COVID-19:

There are many types of human coronaviruses including some that commonly cause mild upper-respiratory tract illnesses. 

On February 11, 2020 the World Health Organization announced an official name for the disease that is causing the 2019 novel coronavirus outbreak, first identified in Wuhan China. The new name of this disease is coronavirus disease 2019, abbreviated as COVID-19. In COVID-19, ‘CO’ stands for ‘corona,’ ‘VI’ for ‘virus,’ and ‘D’ for disease. Formerly referred to as “2019 novel coronavirus” or “2019-nCoV”.

For information regarding signs and symptoms, risk factors, testing, treatment modalities, precautions , please refer to http://cdc.gov

However as I was talking to Ranjani regarding what I do as a physician and pulmonary critical care specialist – she finally told me – ok how about top 

three questions for community and for health care providers. Here we go:

Top 3 questions for and from community:

This is the perfect time to bond with your family members, sit with you kids and ask them what they know about COVID-19, point them to interesting facts about the disease from reputed websites, like cdc.gov, coronavirus.gov, WHO, NIH so they can have their questions answered. They may not want to listen to their parents but will certainly read and listen and learn from podcasts given by physicians or authorities on the subject.

Please encourage them to call their friends and extended family members to find out if they are adhering to precautions which include regular hand washing, Social distancing, staying home, wearing a mask. 

Involve them in your projects of giving back to community – from donating food to making masks, connecting people in need to local resources, to name a few, many people find this rewarding. 

Allergies if seasonal happen around spring, started already in MA and feels like the same allergies you experienced previous years and usually should respond to anti-histaminics or intra nasal steroids like you have taken before, if you have any added symptoms like fever, shortness of breath, cough,  nausea, diarrhea and loss of taste, smell, unexplained body pains to mention a few along with you allergies, it needs immediate medical attention, kindly call your Primary Care Physician for further workup.

If you have any symptoms suggestive of COVID-19 as described above in Q2, then please call you PCP office, who will in turn screen you with questions for COVID-19 via telemedicine and fax the COVID-19 test request to your local testing centers, it is a SARS- Cov 2 PCR test , with highest yield through naso pharyngeal swab method. It takes around 1-2 days for the results to come back. Good luck 

Top 3 questions for health care providers:

This is a challenging one, as physicians we are always in frontline taking care of our patients, but as human beings we are also fearful that we may bring COVID-19 home to our loved ones, it is a constant fear we have, but that doesn’t stop us from doing what we do best – taking care of our patients. Faith and hope, support from family friends and community is what keeps us going. 

Anytime you feel that the probability of having COVID -19 is high, you should call your PCP, who will decide if you need to go for COVID -19 testing, and while you are waiting for test results continue to quarantine yourselves at home. If you have change in symptoms or worsening or new symptoms, or you think it is a medical emergency please go to your nearest urgent care or Emergency room or call 911. 

Shower, pray work – these days we are dodging bullets all day long – taking care of patient and their families, people are anxious, depressed, fearful that they cannot breathe – all their feelings are valid, trouble shooting the medical problems, treating Covid -19 and non covid 19 related medical issues, medication backorders, triaging, speaking to families who have limited or no access to their loved ones who are admitted to hospitals, sending patients to testing with safety precautions, PPE shortages, while at the same time checking on their family and friends, learning new disease which seems to have many forms, attending different webinars and zoom meetings through the day to learn and share their COVID-19 experiences, with a #newnormal, come home straight to shower and laundry and then mingle with the rest of the family, days have become longer, nights shorter, few frontline physicians sleep in the garage in fear of bringing COVID-19 home to their loved ones, but lets continue to stay home and united in this fight against COVID-19. When we look at the positive cases in our state of Massachusetts everyday please make sure you look at the recovered cases as well. Thank you very much for reading. #unifiedeffortagainstcovid-19 MA.