“The flu vaccine can strengthen your immune system, prevent the disease spread among those closest to you, protect your children, and reduce the health care system’s burden. Protecting ourselves and others as we traverse a pandemic is paramount i…
Category: Infectious disease
The vaccines brought a feeling of hope, but the distribution reality is quickly shattering that
I am angry and frustrated, and these feelings mixed with exasperation have led me to write this. In the U.S., we failed to contain the virus like New Zealand; we failed to mitigate it like Singapore; we failed to test for it like South Korea. We maybe …
Another stab in the back for primary care during pandemic
I am on the primary care front lines in this pandemic. I help to do COVID testing for our community of patients 5 days a week. I don and sweat in my PPE during these appointments and during preventative and sick visit appointments. And up til now, t…
Correctional facilities are not prioritized for COVID vaccines
Given the COVID-19 pandemic’s ongoing course, it is important to prioritize offering our still limited vaccine supply to individuals with the highest risk of exposure to, and negative outcomes from infection with the virus. While each state is al…
#ThisIsOurShot to end the pandemic
If 2020 was the year of the coronavirus pandemic, 2021 has got to be the year of vaccinations. The miracle of modern science, generous funding, and expedited research have led to us having at least three available vaccines to fight against the COVID-19…
COVID-19 vaccines: Channeling the 7 habits to get from vaccines to vaccinations [PODCAST]
“As we get excited about vaccine news and results, we need to evaluate our messaging and how we can get to high enough COVID-19 vaccination rates to achieve herd immunity. This requires broad and frequent education on the safety and efficacy of t…
The blunt truth on why stopping COVID is impossible
COVID-19 has turned the world on its head. A major problem we have faced since the beginning is that it had already been spreading like wildfire for a few months since the end of 2019 — before most of the world realized that it was time to take action …
Is there hope for COVID with home visits?
Health care has been hanging by a thread for some time — in our community and across the nation. The COVID-19 pandemic exposed weaknesses inherent in an underfunded public health system, a monopolized hospital, and a fractured medical supply chain. At …
Be careful when using preprint servers for medical research reports
The coronavirus pandemic posed unprecedented challenges and forced a shift towards an accelerated digital transformation. The COVID-19 public health emergency focused attention on timely dissemination and reporting of research findings, resulting in th…
The COVID-19 vaccine won’t solve major substance use disorder treatment gaps
As if COVID-19 weren’t bad enough during the pandemic, another public health crisis – substance use disorder (SUD) – has gone from bad to worse, while access to behavioral health services is shrinking. As of September, more than half (52%) of community…
