Doctor of Medical Sciences, Professor of the Department of Pediatrics and Pediatric Surgery of the Medical Institute of NEFU, infectious disease doctor Tatiana DMITRIEVA about COVID-19, seasonal flu and SARS.
Wearing masks sometimes turns into decoration.
If at the beginning of the pandemic people were very attentive to their health, meticulously fulfilling all the requirements, there was some kind of fear, now everyone leads an almost ordinary lifestyle, except that they wear masks. Moreover, sometimes this wearing turns into a pure decoration. This is a completely wrong approach. People relaxed, and in vain. On the May holidays, we all rushed to revelry, and paid the price for it: two weeks later we got a sharp rise in the disease. We, of course, do not have such huge numbers of morbidity and mortality as in other countries, and maybe each of us does not see the whole tragedy, but it does exist. Our general negativism of official information, our notorious “maybe” led to the fact that people often behave incorrectly, and this cannot but be alarming. Remember what the end of August and the beginning of September were like. Preparing for school, crowding in stores … All this, of course, is a vital need, but I look at it through the eyes of an infectious disease specialist, and I get scared, because I understand what it can turn into.
We are waiting for the rise of seasonal diseases: SARS, flu.
… And the covid has not gone anywhere, recently we have even seen some growth, that is, the situation has not changed. This should not have been expected, because this virus is completely new, we do not know anything about it. Information is constantly being updated, changing. We have flu every year, every year it is different, but still it is flu, there is some kind of basis in it, with which everyone is familiar, each of us has some level of protection, and this virus is not known at all. The situation today is this: either they all get sick now or there will be a vaccine. There are no other options, we still have to live and live with him. Maybe it will turn into a permanent agent like the flu that will come every year because it mutates. Now it is important for us to understand one thing: covid is real, it really came for a long time and, in principle, we have no other protection than personal. When the vaccine appears, mass vaccination will begin, then the situation will change, but so far it has not. Our reality today is that we live in covid, our seasonal respiratory diseases are about to come, which begin somewhere in the middle of September – in October, and in November – December the flu will come (sometimes it even comes in January). Respiratory illnesses usually leave a trail for bacterial infections. And if there is also a covid (and it is dangerous in that it damages not so much the respiratory system as the vessels). It damages the walls of blood vessels, blood circulation is impaired (that’s why people with cardiovascular diseases, kidney diseases, diabetes mellitus are at risk), and the patient’s condition deteriorates sharply.
How does the flu differ from ARVI and ARI.
With acute respiratory viral infections and acute respiratory infections, first a sore throat, then a runny nose, we sneeze, then the temperature rises and we feel bad. What about the flu? At first we feel bad, the temperature rises, the head hurts, the whole body aches, and only then a runny nose and cough appear, because the vessels and the nervous system suffer. The overlap of these two factors can be fatal even for a healthy young person without chronic diseases. And if it is an elderly person or a small child, all the problems there increase. The meaning of the anti-epidemic measures that were used at the beginning of the pandemic was not that each of us would never get sick, but to enable medical institutions not to choke on these seriously ill patients, as was the case in Italy and Spain. This situation should have been avoided, and we stabilized the situation, but it can be clearly predicted that with the growth of respiratory infections, especially influenza, the situation will worsen. There will be more seriously ill patients.
We cannot protect ourselves from covid, but we can from influenza and ARVI …
Now for each person. The only opportunity for everyone to think about their health. We cannot protect ourselves from covid, except for a mask, but we can from flu, from SARS we can. Again, masks, gloves, social distancing. It must be remembered that all this is relevant not only for covid, it is relevant for the entire respiratory infection. And we have a flu vaccine, and we need to get vaccinated now! The flu will come in November, we need to develop immunity by this time. You need at least a week, for example, in mid-September, you are vaccinated, in mid-October you will be protected, November will come – you will be protected. Get vaccinated now, don’t forget, time is running out. Even if there is no free vaccine, pay but do. It will be too late in November. You cannot be vaccinated at the time of the epidemic! And the elderly also need to be vaccinated against pneumococcus, small children under two years of age and the elderly are the most vulnerable group for pneumococcal pneumonia, which gives a high mortality rate. I recommend that elderly people and children be vaccinated immediately, on the same day, against both flu and pneumococcus.
Covid-19 changed our whole life, turned everything on the planet. But this does not cancel all the rest of our problems that we have in our life, but it exacerbates them. We need to be especially careful, especially attentive to our health, which, alas, is not happening today.
About those who are in the “red” zone.
I admire the medical workers who are in the “red” zone, they pull out such seriously ill patients! They don’t give up, they don’t say that age, chronic diseases, they do everything, but there are situations when nothing can be done …
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