory illness that is k…
How the vaccinated may become the next super-spreaders
With COVID-19 vaccines being administered to our front-line health care workers and residents of long-term care facilities, we are beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel of this pandemic. Yet, given the time-limited nature of the vaccine&#…
COVID vaccines, overcoming skepticism, and pandemic theater [PODCAST]
“Environmental cleaning rightfully plays a more prominent role within health care facilities to control the spread of other diseases, but even hospitals have overreacted when it comes to contact precautions for SARS-CoV-2. I recently went to get…
Burials: We can’t keep up
Those were the headlines in one of the Sunday papers. He was around fifty years old and with his wife. They stood in front of me in the supermarket. He was in shorts and a light blue t-shirt, wearing beach flip-flops. Standard casual wear for the holid…
Vaccinating athletes will show us if the vaccine works
As I watched the vaccine rollout take place over the past month, all I can say is that I am not surprised. I watched hospital executives who never see patients jump the line, doctors having their healthy nannies vaccinated, and health systems trusted w…
