COVID’s not finished, and neither are we
Someone came in the other day and said, “Oh, I’m a little late with my booster.”
Really, I thought.
People, young people, still are getting quite sick with COVID.
What I don’t think is appreciated yet is that COVID is not just a seasonal virus. It's showing itself to be a year-round phenomenon.
I was talking with Carol Williams, our first Community Health Network nurse, and she said, “You mean COVID isn’t finished with us yet?
That’s exactly the point. So I think we need to figure this out in realistic terms.
What does that mean?
I think the FDA is making sense when they talk about making COVID vaccination an annual vaccination at the time of flu vaccine. To do them together begins to normalize COVID vaccination because up to now, the messaging has not been all that clear or consistent.
Now, emphasis is on getting people up-to-date with the bivalent booster. This vaccine has two kinds of COVID strains. One is the original strain we saw starting in 2020. And the other works against the omicron strain; the current variant that’s circulating. Only about 20% of people in New York are current with that booster. We need to change that.
Anyone unvaccinated can still get that two-dose primary series.
We also should continue to wear masks when risk of spreading virus in high. We need to apply what we learned in previous epidemics, like HIV. The mask is a condom for your face.
I still wear a mask in grocery stores, in airports and on planes, and I’m taking a seven-hour train ride in March and I’ll wear a mask.
I’ll be at a meeting with about 35 people from the health department, and we’ll take rapid COVID tests before. If you’re negative, it means you’re not contagious. The science can help us manage this.
The state health department is leaving it up to localities to set rules for health care settings. In Monroe County, the commissioner of health, Dr. Michael Mendoza, and the leaders of the hospital systems are saying masks will be required for now.
Where we still see pushback is with the vaccine.
During a recent news conference, Dr. Rob Mayo, the chief medical officer of Rochester Regional Health, was asked whether health care organizations will hire back employees who were not vaccinated. Dr. Mayo said health care workers need to be held to a higher standard because we’re trying to stop the spread of disease to sick people. He said that at this time, RRH was not hiring back employees who were not vaccinated.
At the end of the day, we're trying to slow virus spread. I still see sick patients with new infections, and I think we can do better.