COVID is very aggressive and got us to go into deep defensive mode. We've seemingly got a handle on spread and keeping hospitalizations from overrunning hospitals. This is all very good news and we cannot take our eye of this ball.
Now come the in-game adjustments.
Here's what we have talked about to date, as well as much of the press conferences, as we begin to go on the offensive:
1) Mask wearing
2) Continue testing and contact tracing
3) Some sort of social distancing
4) Therapeutics to help severe cases
5) Ramping up vaccine timelines in a safe manner
I'm for most of the things above. Honestly, I'll gladly wear a mask if it means we can open things back up quite a bit.
Our best offense lies with individuals taking some sort of precautions to keep themselves safe.Yet, I keep having this nagging thought that we aren't yet addressing a few key areas which could provide a lot of future relief. At least I haven't seen much conversation around them publicly.
1) The Hydroxychloroquine thread got me thinking because the thought was posted there - when do major or large studies really ramp up for treating symptoms with therapeutics prior to hospitalization? This seems to me like a no brainer of an area to focus on as it would further reduce strain on hospitals. I think within the next month we can start to shift some resources this way as seemingly hospitalizations are for the most part trending in the right direction. Part of the thing hindering this is the rigid criteria for testing, which ends up being most cases requiring or nearly requiring hospitalization get tested. Maybe we need to allocate some testing to more people with early onset symptoms and start figuring out what helps keep people out of hospitals.
2) What are hospitals currently doing for preparation? I hope this has hospitals rethinking the organization of their building, staff, and supplies. Maybe some of the furloughed people could be working on this in parallel. I get they have their hands full with severe cases and managing those patients, but this is an area that really need to be addressed, and I think the sooner the better. Our hospitals have to be more prepared and flexible to take on a changing environment. I don't expect them to be able to handle an uncontrolled novel virus - that's asking too much. I do expect them to put some procedures in place where they can be adequately staffed, supplied, and organized to handle an increase in load during the fall/winter going forward. I think the biggest things hospitals need is reevaluate their inventory procedures, and most importantly they have to figure out a way they can have proper isolation of certain parts of the hospital so they can continue to do a good portion of elective procedures, which is their largest revenue stream.
These are a lot of thoughts, but I just haven't seen these areas discussed much. There is probably a lot wrong with my thoughts, which I would admit because I'm just a lowly accountant, so I'm happy to have the constructive criticism. I just think these are two major areas, which if addressed properly until/if a vaccine is ready, greatly help society as a whole instead of relying on millions of people to comply.
Now come the in-game adjustments.
Here's what we have talked about to date, as well as much of the press conferences, as we begin to go on the offensive:
1) Mask wearing
2) Continue testing and contact tracing
3) Some sort of social distancing
4) Therapeutics to help severe cases
5) Ramping up vaccine timelines in a safe manner
I'm for most of the things above. Honestly, I'll gladly wear a mask if it means we can open things back up quite a bit.
Our best offense lies with individuals taking some sort of precautions to keep themselves safe.Yet, I keep having this nagging thought that we aren't yet addressing a few key areas which could provide a lot of future relief. At least I haven't seen much conversation around them publicly.
1) The Hydroxychloroquine thread got me thinking because the thought was posted there - when do major or large studies really ramp up for treating symptoms with therapeutics prior to hospitalization? This seems to me like a no brainer of an area to focus on as it would further reduce strain on hospitals. I think within the next month we can start to shift some resources this way as seemingly hospitalizations are for the most part trending in the right direction. Part of the thing hindering this is the rigid criteria for testing, which ends up being most cases requiring or nearly requiring hospitalization get tested. Maybe we need to allocate some testing to more people with early onset symptoms and start figuring out what helps keep people out of hospitals.
2) What are hospitals currently doing for preparation? I hope this has hospitals rethinking the organization of their building, staff, and supplies. Maybe some of the furloughed people could be working on this in parallel. I get they have their hands full with severe cases and managing those patients, but this is an area that really need to be addressed, and I think the sooner the better. Our hospitals have to be more prepared and flexible to take on a changing environment. I don't expect them to be able to handle an uncontrolled novel virus - that's asking too much. I do expect them to put some procedures in place where they can be adequately staffed, supplied, and organized to handle an increase in load during the fall/winter going forward. I think the biggest things hospitals need is reevaluate their inventory procedures, and most importantly they have to figure out a way they can have proper isolation of certain parts of the hospital so they can continue to do a good portion of elective procedures, which is their largest revenue stream.
These are a lot of thoughts, but I just haven't seen these areas discussed much. There is probably a lot wrong with my thoughts, which I would admit because I'm just a lowly accountant, so I'm happy to have the constructive criticism. I just think these are two major areas, which if addressed properly until/if a vaccine is ready, greatly help society as a whole instead of relying on millions of people to comply.