Hello All,
There is not much new to report today. Which is likely a good thing. Cases continue to increase at an artificially low number because of difficulties in processing the huge numbers of tests going to the lab companies. Turnaround times on Covid testing have extended from three days to five and six.
Because of these limitations unless you are quite symptomatic with fever, cough, shortness of breath, and being evaluated for hospital admission, testing is probably not worth it. Because of its prevalence in the community testing asymptomatic people today doesn’t mean you won’t be exposed tomorrow.
In our clinic I believe we have been seeing a lot of ‘worried well’ and testing where appropriate. We remain in the exponential increase portion of the case curve and expect to be there hopefully only through the second week of April.
If you haven’t seen this yet, I like this Johns Hopkins link and great practical information from this video.
I am starting to see some pressure on pharmaceuticals and availability so let me know if there are critical medications that you need and lets try to get ahead of this issue.
I am heartened by the response of our population in accepting some level of quarantine though remain quite surprised that many Americans are still not grasping the gravity of the situation. I also think we may be on the cusp of understanding the immune system’s role in the deadliest cases and potentially modulating this for the sickest patients. Vaccines will not be a reality for at least a year and the big question remains how susceptible a person is to re-infection. Still we have no commercially available antibody tests that could determine immunity. The reality is we may have been slow to respond but we have now put the best scientific minds in the world and unlimited resources to work on this. I truly believe new scientific insights developing daily will change the course of this disease and strengthen our ability to address this and future outbreaks very soon.
Here at Highland Urgent Care and Family Medicine we remain open and functional and I am on hand in the downstairs clinic. Like you I understand how awesome our little slice of Intown Atlanta is. Together we can keep it that way. Please double down on your quarantine efforts. It will take all of us to keep our community safe.
Warm Regards,
Dr. Nick