COVID

Essential clinician commentary on COVID-19 coronavirus from the KevinMD community.

Monkeypox and the prolonged COVID pandemic could seal the fate of the health care system

Physician
August 8, 2022

I understand it’s been over two years since the World Health Organization announced the coronavirus pandemic, and we are tired.

I speak for the thousands of health care workers and frontline workers: We are exhausted, we feel taken for granted, and for many of us, we are leaving the industry. In some cases, we went from health care heroes being villanized as if we somehow benefited from the pandemic. So many …

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Novavax may be able to provide equitable access to another vaccine alternative

Meds
July 7, 2022

On June 7th, 2022, the Novavax COVID-19 vaccine was approved for use in adults by the Vaccine Advisory Committee of the United States Food and Drug Administration. The vaccine has already been authorized in many other nations, including Indonesia, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and more, making the U.S. one of the last major nations to approve the vaccine.

The technology behind Novavax differs from the already prominent …

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Get ready for a COVID culture shock

Physician
June 27, 2022

A friend called me for medical advice two weeks ago. He’s single, in his 30s and generally healthy, but he’d developed a dry cough with mild congestion. After a self-administered COVID-19 test turned up negative results, he remained suspicious he could be infected.

He was set to fly west in a couple of days for a conference and dreaded the thought of infecting other passengers. I recommended a PCR test if …

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Chronicles of my COVID isolation 

Physician
June 18, 2022

Day 1. I spent Thursday, my day off, golfing. Friday, I was scheduled to see patients and do surgery on the non-English-speaking mother of a patient I delivered a long time ago (who I didn’t really remember). She remembered me, though, and brought her mother from an hour away to see me. But as I coughed and felt slightly feverish, I realized that I had not felt well …

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Distrust in science is a cancer to public safety

Conditions
June 7, 2022

When a congressional candidate was recently cheered on after demanding the execution of Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, it was another reminder that civil discourse and trust in science are continuing to dwindle.

A controversial household name in the sciences, Dr. Fauci was the first scientist to make the cover of Time Magazine in its 100-year history. Well-established scientists can easily recognize Fauci’s important contributions to …

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Doctors as organizational stewards

Physician
May 31, 2022

COVID-19 melted down the world at a very inopportune time in history. Just as medicine was getting a handle on previously intractable conditions, from sophisticated diabetes management to less invasive surgical procedures, a new threat that devastates our population with few good treatments overwhelms health care.

Medical workers come to the rescue, as we always do, though at a personal and communal price. Somebody else keeps our food available, allows our …

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Combating antimicrobial resistance during COVID: What clinicians need to know

Conditions
May 28, 2022

While the world has spent the last two years laser-focused on the COVID pandemic, another public health threat is still lurking in the shadows: the rise of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) has been recognized since the early 1900s, yet rigorous research over the past decade has illuminated the magnitude of the threat and its implications for future infection control. More than 35 thousand patients die from antibacterial resistance every …

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Reflecting on my experience as a teenage health care worker during the COVID-19 pandemic

Education
May 24, 2022

During the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic (April 2021), I became a high-school pharmacy technician. My senior year of high school ended in gray scrubs, gloves, and a mask. While I knew I was signing up for long hours of selling medication and administering COVID tests, I was not prepared for what else I would learn.

On my first day on the job, a couple approached me and asked …

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Naming the anti-Asian racism of U.S. COVID-19 policy

Conditions
May 14, 2022

It started as the “Chinese virus.” Then the “kung flu.” Then came the boycotts of Chinatowns, the rise in harassment, assaults, and murders. The recognition of hate and discrimination against Asian Americans was long overdue. However, anti-Asian racism doesn’t just manifest in hate speech or violence; it has undermined the U.S. COVID-19 policy response.

In 2020, American media narratives frequently painted Asian nations’ success in controlling COVID-19 as the result of …

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What does living with COVID really mean?

Conditions
May 7, 2022

It’s a standard instruction during safety demonstrations on airplanes: “In the event of a sudden loss in cabin pressure, an oxygen mask will drop down in front of you. Put your mask on before helping others.”

But why is that? Wouldn’t it make more sense to help those who are most vulnerable?

The answer has to do with the way our bodies react to a lack of oxygen.

When cabin pressure drops, the …

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A matter of trust: Bill Maher loses trust in medical professionals

Conditions
May 5, 2022

I was at my gym last night. Billy Joel’s ballad about trust was the metronome to my squats. Though vaccinated and boosted, I was wearing my mask. I know the latest evidence about vaccines and natural immunity, the dramatic transmissibility but mild virulence of the latest Omicron variant.

So my mask was only for optics. Someone might recognize me as a doctor in the local hospital where masking is still mandated. …

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Reversing the impact of the pandemic on childhood obesity

Conditions
April 28, 2022

In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, governments and communities had to take rapid and decisive action to protect their citizens against this novel virus. While it was yet unclear how dangerous the COVID-19 infection may be to children, their teachers, and their families, governments quickly shut down schools and activities to slow the spread among the population at large.

Before the pandemic, childhood obesity was already a crisis with …

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This doctor got COVID. Here’s what it taught him.

Conditions
April 21, 2022

Tuesday night, March 29 into March 30, I started to feel that sensation I associate with the start of a cold. It was a feeling in the back of my throat that’s almost hard to describe. I haven’t had that sensation in years. Because I have been wearing an N95 mask every time I come into contact with people outside of my inner circle, I hadn’t had any sort of …

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Done with COVID? Not so fast.

Conditions
April 20, 2022

Moving into the pandemic’s third year, as many settle into the notorious “new normal” of COVID, the challenge now is avoiding complacency and keeping attention and vaccination rates high enough to maintain protection against the still-evolving virus.

Six months after approving a first vaccine booster, the FDA has now authorized a second booster dose for older and immunocompromised people at greater risk of serious illness. With new variants …

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Looking across the glass door: a COVID-19 vigil

Conditions
April 18, 2022

A small piece of lint is tickling my nose as I am desperately trying not to sneeze into the tight-fitting mask on my face. I know that I will not be able to adjust the mask as my gloves are sterile, and I am standing suspended over a patient’s body with my gloves patinaed with small drips of blood mixed with an antiseptic. The procedure is challenging as the patient …

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We are the voice of reason, the scientific experts, and the advocates for our patients

Conditions
April 15, 2022

These last two years have been extremely challenging for most health care professionals. Watching society challenge essential health and science principles that we have known to be fact has been difficult to bear. Being villainized, health care workers went from being hailed “health care heroes” to being the target of hate, violence, and disregard.

These past few years have been a year of reckoning in many ways. The COVID-19 pandemic has …

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We’re losing the war. No, not that one.

Physician
April 15, 2022

In the coming months, no one can predict with certainty what will happen with the war in Ukraine. But there’s one thing we do know for sure. The United States will soon reach an unthinkable milestone: One million Americans will have died of COVID-19. Over the last month, while many people were celebrating the rollback of mask mandates and other pandemic restrictions, over 1,000 Americans continued to quietly succumb to …

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Before taking Paxlovid, consider these drug interactions

Meds
April 7, 2022

FDA and Health Canada recently approved Paxlovid as an oral treatment option for mild-to-moderate COVID-19 who are at high risk of progression to severe COVID-19. It is a combination drug containing nirmatrelvir/ritonavir. Nirmatrelvir works by binding to SARS-CoV-2 3CL protease to ultimately stop viral replication. Ritonavir does not have any antiviral activity against COVID-19 but increases concentrations of nirmatrelvir by decreasing its metabolism by CYP3A4 enzyme. Ritonavir is …

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