September 30, 2020

good habits

Tonight I don’t have lots of energy for writing after a long and challenging day. I will admit that changing EMR’s (electronic medical record) is exhausting, especially when it comes to importing data. Time consuming on any day, but today I saw several complex patients in a row, which didn’t help my being on time.

Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston reported on an outbreak they had of COVID-19. They analyzed a small cluster of cases and were able to contain the outbreak and identify the reason there was spread. Some causes were related to mask wearing and social distancing, among other reasons. Hospitals and clinics are afraid of a scenario like this. No one wants to admit that “nosocomial”, or hospital/health care acquired cases happen at their facility. Often the hospital opts to downplay the outbreak or try to hide it, which actually may increase the risk of more cases. We have seen several examples already. Brigham & Women’s Hospital, though, was open and forthright, addressing the outbreak openly which made it easier to contain.

This story illustrates that we shouldn’t become lax about our routines. Most of us are still very susceptible to SARS-CoV-2. Estimates of people who developed antibodies is only 10% of the population.

We still have a long road ahead of us.

Wash your hands, cover your nose, and keep safe six. These habits will help protect you.

And finally, my caveat is that this is my experience and my opinions, which are subject to change as more information is available, and not related to the organization I work for. Thanks for reading.

https://www.statnews.com/feature/coronavirus/the-road-ahead-the-next-12-months-and-beyond/

https://www.medpagetoday.com/hospitalbasedmedicine/hospitalists/88852

https://www.mdlinx.com/news/estimate-of-covid-19-seroprevalence-in-the-us-suggests-few-in-the-population-developed-antibodies-in/432FtM9ERiWSFGy1maK7Nk