Rheumnow PSA 3 COVID Safety Advice Save

Hi, I'm Jack Cush, executive editor of roomnow.com. This is our third installment in a series I'm calling PSAs on COVID or Patient Safety Advice on the COVID Infection and How You Should Be Coping with This as You Manage Your Medicines and Your Illness. In this edition, we're going to talk about COVID safety advice. It's going to be a reiteration of many of the things that you've already heard, via the media, and we'll talk specifically about how it relates to you. The coronavirus, as you know, has been around for a long time, but this year we're experiencing a new strain, of the virus that is particularly, virulent.

It's 10 times more virulent, meaning more likely to infect someone than the usual influenza bug. Influenza going to lead to three to four hundred thousand hospitalizations in The United States and up to twenty thousand deaths, in an average year. You know, we're nowhere near that with this virus, but it could get worse and we don't really know what the end result's going to be. So we're taking a very aggressive stance in trying to prevent this infection. It is spread from person to person, mainly by respiratory droplets.

So me saying peas and things like that where little droplets may come out or if I'm coughing or even breathing heavily around you and you're near me, you could actually, take in these respiratory droplets. Those droplets when they get on surfaces can last for hours, rarely for days, and then be contracted that way, especially if I can contact that with my hand and then start wiping my face or my mouth and bringing it to my, airway and respiratory system. So the advice is pretty simple. Social distancing, stay at home, don't go out unless you need to, do essential functions like exercise, getting a breath of fresh air, by yourself or with your spouse, doing shopping as you need to, keeping your distance while you're shopping, going to doctors if you need to. If you're going to be congregating with people, five people or less is okay, especially if they're your family and people you're around, and each of those individuals poses little or no risk that you know of.

During this period, you'll find that most hospitals are saying, Do not come to the hospital. We have a no visitor zone. That's very common. Don't get offended. I know it could be a close family member or friend that's in the hospital, but you're not doing them any good by going to visit anymore.

You need to stay at home and stay in touch with the hospitals. Most hospitals, if you're a family member, to someone in the hospital, they have a policy and a program whereby they'll stay in touch with you with daily updates, find out what that is and how that's going to work. Similarly, you should not be having any elective procedures. If you're going to have, you know, day surgery for a joint or musculoskeletal problem or for a plastic surgery problem or for a dermatologic, excision of some sort, or Mohs surgery. All these are going to be delayed.

There are no elective surgeries at this time. Only surgeries that are going to be done are urgent and emergent surgeries done in hospital and surgical centers. And again, there they're taking in the person who needs the surgery, not the whole family. What do I, what do I, I get a lot of questions about masks and gowns and gloves. Those are really reserved for people who are on the front end of dealing with the public who are sick and managing them or assessing them.

Should you wear a mask? No. Regular masks that you can get from off the shelf that you can buy, that you see most people wearing, or that was given to you while you were in the hospital, those are not really that effective. They don't have airtight gaps. They have very loose gaps and a lot of air goes in between.

And again, respiratory droplets can get in and out. You should wear a mask if you yourself are sick and you don't know your status. You should wear a mask when you go out. You should wear a mask if you go to a clinic. You should probably call them before you go to clinic if you think you're sick, tell them what your symptoms are, they'll tell you whether or not to come in for your treatment, your evaluation, your infusion.

Most people who are on infusions of medicines like Remicade, Rituximab, Orincia, Ectemra, Prolia, you need to call and find out how we're doing that. Most places have policies and changes in how the infusions are being done. You should get your infusion, but it's going to be done differently than it was done before. You don't need to wear gloves unless you are going to be dealing with people who are sick, and dealing with people and handling many other people or situations where there's a risk of transmission. So repeated handling, dealing with people who are under evaluation and sick, family members who are sick, yeah, masks and gloves would make some degree of sense.

So again, there's certain things that you need to be aware of. The main things here are prevention. You should wash your hands often, even if you're at home, even if you're with the same five people that you're living with, everybody should be washing their hands every few hours. And again, your hands with soap and water or with Purell is going to be for twenty seconds. Again, you should see some of the videos about someone takes a dab of grease, black greasy stuff and puts it in their hands and they start washing their hands like they normally would.

And they do it for like what you normally would ten seconds, five seconds. You find out the very little of the hand is covered. You need twenty seconds focusing between the fingers, on the palms, back of the hands, over the wrists. It's really it's got to be serious. Avoid touching your own eyes, nose, and mouth because there could be something on your hands and you don't want to facilitate transmission from your hands into your respiratory system.

Avoid close contact with sick people. So we talked about social distancing and six foot, but if people are sick, sorry, call me on the phone. We can talk about it. We're not going to get close together. If you know, if you see someone sick, stay away from them.

If you know they're sick, stay away from them. You know, the idea is we got to be very clear about protecting each other here. Cough your mouth, cover your mouth and sneeze into your elbow if you're going to cough or sneeze. Stay at home if you yourself are sick or if you think you're sick, wear a mask if you have to go out. You should disinfect your work area, the area where you stay or where your hands are always working.

That means your computer, the doorknobs, door handles, stairways, if you're flying, you know, I see people with disinfectants doing their tray tables and the armrests and the area in front of them if they're on a plane seat. So should you be traveling? Probably not. Certainly shouldn't be going on a cruise. You certainly should be going outside The United States, but if travel is your business and you're in a vital services business, you can travel with probably low risk and the risk is directly related to the risk in that particular region you're coming from and going to.

So, you know, where I am in Texas, we have a lot of cases. Where I like to travel to, New York, there's even more cases. So, I'm going to avoid New York for a while and just deal with my risks here in Texas. Should you go to work? I think most of our work environments have changed.

I normally have 12 people I'm at work here with every day. Right now, there's three other people here. Everyone's working from home except for the three essential people. So, your density is lower at work and you can have low contact and significant distance between you and your co workers to make the work environment safe. And that's assuming you're in an essential services industry like I am and healthcare.

Should you get tested? No. Because you have arthritis doesn't mean you need to be tested. You only need to be tested if you are at risk based on symptoms or based on known contact, direct content with someone who has the proven COVID-nineteen infection. Infection.

So, someone who you had lunch with yesterday and you were sitting three feet from, you found out two days from now that they have the COVID-nineteen, you probably should be tested. Otherwise, hear a lot of stories about, Well, I was in the store, or of the checkout clerks was taken to the hospital four days later. I don't think that's a reason to be tested, okay? You need very, very close contact to make testing have a reasonable enough yield to make it worthwhile. The thing is that most patients who have this infection have mild symptoms, right?

A mild fever, mild aches, and that may be it. You should get tested if you have fever above 100 or 101. If you have aches, if you have joint or muscle pain, if you have malaise, if you are short of breath, chest pain, and have a dry, hacking cough, those are all reasons to get tested. If you have a sore throat, that might be a reason. You know it's not a reason?

A runny nose, sinus symptoms, congestion all up here and spitting out gobs of green stuff. That's not a COVID infection. Call your doctor about how to manage that bronchitis, that URI, upper respiratory infection. The COVID infection sometimes also gives patients GI complaints, nausea, diarrhea, or even sometimes vomiting. So those are reasons under which you should seek medical attention and seek testing.

To get testing done, you need a doctor's note to get testing, and you can do one of those drive by deals. Lastly, I think common sense is what prevails here. Stay in touch with your doctor and your physicians about your care and any questions you may have about this infection, how it affects you or your family. In our next edition, we're going to talk about COVID myths. Tune in.