The CDC has announced that vaccinated folks are now free to be maskless- both indoors and outdoors, unless they're in crowded spaces. I was wondering what Rick Loftus, MD, my most trusted source of Covid advice who is a front line Covid ICU doctor, virologist, immunologist, and public health expert who used to work for the CDC, thinks. Here's Rick's answer to my question if you're curious.
Since I left my job in conventional medicine in 2007, I've contributed and participated in the wellness industry as a thought leader and also a consumer of wellness services and products. After hanging up my shingle outside the system, I had a cash-based integrative medicine practice- because I wanted a whole hour with my patients and insurance wouldn't even cover my overhead, much less give me a salary if I accepted managed care reimbursement. I was always uncomfortable with the idea that my services were a luxury good but felt helpless to practice good medicine any other way. You might say I sold out some of my social justice ethics- but I didn't see another way to make a living without the moral injury that was making me suicidal in the hospital systems.
The pandemic is not over yet, and we have so much loss to grieve- lost lives, lost jobs, lost financial security, lost belief systems, lost school days, lost friends, lost feelings of safety, and lost social contact, in addition to things we needed to lose- like losing some of our racial, gender, socioeconomic, or sexual preference privileges or losing political leaders who do not wish our countries well or losing online influencers who do not respect science or truth or losing some of the mobility that is causing the climate crisis.
While making the final edits to my Sacred Medicine book, I asked one healer if she had a point of view in response to the question, "Why do horrific things happen to seemingly innocent people?" I explained to her that the question is relevant to the book because those who chronically suffer from physical or mental illness often seek answers to the question, "Why me" or "Why not her?" I told her that every answer I had heard thus far in my research fell flat from a post-2020 lens, and because I had a lot of respect for her, I was curious about her point of view at this point in our understanding (and lack thereof) of human suffering.
According to a recent Lancet study, 1/3 of people who recover from Covid wind up with psychological and/or neurological symptoms. Another study suggests that 7 in 10 people who were hospitalized for Covid have not fully recovered five months later. One in five Covid survivors wind up with a new onset disability, which we're calling "long Covid," and which is likely the same kind of post-viral illness we've seen before as the result of other kinds of viral infections, such as post-Epstein Barr.
Almost nobody made it through the last year without some mental or physical health impact. Even if you didn't get Covid, it's likely that you found yourself gaining some weight, feeling some anxiety or depression, getting caught up in delusional, paranoid, or conspiratorial thinking, indulging an old addiction or starting a new one, experiencing some physical pain, or winding up with new or worsening physical symptoms, among other potential outcomes.
Almost nobody made it through the last year without some mental or physical health impact. Even if you didn't get Covid, it's likely that you found yourself gaining some weight, feeling some anxiety or depression, getting caught up in delusional, paranoid, or conspiratorial thinking, indulging an old addiction or starting a new one, experiencing some physical pain, or winding up with new or worsening physical symptoms, among other potential outcomes.
Yesterday, I spoke to one of my neighbors who just got vaccinated. She wanted to tell me what a big deal it was for her to do so, given her inclinations. This is a woman who is an avid consumer of alternative medicine, someone who is scared of doctors and hasn't gotten a check up in two decades.