JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Sunday, July 27, 2025

Daily decisions about risk in a Pandemic

by

1539 days ago
20210511

Health Plus Med­ical Cor­re­spon­dent

MYTH: COVID-19 is just a nor­mal virus.

TRUTH: COVID-19 now has five vari­ants in less than 18 months of emer­gence.

Let’s face it: there’s a de­bil­i­tat­ing virus out there and it’s not go­ing away any­time soon. And that means we all must make a lot of de­ci­sions that in­volve per­son­al risk. And for many of these dai­ly de­ci­sions, there is no sin­gle right an­swer. While we take guid­ance from Cen­ters for Dis­ease Con­trol (CDC), World Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion rec­om­men­da­tions, or ex­pert ad­vice from Health­care pro­fes­sion­als, it ALL comes down to our per­son­al abil­i­ty to as­sess our RISKS.

Is it safe to go to the gro­cery store? And, how of­ten is okay?

How safe is it to use a pub­lic bath­room? Get a hair­cut?

Should I avoid a friend whose son/daugh­ter works some­place where some­one test­ed pos­i­tive?

Health Plus want­ed to en­able you to make the best de­ci­sion for the safe­ty and well­be­ing of you and your fam­i­ly.

We al­ready cal­cu­late risks every day

We al­ready must make dai­ly de­ci­sions about what is safe or less safe, and how much risk we’re will­ing to ac­cept. Each time we de­cide to dri­ve, or take pub­lic trans­port, or vis­it a rel­a­tive, we make judge­ments about our safe­ty with or with­out pre­cise da­ta, spe­cif­ic guide­lines, or ex­pert ad­vice for our sit­u­a­tion.

A new CDC guide­line on ven­tur­ing out shares ways to lessen risk for cer­tain ac­tiv­i­ties: fre­quent hand­wash­ing, wear­ing a mask, keep­ing your dis­tance, and oth­er fa­mil­iar pro­tec­tive mea­sures fea­ture promi­nent­ly. While help­ful, the guide­line will not tell you whether it’s okay to vis­it your cousin, dri­ve to a favourite hik­ing spot, or en­gage in phys­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty with­in your “Bub­ble”.

But each of us must make our own de­ci­sions about all of the things in the mid­dle — in­clud­ing ac­tiv­i­ties with­in our Bub­ble and it stems in un­der­stand­ing this

FACT: My be­hav­iour af­fects not on­ly my health but may af­fect the health of oth­ers. And the be­hav­iour of oth­ers can af­fect me.

Based on du­ra­tion of ex­po­sure, set­ting, and “dose” (the amount of virus to which you’re ex­posed), we do know that some ac­tiv­i­ties are riski­er than oth­ers. Spend­ing 15 min­utes or more in a small room with some­one who is cough­ing while nei­ther of you wears a mask is con­sid­ered high-risk. Go­ing for a walk out­doors, with per­sons all prop­er­ly masked and main­tain­ing phys­i­cal dis­tanc­ing, is low risk.

Then there are the VARI­ANTS: what we know

Virus­es con­stant­ly change through mu­ta­tion, and new vari­ants of a virus are ex­pect­ed to oc­cur over time. Some­times new vari­ants emerge and dis­ap­pear. Oth­er times, new vari­ants emerge and per­sist. Mul­ti­ple vari­ants of the virus that caus­es COVID-19 have been doc­u­ment­ed in the Unit­ed States and glob­al­ly dur­ing this pan­dem­ic.

In col­lab­o­ra­tion with a SARS-CoV-2 In­ter­a­gency Group (SIG), CDC es­tab­lished three clas­si­fi­ca­tions for the SARS-CoV-2 vari­ants be­ing mon­i­tored: Vari­ant of In­ter­est (VOI), Vari­ant of Con­cern (VOC), and Vari­ant of High Con­se­quence (VO­HC).

There are cur­rent­ly five VOCs doc­u­ment­ed:

P.1: This vari­ant was first de­tect­ed in the US in Jan­u­ary 2021. P.1 was ini­tial­ly iden­ti­fied in trav­ellers from Brazil, who were test­ed dur­ing rou­tine screen­ing at an air­port in Japan in ear­ly Jan­u­ary.

This is the vari­ant we are aware of cur­rent­ly in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

B.1.1.7: This vari­ant was first iden­ti­fied in the US in De­cem­ber 2020. It was ini­tial­ly de­tect­ed in the UK.

B.1.351: This vari­ant was first iden­ti­fied in the US at the end of Jan­u­ary 2021. It was ini­tial­ly de­tect­ed in South Africa in De­cem­ber 2020.

B.1.427 and B.1.429: These two vari­ants were first iden­ti­fied in Cal­i­for­nia in Feb­ru­ary 2021 and were clas­si­fied as VOCs in March 2021.

These vari­ants seem to spread more eas­i­ly and quick­ly than oth­er vari­ants, which may lead to more cas­es of COVID-19. An in­crease in the num­ber of cas­es will put more strain on health care re­sources, lead to more hos­pi­tal­iza­tions, and po­ten­tial­ly more deaths. So far, stud­ies sug­gest that an­ti­bod­ies gen­er­at­ed through vac­ci­na­tion with cur­rent­ly au­tho­rised vac­cines recog­nise these vari­ants. This is be­ing thor­ough­ly in­ves­ti­gat­ed and more stud­ies are un­der­way.

What we do not know

Sci­en­tists are work­ing to learn more about these vari­ants, and more stud­ies are need­ed to un­der­stand:

- How wide­ly these new vari­ants have spread

- How the dis­ease caused by these new vari­ants dif­fers from the dis­ease caused by oth­er vari­ants that are cur­rent­ly cir­cu­lat­ing

- How these vari­ants may af­fect ex­ist­ing ther­a­pies, vac­cines, and tests

Pub­lic health ex­perts are study­ing these vari­ants quick­ly to learn more about how to con­trol their spread. They want to un­der­stand whether the vari­ants: Spread more eas­i­ly from per­son-to-per­son and/or cause milder or more se­vere dis­ease in peo­ple. How­ev­er, much more re­search is nec­es­sary to make in­formed de­ci­sions on these vari­ants and the risks at­tached.

How can you make de­ci­sions around per­son­al risk?

If you’re con­cerned about your safe­ty and well­be­ing, con­sid­er these three im­por­tant steps:

1. Think about your risk fac­tors for de­vel­op­ing a se­vere case of COVID-19; do the same for oth­ers with whom you will have con­tact.

2. Find out if com­mu­ni­ty spread is com­mon where you live, if the vari­ants are present.

3. Gauge how risky the ac­tiv­i­ty is.

Let’s take the ex­am­ple of us­ing a pub­lic bath­room. What’s the best way to use a pub­lic bath­room?

Giv­en the choice be­tween us­ing a pub­lic bath­room and do­ing any­thing else, some peo­ple will al­ways choose the lat­ter. That im­age is hard to shake even in nor­mal times, but COVID-19 has done noth­ing to make pub­lic bath­rooms more ap­peal­ing, as they come with high-touch sur­faces and of­ten lid­less toi­lets. Es­sen­tial­ly, they are “hotbeds of in­fec­tion.” Re­gard­less of the ur­gency or how­ev­er pris­tine it’s re­port­ed to be, the space comes with an ick fac­tor es­pe­cial­ly with­in a pan­dem­ic.

The fun­da­men­tal steps are: Put a mask on be­fore you en­ter. Wash your hands im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter. You can al­so wear glass­es to pro­tect your eyes. There are a num­ber of high-touch sur­faces, and the virus, along with bac­te­ria, can ex­ist on them. It’s good to min­imise con­tact by us­ing your foot or toi­let pa­per when lift­ing, turn­ing, or pulling any­thing.

Con­tact be­fore go­ing to the bath­room isn’t as im­por­tant, since you’ll be wash­ing your hands, but even if you touch a sur­face, the virus won’t go through your skin. The main thing is to not touch your face, specif­i­cal­ly your mouth, nose, or eyes, be­fore wash­ing. And be­fore you leave, use your foot, el­bow (if pos­si­ble), or a pa­per tow­el to open the door, and once out­side, spray your hands with a san­i­tiz­er. No­tice at each point, you found your­self as­sess­ing the RISK.

Be Mind­ful of your Risk

We will all have to con­tin­ue to make chal­leng­ing de­ci­sions each day about how to be­have in this pan­dem­ic, un­til far more peo­ple are im­mune due to in­fec­tion or a vac­cine, or un­til we have ef­fec­tive treat­ments. And that could be many months or even years away.

Think about your de­ci­sions and how they may af­fect you and oth­ers. Try to be rea­son­able, con­sis­tent, but flex­i­ble in con­sid­er­ing new in­for­ma­tion. Talk about your plans with those with whom you are shar­ing space. When there is no right an­swer and our de­ci­sions may af­fect each oth­er, it’s es­pe­cial­ly im­por­tant to un­der­stand oth­ers’ per­spec­tives.


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored