A trip to put Covid-19 in perspective CLINICAL MATTERS I am writing this column on a train just like the one last week, but this time toward the end of our journey on the way from Seward to Anchorage, Alaska. It is 10 p.m. at night, and daylight is still strong. In this part of the world, the sun...
Reviewing quarantine, isolation, and why these are still important CLINICAL MATTERS After a very quiet few months following the Omicron wave in January, cases are once again on the rise. Many of us were expecting thousands of cases shortly after elections but this never materialized. Indeed, WHO...
A new way of looking at Covid CLINICAL MATTERS Some media outfits and doomsayers continue to bandy the rising Covid-19 numbers and positivity rates in a way that tends to scare people into a panic. Alarmist headlines and overblown pronouncements of alleged impending lockdowns do not help. Covid-19...
How did candidates use the Covid pandemic in their discussions? CLINICAL MATTERS With an apparent landslide victory for former Senator Bongbong Marcos for president, the post-mortems have begun. One of the most important issues during the campaign was the pandemic and whether the Philippines did...
The men and women of science supporting the Philippine pandemic response CLINICAL MATTERS On April 29, 2022, the Department of Health (DOH) held a recognition program for the DOH All Health Experts with the theme: “Looking Back, Marching Forward: DOH All Health Experts Convening from Covid-19 to...
Here are some reminders CLINICAL MATTERS With only one week left until the May 9 election, campaigns are in overdrive with their final pushes and rallies. While candidates look favorably upon huge crowds of people coming out to support them, healthcare workers look on in horror as people are packed...
CLINICAL MATTERS Last week I wrote about my first international trip in two years and the truly incredible experience of attending TED 2022 in Vancouver, Canada. Many readers asked me to expound on the TED conference and the fellowship I received. They also wanted to know the details of the return...
What to expect for long-haul flights CLINICAL MATTERS On April 7, 2022, I took a long-delayed trip to Vancouver, Canada as my first international trip in two years. The trip had originally been scheduled in 2020 when I received a senior fellowship at TED. Most people are familiar with TED Talks but...
Understanding XD, XE and XF CLINICAL MATTERS There has been a recent flurry of news articles on the latest twist in the Covid-19 saga—recombinant SARS-CoV-2 viruses. XD and XF, both recombinants of Omicron and Delta, have been unceremoniously dubbed “Deltacron” by the media. XE, a recombinant...
Are yearly shots in the works? CLINICAL MATTERS Do you need a fourth shot? When should you get one? What about a fifth shot? Is this going to be a yearly thing? The resurgence of Covid-19 as a result of breakthrough infections by the variants of concern has tempered expectations on the ability of...
Are we endemic yet? CLINICAL MATTERS Six hundred thousand new Covid-19 cases in one day in South Korea! Nearly 300,000 in Germany! Almost 200,000 in Vietnam! These numbers almost sound made up. Unimaginable. While many people were apoplectic at the nearly 39,000 cases we had in January 2022, the...
Variant Alphabet Soup: Deltacron redux, AY.4/BA.1, BA.2.2 nightmare in Hong Kong, and the truth about BA.2.3 CLINICAL MATTER Deltacron! As if Delta or Omicron wasn’t bad enough on its own, this hodge-podge of a virus is now a thing. Or is it? The initial report of a “Deltacron” virus came...
