COVID 19: WE WIN IF WE DON'T PASS IT ON

Me and my crazy staff. I love you guys. It was a two stethoscope kind of day! We are thinking about bringing in sleeping bags and just moving into the office until the COVID 19 Crisis is over. Tomorrow, I will work my first shift at the COVID 19 Clinic in Guelph. Wish me luck and safety!

COVID 19 simplified: 99 % of people with COVID 19 have a fever and dry cough, which means, if you don't have both, chances are, you don't have the virus and you don't need to attend the clinic or the emergency room.

80 % of us who get this virus will be at home with cold symptoms, sipping neocitron and downing tylenol.

The virus is spread by respiratory droplets. That's the goop that comes out of an infected person's lungs. They have to cough or sneeze around you in order for you to breath the virus into your lungs. It's a nasty bug that can live for up to three days on plastic surfaces and stainless steal, 12 hours on cardboard. That means that if an infected person has coughed or sneezed near a surface, they infect those surfaces. If you touch those surfaces and bring your hands to your face, the virus can be transmitted to you.

The virus can't survive without a human host in which it reproduces itself. Unfortunately, that host is you and me. It dies if our immune system kills it, in which case we recover from the disease or if we die with it in our lungs which happens in 3 % of those infected usually in the over 70 year old population. Or, it can live on if we pass it on to our neighbours ,friends and colleagues. That's why we must isolate ourselves: It won't survive if we don't pass it on. WE WIN IF WE DON'T PASS IT ON.

Keep at least 2 m away from other people. Wash your hands after being in contact with surfaces in public spaces. Keep your hands away from your face. That's hard. Look at my hair. I am always pushing it off my face which means, I touch my face! We all do. Sneeze into your elbow. Stop all gatherings large and small. Absolutely, unequivocally, all of them!! If we do this for two weeks, we get control and the virus loses. WE WIN! 

Dr. Anne-Marie Zajdlik MD CCFP