John Pollock and Wai Ting welcome back Toronto-based critical care physician Dr. Alex Patelto discuss the latest on COVID-19 including second waves, pandemic fatigue, Pfizer’s vaccine, stress on healthcare, government measures, and answers to your questions from the POST Wrestling Forum.
Thanks for the update and thanks for taking my question. I’m gonna have to ask my mother if she’s noticed any difference in her rheumatoid condition/symptoms in the last few months.
The never-ending failure in the US, a failure led by Trump and his followers, to tackle the pandemic is really going to have a lasting effect, because the losses are real.
This pandemic shines a light on one aspect of the so-called “culture war” in the US.
You’re not wrong that the Trump administration mismanaged this thing from even before whatever is considered “Day 1”.
But as far as the culture war part, I can tell you that it’s definitely not just red-state, gun-toting, Trump sycophants who are going to restaurants, gathering in large groups, and making excuses any time they want to stray from the Covid protocols. I live in a solidly blue state, and I can show you plenty of Instagram accounts that alternate between “Biden/Harris” posts and videos of Covid “rule-breaking”.
The idiots shouting “hoax” make the headlines, but people from all walks of life are contributing to this second wave.
Yeah this is the hammer and dance you read about - the USA clearly could use more of a hammer right now to bring the numbers down to more manageable levels. Any intervention takes two weeks to see effect so what they are saying is a hammer now will reduce levels in 4-6 weeks so you can open up safely again (ie dance) until the next hammer is needed. This is a widely circulated method of controlling pandemic
Sadly there is fatigue. I get it - a prolonged lockdown is hard to endure and everyone will start to push boundaries. However it’s important that when significant caseload spikes you avoid highest risk indoor gatherings. You can still meet friends outside albeit it will be harder with winter looming. It sucks - but if the vaccine is coming soon I think we can all try our best to push along for another few months
Thank you @Alex_Patel you’ve been so great during all of this and are a true inspiration. Hope to get to meet you and thank you one day.
A follow up question on the vaccine discussion with John and Wai…let’s say the vaccine is effective in preventing mild cases or asymptomatic cases. Would it be a reasonable line of thinking that if it prevents a majority of mild cases, that means less people are spreading it and therefore less severe cases by virtue of simply less people getting it.
Also just a thought I had recently after hearing Wai talk about the technology on phones…it’s a shame that we distrust tech companies and data tracking to the extent we do (and have a right to) that we don’t all just opt in to this App. It seems like a super modern technological way to really tackle the issue of community spread and yet I fear that trust in our technology companies tracking us is very low. (Irony being, everyone is tracked and phones and devices hear people anyway, but promoting something to track would be a very hard sell on the PR front). Still, can’t help but the app concept is simply how a healthy society would react to this kind of pandemic and spread - it should be that easy!
Re: vaccine yes that is a valid point. If less people spread it you may protect those that would have been most effected from getting sick at all. However if it comes out that taking the virus doesn’t protect against severe disease (just mild) I wonder if the uptake of the virus will be as robust as people likely will be less enthusiastic about taking it.
The app is great. I was involved in helping with its design and I can say it’s been an overwhelming success here in Canada. Once our ability to contact trace fell off this has been the next best thing. I am with you - not all technology is evil