More COVID Quandries

 

sci. amer.

Sorry for the repetitive theme, but the pandemic sort-of consumes my life now.

Once upon a time 3-4 months ago, while I was working with the Infectious Disease team at Georgetown, one of the doctors asked me if all of my friends and relatives were contacting me a lot with questions about SARS-CoV-2. I responded that actually, I was trying to convince many friends and family that COVID-19 was a big deal.

eamc.org

Unfortunately for both those friends/family and me, that has not changed. I am trying to figure out how to influence others' public health behavior without seeming to be overbearing, nasty, or unempathetic.

It's not working.

Last week, when Mark and I went to church physically for the first time in about 8 months, a friend came up to me to talk, and I learned that she is becoming more anxious and depressed with this pandemic [a problem all around, really] and is planning a trip to a particular part of the country--which I know is having a surge in COVID cases--because things there are "more open" than here in DC. I looked at my shoes for a bit, and maybe I would have come up with something helpful eventually...but when she saw my discomfort, she said they know people with many different opinions. At which point I said something along the lines of "The riskiness or danger of the trip is not an opinion, it's a fact; and I support the closures."  We talked a bit more, and afterward I sent her a list of the things that are open in DC right now, but I think she now believes that I don't value her mental health.

Also last week, I went to an appointment at the DMV to get fingerprinted for a nursing license application for Maryland, and saw that a DMV worker was screening people for COVID symptoms and checking for fever--which is great--but when it was my turn, I was surprised when she pointed the non-contact infrared thermometer at my wrist. I have never, ever, in my nursing career, checked for a fever in a place other than the torso [specifically: rectal, bladder, under the tongue, in the armpit, or near the temporal artery. These are various approximations of the core temperature]. While waiting inside (where I seemed to be one of very few who were trying to maintain a 6-foot bubble), I researched the proper use of infrared thermometers, which confirmed my suspicion that they are only approved for use at the forehead. After I finished the appointment, I asked Mark if he thought it reasonable to bring up my concerns with the screening lady--because again, I am trying to be reasonable. With his support, I approached the lady and complimented her use of the screening questions, and then said I was an infectious disease doctor [few people know what nurse practitioners are, and Mark thought it would be less confusing] and was concerned she couldn't accurately screen for fevers at the wrist. She wasn't interested in my concerns, and said she was following orders.

Things haven't gone much better with people related to me, who theoretically know some of my experience in health.          

Right now there's a plan for a family gathering at Christmas time, and Mark and I have tentatively agreed to drive down for a few days. But now that I'm researching safeguards we can put in place, and now that COVID cases are rising again, I am very worried about spreading the virus. The safeguards--you know, wearing a mask, staying physically distant, good hand hygiene--are far more effective when everybody is following them, and that's not something that I'm seeing.

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I don't like wearing a mask or staying physically distant, either. I hate it. I'm tired of it. And contrary to previous conjectures, healthcare workers did not enter the medical field specifically to be able to work in a pandemic. I certainly never thought I would ever be in a pandemic, or that there would even be one ever again. But, with terrible luck, I'm in one. This is how I'm dealing with it.

I'm hoping I'll still have friends at the end of it.