Keep Your Eye on the Truth
MEDICAL AND MENTAL HEALTH UPDATE
It’s been a whirlwind here in DC.
We’ve been inundated with news and updates on our President’s status. But if we’ve learned anything about COVID-19 over the past week, it’s that the virus doesn’t care about politics. It isn’t star-struck. It doesn’t give a HOOT if you’re the President of the United States.
And as much as we’d LOVE not to “be afraid of COVID-19,” we just don’t have that luxury. We’ve lost over 210,000 American lives. We’ve lost jobs, incomes, social connections, our daily routines, and our sense of normalcy. We can’t afford not to take this seriously.
In fact, we’d be a lot better off if each of us behaved as if everyone else around us has COVID. Why? Because a lot of people are walking around infected without symptoms and are unwittingly infecting others. And because we’d be EVEN more vigilant about layering all of the risk mitigation tools.
Coronavirus continues to infect people indiscriminately and ruthlessly. Its behavior hasn’t changed a bit since it arrived on the scene; human behavior has.
Donald Trump’s COVID infection is a reminder of FIVE MAIN TAKE-AWAYS:
Being outdoors does not mean you are protected from coronavirus. While it’s true that being outdoors dramatically reduces your chances of becoming infected, distancing six feet from others and wearing masks are still essential to prevent transmission. Smaller aerosolized particles may drift away in the outdoor breeze, but larger respiratory droplets can easily transfer between people when hugging, kissing, and sitting in a cluster together in, say, a rose garden.
COVID testing is not a substitute for preventative measures. Just like a negative pregnancy test doesn’t protect you from becoming pregnant, a negative COVID test does not prevent the virus from coming hither. A negative test is not a hall pass. A negative COVID test simply means that at the moment the test was taken you probably weren’t infected with coronavirus. But because of the kinetics of the virus and because of the imperfections of testing itself, you can be infected with coronavirus and still test negative for it. Bottom line: even with a negative test, we all need to wear masks, distance six feet from others, wash hands, and avoid crowded indoor (and outdoor) spaces to protect ourselves and others. And after a high-risk contact, a 14-day quarantine is warranted.
A pod is not safe and sealed off from coronavirus if the pod is ever-extending and dynamic. To create a true COVID-proof pod, all parties must quarantine for 14 days before merging and then adhere to strict risk mitigation protocols and not intermix with other people. Of course there are other higher-risk yet relatively safe ways of creating a pod, for example by only socializing with the same group of, say, 10 people who all adhere to the same risk mitigation rules. But the White House was never a sealed pod. Therefore they should have always worn masks and maintained social distance. Given what we know about viral transmission and the behavior required to mitigate risk, it was only a matter of time before coronavirus infiltrated the walls of the White House.
Contact tracing, a crucial public health measure, is impossible without a system set up. The ripple effects of the White House outbreak is already (and will continue to be) wide-sweeping here in DC and beyond, particularly as the web of contacts of each infected individual and each person in contact with those individuals becomes more clear. As above, without the existence of a pod, it’s going to be nearly impossible to identify all affected people, to warn them of their risk, and to limit the unnecessary illness and suffering that this outbreak will incur..
Mixed messages fuel anxiety. Whenever I have to deliver bad news to patients, I try to strike a balance between delivering facts and providing hope. It’s one of the hardest parts of my job. It’s where the rubber meets the road, where a patient’s vulnerabilities are laid bare, and where truth is everything. To withhold facts and dispense false hope in these moments not only would deprive the patient of his/her ability to make important medical decisions but would undermine the patient-doctor relationship. It would be grossly disrespectful. My job isn’t to sugar-coat and cherry-pick information but rather to talk straight and honor the patient in front of me.Since the pandemic hit, we’ve all suffered from varying degrees of anxiety and fear. Misinformation only fuels that fire. The truth sometimes hurts, but false truths do even more damage. As individuals and as a nation, we need and deserve real-time, fact-based news and information to maintain our health, physically and mentally.
I hope that the President (and all people infected with coronavirus across the country) make a full and speedy recovery. I really do.
But I also hope this moment is a reckoning for our country—that we can fully recognize the critical importance of transparency, fact-following, and shared responsibility in order to get through the pandemic.
We must trust and follow science, even when it doesn’t fit our personal narrative.
We need to listen to experts and heed their advice, even when inconvenient. We must consider our neighbors like we do ourselves, even though it requires effort and self-sacrifice.
Unfortunately this virus does dominate our lives—and now even more in DC because of this outbreak.
Let’s use this moment to BREATHE, WALK OUTSIDE IN NATURE, SNUGGLE WITH YOUR PET/CHILD/GLASS OF WINE, and KEEP HOPE ALIVE. (I am not on steroids, just caffeine.)
I will check in later this week. Until then, be well.