When Have We All Had Enough?

First, I want to thank all of you that joined our webinar on Wednesday evening.   If I helped one person feel better, then my and Arunee’s time spent putting this together and presenting it was well worthwhile.  For those of you that were not able to attend but want to watch this, we will record a new version (without background noise) and have a link to send to you.

Do you remember the scene from Forrest Gump when Lt. Dan was perched on the highest pole of his sailboat during a viscous storm at sea?  Lt. Dan was an angry guy having lost his legs during the Vietnam War and did not really believe there was a God.  He reached his limit of suffering through his now very changed life because of the loss of his legs.  He screamed from the top of the pole, begging God to take him.  Turns out he survived and his life changed at that point, with him becoming a content, happy person and thriving beautifully, enjoying a great life.

First point, related to weight control:  Many overweight/obese patients come to our office when they have reached a certain limit or milestone event of the impact of the poor weight control.  Perhaps the person saw him/herself in a picture and saw a person unrecognizable, and not in a good way.  Potentially a co-morbidity diagnosis was made such as diabetes.  “I have had enough” translates into actions that will result in a betterment of the person ultimately.

The second point, related to Covig-19:  Perhaps we will see an improvement in this incredibly horrific situation when people decide “I have had enough” of watching the news channels, staying inside the house, only venturing out to search for chicken or toilet paper, not spending a penny at the local restaurants, etc etc etc.

I had one patient yesterday that said:  ‘I wish I got the (expletive) virus already so I can get this over, not worry about it anymore and get on with m business.”.  This person did not have an “at risk” medical profile.  And you know, I kind of understood exactly what she was saying.  The major danger of this virus is to the “at risk” people and clearly, every and all efforts should be placed in quarantining this demographic and taking every step possible to avoid having exposure to this group.

Ebola has a case fatality rate of over 50%.  Currently, the case fatality rate of Covig-19 is about 1%, BUT because of a lack of diagnostic testing, there are probably far many more people that have the virus than what is used in the denominator of the case fatality division.  The case fatality rate for the yearly influenza is around 0.1%.  I am going to bet that for every one person diagnosed at this point with Covig 19 there may be at least 10 or more likely hundreds to thousands that have the virus, but because their symptoms are not significant, they are not tested.  Hence the case fatality rate for Covig 19 may turn out to be no different than the yearly flu.

Sorry for the long post, but I guess there is a part of me that believes that at some point, anyone not “at risk” needs to get to that flagpole and show we are not scared.  Fear and panic are going to wind up hurting many, many more people than the virus itself.   I feel awful for the (probable) 0.1-1% of people that will be very much physically harmed/die from the virus but my heart also goes out to the 99-99.9% of people whose lives are being decimated right now.

At some point, we will all have had “enough”.