While the COVID-19 vaccine roll out has brought hope to the US, the availability still leaves much to be desired. Many of those now eligible to receive the vaccine under the recommended phase distribution are still having trouble registering for and finding available vaccines. My elderly and non-English speaking patients are having a particularly difficult time. Recently, an 80 -year-old cancer patient was given an appointment for June.
Despite the fact that only approximately 10% of the US has received the vaccine, many states are reversing previous mandates. Texas and Arkansas lifted their mask mandates, even in the face of health care experts advising for continued use of face coverings. Other states are now opening up places that were shut down or limited in order to contain this virus.
The fact that public health recommendations are being dismissed is dangerous for many reasons. First, only a small percentage of the population has been vaccinated leaving the majority of the population still at risk. Additionally, it can take up to a month to be fully immune. The vaccines currently available are also not 100% effective at preventing infection, though they reduce the risk of more severe complications. Most of the population is still at risk due to non-immunization or not being fully immune. Nothing changes regarding public health recommendations except for the fact that fully immunized people can gather together and no longer need to quarantine.
It is still not known whether vaccinated persons can transmit the virus to others. They may not have any symptoms, as we have seen asymptomatic people throughout the pandemic spreading the virus, yet, be able to spread the virus. Until we know or reach herd immunity, masks need to be worn to prevent the transmission of this disease. Also, social distancing, hand washing and sanitizing measures still need to be carried out.
Although the numbers of infected appear to be declining, much of this has been due to the holidays and people ignoring public health measures. If we again dismiss these mandates, we can expect the numbers to rise again. Along with these surges, we see increased hospitalizations and deaths.
Another worrying concern is the risk of variants we are seeing in the US. So far, the vaccine appears to work against these new forms of COVID-19. However, there is the chance that a new mutation may develop that the vaccine won’t be effective against. Some of these variants are more infective and deadly than the ones we’ve seen before. If that happens, we will be starting all over again, rushing to find a new, effective vaccine while people are hospitalized and die. The best way to prevent these new variants is by mass vaccinating, following public health guidelines, and reducing the amount of virus that is being transmitted.
We’ve seen over the past year that opening up too quickly can have devastating consequences. Many opened up their business only to be forced to close down again. We need to reopen. We need to save the economy. However, we need to do this gradually. Many businesses cannot survive another complete shut-down. The mental health aspects of the pandemic are staggering and will likely be for years to come. We need to get back to real-life but we can only do that by reducing COVID to where it is manageable. By getting rid of public health recommendations, we’ll only see surging numbers and likely our return to normal will be slow to come. Kids need to get back to school and adults back to work. We need our social activities again. This will not happen if we ignore public safety.
At the start of the pandemic, no one imagined it would last this long. People are getting tired from the pandemic and all the health measures that come along with it. However, hope is here and not far away. We can either follow public health mandates for a short period of time or ignore them and be forced to grieve for years.
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Doctors are not qualified to tell us what we should value and what level of risk we should be willing to accept.
“By getting rid of public health recommendations, we’ll only see surging numbers and likely our return to normal will be slow to come. Kids need to get back to school and adults back to work. We need our social activities again. This will not happen if we ignore public safety”
The fallacy here is that “public health recommendations” are effective. If they were effective, there would be something at least close to a uniform standard across the world instead of different policies in even adjacent locations. Furthermore, if these “recommendations” were effective then we would expect to see the places who have the most effective policies in place at the top of the charts of positive outcomes while those with the least effective (from the perspective of those who desire to regiment society according to their will, ie. lockdowns and mandates) would be at the bottom of the charts.
Instead we see inconsistent results where countries who “did it right” were underperforming and countries who “want their citizens to die” (because they weren’t locking them in their homes) were doing pretty good. And when we see bureaucrats fearmongering about superspreader events that never manifest when tens of thousands of people pack into sports games, it becomes clear that advocates of these kinds of “public health recommendations” don’t quite understand the virus like they want us to believe.
What they have basically done is a Science Fair Project without the safeguards that we have such as IRBs. Without getting into an important discussion of whether data from improper interventions on people can be used for beneficial purposes later, we will eventually know the consequences of what the different governments did. I think it is premature to predict an outcome that we really don’t know yet. Perhaps the rules of my state, which is a control in this experiment and which I support, will turn out to be too stringent. Like most public crises from natural disasters, to warfare, to famines, to economic depressions, a variety of solutions are attempted and we eventually tease out the best practices. Thinking like a physician here, with the disclaimer that this is not always the best approach.
Who is right? States like Mississippi, and Texas, who are opening up 100%? and giving the PEOPLE choice to wear a mask or not? Or the Biden administration allowing people to cross the Southern Border, from Mexico, into the United States, 100% Covid positive, not quarantining them and allowing them to disappear into the landscape, untreated andUN-quarantined, THAT is exactly what s happening.