Learning to Live with Covid-19
By Albert B. Kelly
Given the variants emerging from SARS-CoV-2, I’m worried about public health in much the same way I was a year ago. If this pandemic has done anything over the past year and half, it’s been to throw curve ball after curve ball at us without a break. Who knew at the start that we would have to get a crash course in Greek letters? I’ve only recently gotten better at keeping up with hurricanes and their names, and now we’ve got Greek letters and goodness knows what else to wrestle with.
The only thing we can say for sure with this virus is that SARS-CoV-2 (i.e. Covid-19) is here to stay and like many other viruses, it’s something we’re simply going to have to learn to live with. My hope is that everyone who can be vaccinated will do so because any suffering and dying at this point is largely avoidable.
Toward that end, vaccines will be available in Bridgeton at 30 Magnolia Ave on September 15th and September 29th from 3:30p to 6pm. In Millville, shots will be available at 1 E. Vine St on September 22nd from 3:30p to 6pm and on September 17th and September 24th from 10am to 2pm. No appointment is necessary for first or second doses. You will need an appointment for booster shots.
Beyond vaccines, how we ultimately live with the virus will be the focus of much debate and maybe it starts with masks. Over the years, we got accustomed to seeing images out of parts of Asia where people in crowded cities from Hong Kong and Beijing to Seoul and Phnom Penh walked the streets with their face masks on.
Perhaps we thought them strange with their masks because in this country we never considered masks before the pandemic, hopefully that’s changed. On balance, getting comfortable with wearing a mask while in public or indoors seems a good thing. It’s noninvasive, inexpensive, uncomplicated, and reasonably effective at offering people some protection from airborne virus transmission.
A mask does not come with side effects, allergic reactions, nor does it risk birth defects or other long term harms from prolonged use. The use of masks is part of any first line of defense- that a few seem to want to make the humble mask a line in the sand in our culture wars is a bit of overkill if you ask me.
Aside from masks, another part of our new normal may well need to be more hospital beds and expanding ICUs to deal with the future. This includes for patients needing care unrelated to Covid and those needing care for whatever emerges from Covid. I say that because with so many willing hosts among the unvaccinated, we have to accept that this virus will continue to mutate and at some point will become something altogether different. When that happens, vaccines will simply stop working in the ways we need them to and we’ll be racing to catch up.
So we’ll need more ICU beds so that the healthcare system does not collapse under the weight of so many patients. We’ve never really experienced the collapse of our healthcare system in the way we see it happen in other countries and I hope we never do. But if we keep pushing the limits of our healthcare system, it will stop working. The focus right now is on Covid, but people still need beds, ICU and otherwise, for heart problems, cancer, accidents and sicknesses of every kind.
Another piece of the “new normal” puzzle will no doubt include testing. When the pandemic first hit, getting a test was no easy thing. Not only was it rare, but it took days to get results and by the time you got those results, you could have easily infected dozens of people. We now have quicker and more accurate tests. How we use testing and where we fit testing into the overall scheme things is still evolving, but testing will continue to be a basic component of any public strategy.
All of this matters because Covid-19 will not be the last public health crisis we will have to face, it’s just the latest. When we factor in climate change, expansion into remote areas of the globe, international travel, and opposition to vaccines among a growing segment of the population, what’s left is learning to live with and manage whatever comes our way.