By Paul Goldfinger, MD
It’s becoming difficult to deal with all the information that’s out there. As a physician, I am learning along with you, because this sort of epidemic has not been seen before. Even commonplace issues remain unanswered, and that’s because there are so many variations among people, places, experts, and situations. Even real experts have much to learn as there are changes from day to day.
So I have been looking for daily facts that I don’t know much about.
a. In Italy, the cases requiring hospitalization exceed the capacity of their system. This is an awful situation. Strict prevention practices offer some hope for us, but some experts suggest that we are too late with aggressive practices.
b. Social distancing seems to be fine now, but social distancing may not be strict enough, and probably the best general advice is to stay home and don’t go out unless your activities are essential, like getting food or medicine.
Italian doctors are telling us to activate a total “lock down” now if we are to avoid a “collapse” like they had in Lombardy. And a total lockdown won’t help if it is initiated too late and patients start to arrive at ICU’s in a steady stream.
c. The key to prevention is to remember that human to human contact must be eliminated or minimized as much as possible. You may have to avoid even seeing family in person.
d. As experts learn more about the disease, we find out that fatalities are not necessarily due to respiratory failure. They are seeing liver failure and fatal cardiac arrhythmias.
And they are seeing people who have “recovered” from Corona who are left with permanent lung damage where the shortness of breath doesn’t get better.
e. What to do if you get sick. This is from the Daily Signal by a physician*: “The point where you start seeing a doctor is when you have trouble breathing. You shouldn’t be gasping for air. Maybe call them a little bit earlier than that, but when you start having trouble breathing, chest pain, and you just can’t move around very much, then that’s a sign that you need help from somebody else, and you should call your doctor for that.”
So many of these sorts of instructions tell you to “call your doctor.” But this may be difficult to accomplish even in the best of times. And what if you don’t have a doctor who knows you? If you go to an ER or Urgi-care, and you are sick, you can infect everyone around you. What then?
This sort of talk is terrifying. Our ability to do early testing and to expand critical care capacity must be increased.
f. What if you have minor upper respiratory symptoms? Even if you think “it’s just a cold” you must stay home and stay away from others. We were at a dinner party last week with 6 people, but 2 showed up with “just a cold.”
Everyone must be responsible, and if a person with “a cold” is expecting company, such as the cleaning lady or friends, then all of them should be told in advance that someone at home has symptoms, and the company is cancelled.
And the person with a “cold” should be strictly quarantined for 14 days.
You can go to the Daily Signal to read Kevin Pham, MD’s article.* I recommend it: