Appropriate Fear and Respect

We teach our children to have a "healthy fear" of the water, to respect that it's possible to drown in the shallows or to hit our head on a rock if we get knocked down by a wave. So we swim with a buddy who's paying attention to us. We should have a healthy fear of viruses too.  

It doesn't mean living in fear, but taking precautions so our littles don't get sick over and over. We need to provide good quality masks in all classrooms, and encourage everyone to wear them and take them home. If funds are an issue, Donate a Mask can help!!

I know we're asking a lot from the few kids who will keep masking, but they're heroes. Not only are they protecting their own health, but they're protecting others in class too. Who actually wants to get sick over and over if it's so easy to prevent it??

It's not living in fear to refuse to give in to repeated infections and illness that could cause long term problems!

Dr. David Christopher explains, 

Some troll quoted me saying "Why do you work in a hospital if you're so afraid of germs?" I blocked him 'cuz he's a troll, but here's what I have to say about that. 

I'm a medical laboratory scientist working in hospitals since 1989, spending 16 years in microbiology lab. I spent 17 years performing phlebotomy as part of my job and 17 years in one of the busiest hospital chemistry and bloodgas labs in the US. I've drawn blood from tens of thousands of patients in the ICU, ED, labor and delivery, nursery, neonatal unit, psychiatric units, you name it. I've drawn blood from ICU patient knuckle veins because they're too edematous from MRSA sepsis. I've drawn patients with decubitus ulcers eating through to their tailbone from Streptococcus infection. I've drawn patients on ventilators from severe bacterial pneumonia. I've drawn TB patients struggling to breath in their last days. I drew blood from a lethargic, limp 3-year-old in the ED who died from bacterial meningitis a few hours later, and I heard her mother's screams from down the hall. I've drawn thousands of patients infected with "germs". I've seen MRSA evolve from a pathogen that was found mostly in immunocompromised patients in long term care facilities to spreading everywhere in the community infecting healthy people of all ages. I've seen so many bacterial pathogens become highly antimicrobial resistant. I've been working in hospitals ravaged during a global pandemic now in it's 5th year and seen the vast death and damage it has caused up close. 

I lost my 40-year-old nephew to Covid. My daughter lost her mother who was in her 50s to Covid. My wife and I have been wrecked by Covid. So if you ask why I work in a hospital if I'm "scared of germs", helping to heal patients is my passion, and I have learned a very appropriate fear and respect for pathogens. 

That's why I do everything in my power to avoid infection, especially in the hospital. Be safe my friends. 😷

A recent study found even more evidence that Covid causes blood clots, and is a vascular disease. Since at least January 2022, we've known that 100% of kids who've had Covid, no matter how mild the acute case, have markers for micro-clotting in their bloodstream, but now we understand how they form, and that the clotting isn't the "consequence of inflammation, but rather serves as an apical driver of infection-induced thromboinflammation and neuropathology." 

Every infection makes it worse. But we don't have to keep getting infected. Well-fitting N95s or better, on your face whenever you're in a public space, really work to prevent infection -- way better than vaccinations or running a HEPA filter in the back corner, and about a bazillion times better than washing your hands to prevent infection from an airborne virus floating around your face holes!!