I know COVID is so 2020 and everyone wants to be over the virus even though it’s not over us. Consider this.
Across the United States, COVID infection is on pace to kill more than 100,000 people this year, which would make the virus the country’s third leading cause of death, behind heart disease and cancer (it’s also third in Ohio).
So far this year, 457 people have died in Montgomery County and every nearby county — Greene, Miami, Clark and Warren — has seen at least 100 deaths.
That numbers aren’t simply an abstraction. They represent grieving families, sons who have lost fathers, and daughters who have lost mothers.
Now, we’re about to enter a season where few people will know what virus they have.
“They all pretty much come with similar symptoms,” Dr. Barbara Bawer, who specializes in family medicine at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, said.
Here’s a little test that I use anytime someone says to me, “Oh, it’s just a cold.” You wake up one morning with a sore throat, a stuffy nose, and a fever. You’re tired and your muscles hurt.
What do you have?
If you answered, “I have no idea,” you’re right. All of those symptoms could be from a cold, flu, or COVID. There’s no way to know, conclusively what you have without getting tested.
“I’ve been seeing that a lot of my clinics. Patients are like, ‘Well, I just woke up with a sore throat, and didn’t think much of it, I have allergies. thought maybe that’s what it is,’ ” she said. “Then they wait two, three days, just try allergy type medications, and boom, they’re positive for COVID.”
COVID will eventually become endemic, and we’ll have to live with it. But I do hope (not expect) that people will do the one thing that can help hold the virus at bay.
Be considerate.
You don’t need a shot or a booster for that. You don’t need to wear a mask or quarantine.
All you have to do is remember that being considerate could prevent people from getting sick or, at worst, dying.
I’ll go back to Bawer’s earlier point about people not knowing what they have unless they get tested. I know people who get symptoms and self-diagnose it as a cold. And since they “only” have a cold, they go about their business, interacting with people as if it’s no big deal. Why should they get tested if they just have a cold?
That’s the wrong move because you don’t know what you’ve got, you don’t know how contagious you are, and you don’t know how your behavior could affect other people.
Let me repeat that last important part. You don’t know how your behavior could affect other people
“Regardless of what you have, even if it’s a common cold or a sinus infection, or the flu, and let’s say it’s not COVID, you can still pass those on,” Bawer said. “You’re very much contagious.”
She noted some of the considerate things we can do. Cough and sneeze into your elbow, wash your hands more frequently, and “wear those masks not just for common courtesy, but to prevent further and worsening” the spread of any virus.
I know the mask thing will, in some quarters, land with the thud of an anvil dropping from a roof. (I’m planning on wearing a mask in public during the winter because, as far as I know, I haven’t had COVID and would prefer to avoid it).
But please be considerate in whatever way you can. That means if you’re sick, get tested. That’s easy since the government is still giving out free COVID tests. And if you don’t feel well stay away from others since you can make them sick, too.
“It’s hard to say stay vigilant because it’s so hard to know which (virus) you have,” Bawer said.
Instead, I’ll say stay considerate.
Ray Marcano’s column appears each Sunday on these pages. You can send him questions or comments at raymarcanoddn@gmail.com
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