My blog represents my personal experiences and perspectives. This includes many anecdotes from my medical practice. I have been scrupulous to anonymize these anecdotes and to avoid ever belittling or making fun of patients. (I often make fun of and criticize myself, my colleagues, and the institutions where I have worked.)

Covid and RAT testing: Timing is everything!

PeterElias
14 Dec 2022

A friend recently shared online that he was at Day Seven of a flu that had been ‘kicking my butt all week’. With fever, sweats, cough, fatigue, muscle aches. He’s a smart and responsible guy and had RAT-tested himself twice at the onset of his symptoms and assumed because his two RATs were negative and his symptoms were consistent with Influenza A which was known to be present in his areas, it meant it he didn’t have Covid.

I suggested he retest himself (the explanation is below) and he reported a definite and nearly immediate positive:

 

Picking a candidate

admin
20 Feb 2022
Picking a candidate is like using public transportation.
 
You aren't waiting for something perfect. You are waiting for a bus. You don't refuse to get on because it it isn't a chauffeured limousine that takes you right to the front door of your destination at exactly the right time. You take the bus that gets you closest. Otherwise, you never go anywhere.
 

 

Using the CRAP test

admin
28 Apr 2021
I spend a great deal of time these days keeping up with the tsunami of information about SARS-CoV-2 (the virus) and COVID-19 (the illness), with a goal of sharing valid and useful information with others. I've taken to suggesting that people identify crap with the CRAP test:
 
Currency - the timeliness of the information:
● When was the information published or last updated?
● Have newer articles been published on your topic?

Humility

admin
9 Mar 2021
"A man is like a fraction whose numerator is what he is and whose denominator is what he thinks of himself. The larger the denominator the smaller the fraction." 
 
~ Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy (1828-1910) quote in Howard Eves, Return to Mathematical Circles

Responding to the 'but 99% survive' argument

admin
3 Feb 2021
Among the many candidates for arguments against taking action to protect our families, friends, colleagues, neighbors, communities and country from COVID, none make me angrier than the "but 99% survive" gambit. This argument is numerically illiterate (Mark Twain said “It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so”), racist, ableist, and inhumane. Let me explain.
 
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