Opinion: COVID is back so take care of yourselves and others

Article content

Two weeks ago, I tested positive for COVID-19. Last week, I cancelled patients in my medical clinic because I was too sick to work.

For anyone who is counting, that is my fourth infection. Never from work — even when I see patients who are COVID-19 positive — because I require masks at all times in clinic to keep staff and patients safe. This infection was from an extended family gathering at which we let down our guard.

Article content

“A couple at the party tested positive for COVID-19,” my uncle informed me the day after his 70th birthday party. Although I spent most of the time outside on a patio, I ventured inside a few times to see relatives who were more comfortable in the air-conditioning, as did my husband and children, and we forgot to mask. What was meant to be a happy reunion was sullied by each of us, one by one, testing positive.

It is summer 2024, and we are inundated again with sick patients as COVID-19 levels surge across Canada.

We are all sick and tired of COVID-19. I do not want to hear that a patient goes into hospital for surgery and gets COVID-19 pneumonia, or that children or seniors are coughing to the point that they vomit. For some people the symptoms seem milder, but we know that the effects of COVID are cumulative and unpredictable, that it can cause damage to the heart, lungs, brain, vascular and endocrine system, even with mild symptoms, and can lead to serious long-term disability.

Physicians are writing medical notes for leaves of absence for months or years for previously healthy young patients who have brain fog, fatigue or heart arrhythmias and chronic shortness of breath.

Article content

Happily, because many people are up to date with their latest COVID-19 vaccine, far fewer are dying from COVID-19 now than early in the pandemic. However, the vaccine does not prevent people from spreading COVID-19, and many people are still highly vulnerable: infants, seniors, people with disabilities, people who are immunocompromised.

COVID-19 is airborne and highly contagious. Ottawa Public Health issued a reminder this week to Ottawans to use “all layers of protection” against it. That includes vaccine (and boosters as appropriate); improved ventilation and use of HEPA filters in workplaces; masking indoors and in crowded outdoor gatherings; use of rapid antigen tests; and avoiding others when contagious. Caution:

Do not to be fooled by false-negative Rapid Antigen Tests (RATs); assume you have COVID-19 if you have close contacts who test positive and/or have symptoms. Swab the inside of your mouth as well as your nose. If possible, retest at day five, seven, and 10, and do not forget that you could be contagious for up to 14 days.

Waste-water testing will continue in Ottawa, thanks to advocacy from public health, but in many places across Ontario and Canada people will have no way to make informed decisions.

Article content

Donatemask.ca is a non-profit organization in Canada that helps distribute masks and RATs to those who cannot access or afford them. Unfortunately, workplaces are pushing employees to work at the office, are reluctant to provide adequate medical leave, and encourage people who are sick to return prematurely.

Ottawa Public Health’s 2021 pinned post says, “We’re all experiencing this differently. Don’t compare yourself to others. Don’t compare it to ‘how it was before.’ Just do the best you can, and if that varies from one day to the next, that’s ok.”

When OPH wrote that in 2021, there was still a sentiment that we were “in this together,” although even then we were not doing enough for the most vulnerable. My 2024 caveat: If we set our societal baseline as consideration of the wellbeing of others, then we can accept that individually we will be imperfect.

COVID-19 tearing through the community now is not the end of this. When September rolls around, we will be vulnerable again. So, I gently remind you to use the preventative tools at your disposal to take care of yourselves and each other.

Dr. Nili Kaplan-Myrth is a family physician and Ottawa-Carleton District School Board trustee.

Article content