Thread by @McDevonMD

A COVID story, with permission:

A healthy healthcare professional friend in her 30s (vaccinated x 3) successfully avoided COVID for two years by taking sensible precautions within her control, assisted by sensible collective protections in place for much of this period.

That all changed on March 21st with the removal of mask mandates in schools and other protections in Ontario.

Within two weeks, one of her young children (vaccinated x 2) was infected with SARS-CoV-2 and brought it home, infecting the whole family including her husband (vaccinated x 3) and two other children not yet eligible for vaccination.

She learned after the fact there had been cases in her child’s class but she had not been notified. Her child was literally the only one in her class still wearing a mask.

Only ~1/3 of 5-11yo Ontario children have received two vaccine doses - a result of the complete failure of officials to communicate their value.

Choosing not to wear a mask and remaining unvaccinated are not self-regarding risks. @DFisman

https://twitter.com/EricTopol/status/1518759865224613888

Her child, though she had courageously continued to mask among maskless classmates, was distraught with guilt and frequently woke in the night expressing concern that one or more of her parents or siblings could die as a result of their illness and it would be “her fault.”

No doubt wonderful for her mental health, poor thing.

Thankfully, with the exception of losing her sense of taste and smell, my friend and her family all experienced their initial SARS-CoV-2 infection as a flu-like illness.

“Mild.”

That’s the end of the story, right?

Wrong.

Two weeks later she began to experience right lower quadrant abdominal pain etc, and presented to hospital with appendicitis. By the time they were able to take her to the OR, her appendix had ruptured.

There is an association of SARS-CoV-2 with appendicitis.

Required urgent surgery. So mild.
journals.lww.com/pidj/fulltext/…
bmcinfectdis.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.11…

Then, within a few weeks of her COVID illness and one week after surgery she began to experience pleuritic chest pain, shortness of breath and lightheadedness and returned to the ED where she was diagnosed with a pulmonary embolus.

While estimates vary widely, PE carries a mortality measured in whole number percentage points. Higher if unrecognized/untreated; lower if treated.

Mild again, right?

She’ll be on blood thinners for 3 months as a result.
bmj.com/content/377/bm…

Of course, little of this COVID cascade will be reflected in official metrics. Her and her family members’ diagnoses were by RAT. None of her family members were hospitalized, admitted to ICU, or died with their initial COVID illness.

Only hospitalization for/with COVID is being tracked, so subsequent visits to hospital are unlikely to be attributed to COVID, though they are almost certainly related. Loss of her professional services/income. Cost of treatment. Absence from school. Mental health impacts. Etc.

It all began with the shocking abdication of responsibility by multiple leaders and institutions entrusted with a duty to protect the population via collective action under precisely these circumstances.

https://twitter.com/JacobShelley/status/1519386140436008962

Please end this madness and reinstitute mask mandates and other protections yesterday.

https://twitter.com/DickZoutman/status/1521175610734911491