Opinion: In one year of the pandemic, here’s what I’ve learned as a health care provider in San Diego
By CHRISTIAN RAMERS
Ramers, M.D., is a specialist in infectious diseases and the chief of population health at Family Health Centers of San Diego. He lives in Burlingame.
This week marks one year since public health officials confirmed the first deaths of COVID-19 in San Diego County. As I reflect on this exhausting and highly unusual year, a few themes emerge over the din of arguments, controversies and anxieties.
We are in this together.
More than simply a rallying cry to motivate altruistic behavior or a call to action for collective sacrifice, these words have proven accurate repeatedly. Whether it be the air we breathe, the indoor spaces we inhabit or our collective status in the color-coded reopening system, our interests are inevitably intertwined. As such, the sacrifice of foregoing social activities, postponing travel, staying home when sick and wearing masks even when inconvenient has yielded immense societal benefit in the form of decreasing case counts and relatively contained outbreaks.
While the county has among the highest COVID-19 vaccination rates in California, our Mexican neighbors have watched their response stumble, logging the third highest COVID-19 death tally of any country in the world. As we contemplate increased transborder mobility, it will be critical to consider strategies that address our unique binational community. The U.S. has already bought or contracted to buy enough doses of the coronavirus vaccine to protect 750 million people, more than three times the number of American adults. It would be mutually beneficial to share this bounty with our neighbors. It is impossible to separate our fates as none of us are safe until all are safe.
Trust the science, not the scientist.
Many confuse science with a scientist’s opinion, but in actuality, science is a process — endlessly critical of itself, iterative, demanding empirical evidence to support claims. The science behind wearing masks to decrease airborne transmission of SARS-CoV-2 took time to mature, but now there is no doubt that close indoor contact without masks is a risky activity for viral transmission. Likewise, treatments did not come as quickly as we would have liked, but there are now several highly effective drugs targeted to different stages and aspects of the disease. If diagnosed and treated early, death from COVID-19 could be a rare event — even in high-risk individuals — if all had access to these treatments. And ultimately, it was the extraordinary scientific process that supported the rapid development and massive safety and efficacy testing and rollout of vaccines, which now lead us out of this pandemic.
