Lessons from COVID ISOLATION this week:
Due to false narratives/fatigue, many don’t know (or want to) that COVID is here.
Makes it impossible to evade so key is reduce risk.
Lessons: no FOMO. if sick (even “mild”), avoid giving to others ESP those at risk. Even if test -.🧵
As a result, 3 seniors (all 75+ with risk factors) tested +. All symptomatic
but did ok bc they had BOTH omicron booster and access to pax.
This is very important bc we lost tools (monoclonals and evushield) this week so…
Lesson:
get your seniors boosted & have a pax plan!
We isolated + kid & used masks/ventilation to keep other kid - in school.
The - kid: boosted💉 2 weeks ago
The + kid: vaxxed & too young for boost. High fevers 48h. Hard to get meds!
Lessons:
Get kids boost
Isolating w 😷 /ventilation work
Need meds
https://www.today.com/health/cold-flu/tylenol-motrin-shortage-rcna59622
most challenging for us: we lost childcare for a week…after school out last week.
Lesson: parents of young kids exhausted with no “tools”
If this is “inevitable” every few months, being working parent/caregiver w sick dependents & no sick leave or grace is unsustainable.
As far as me, after - for 4 days, thought I was OK but mild sx day 4 & + day 5!
Very annoying but at least I didn’t infect others
Lesson: Test/mask if exposed until day 5!
Many insurance companies still cover tests. Ask your pharmacy.
PS we need free tests @[email protected]
A hard week, but recognizing our immense privilege & resources to take a week off (more like work at home w kid in background), we got through.
Also channeled energy for #HCWvsHunger
Lessons: we need paid sick leave so people heal & not spread!
https://www.healthaffairs.org/doi/10.1377/hlthaff.2022.00779
Paid sick leave provides workers with paid time off to receive COVID-19 vaccines and to recover from potential vaccine adverse effects. We hypothesized that US cities with paid sick leave would have higher COVID-19 vaccination coverage and narrower coverage disparities than those without such policies. Using county-level vaccination data and paid sick leave data from thirty-seven large US cities in 2021, we estimated the association between city-level paid sick leave policies and vaccination coverage in the working-age population and repeated the analysis using coverage in the population ages sixty-five and older as a negative control. We also examined associations by neighborhood social vulnerability. Cities with a paid sick leave policy had 17 percent higher vaccination coverage than cities without such a policy. We found stronger associations between paid sick leave and vaccination in the most socially vulnerable neighborhoods compared with the least socially vulnerable ones, and no association in the population ages sixty-five and older. Paid sick leave policies are associated with higher COVID-19 vaccination coverage and narrower coverage disparities. Increasing access to these policies may help increase vaccination and reduce inequities in coverage.
Vineet Arora MD 
Caitlin Molina