Eyeworld

32 | EYEWORLD | APRIL 2020 COVID-19 NEWS YOU CAN USE ASCRS NEWS surgeon survive and recover from this pandem- ic personally, professionally, and financially. Let's all pull together and remember this as one of our finer moments. Watching COVID-19 dev- astate lives across the globe has been beyond shocking. Under the most re- stricted quarantines in China, the disease spread required 3 months to control. In contrast, before our eyes, we are wit- ness to more than 600 people dying daily in Italy due to the height- ened peak in the disease spread curve from delayed quarantining. We can learn so much from these dichotomous disease spread curves. We are living and learning from all that contin- ues to unfold. It is so important for each of us to individually and collectively self-quarantine as much as possible for all non-essential needs. It is a very ambiguous time for us as medical professionals and business owners. We are dy- namically figuring out how to best care for our more acute patients within our four walls and from the community. Each medical practice has tens to hundreds of employees who we are also responsible for taking care of. The burden of those mouths we have to feed is a heavy one in this reality, and there is no easy answer on how to handle this conundrum. I continue to strug- gle with the realities of our foreseeable future. As a pragmatist, I think we need our national and state executive leaders to enforce stringent quarantines in order to flatten the curve of and control the duration of the disease spread. We are living in unprecedented times. I'm anxious- ly look forward to getting back to the normal swing of things, although it will undoubtedly reset to a different daily norm. ill enough to require hospitalization. In most cases, COVID-19 is no different than a mild case of the flu and can be managed at home. We can infect others for 3–6 days before we are symptomatic and for 6–12 days during the illness until our immune system locks it down. If while at home an individual develops pneu- monitis with respiratory distress and persistent fever, it is time for a trip to the emergency room, with probable hospitalization. Otherwise, everyone, including the infected individual, is best just staying home and quarantining them- selves for 14 days. The skill of "social distancing" is foreign to most cultures and hard to enforce in a democ- racy, but some U.S. states and communities are managing well and others poorly. This will be a topic of intense study over the next few years, and we have much to learn. Frequent hand washing, mask wearing in public, getting the routine influenza vaccine, and perhaps nutritional supplementation with vitamins C, D, and zinc, which appear capable of enhancing the immune system, are avail- able to all. Other prescription medications are being investigated, but at this time, I for one am saving precious masks, hydroxychloroquine, and respirators for those truly sick, as we are not prepared for this pandemic, and there is a shortage of all three. In the future, it will likely be wise for us all to have some N95 masks at home for our family, and if proven in prospective studies, a bottle of hydroxychloroquine on the shelf. It is hoped we will soon have a vaccine, but just like adenovirus-induced influenza, coronavirus will do its best to mutate every year and could be a challenge again as early as the winter/spring season of 2020–21. For the ophthalmologist in the office seeing a patient with acute conjunctivitis, coronavirus can be considered much like adenovirus-in- duced pharyngoconjunctival fever (PCF), but with an RNA virus rather than the DNA adeno- virus 8, 19, and 37. Read up on the diagnosis and management of PCF, and remember it is extremely contagious, so protect yourself like you would when seeing a case of epidemic kera- toconjunctivitis (EKC). ASCRS, while itself significantly stressed, will be working overtime to help the ophthalmic continued from page 30 Elizabeth Yeu, MD Incoming Secretary

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