Over and over again as a primary care physician in Miami, while we are in the midst of the COV-ID 19 crisis, tell me if you are not struck in Miami by how all encompassing this crisis is for you, your family and your patients. Tell me that it doesn’t effect every aspect of living life in Miami for our patient and their daily activities. Physically the COV-ID 19 crisis has the ability to threaten their life in Miami and I don’t know about you but many of my patients are afraid they might die if they get the COV-ID 19 in Miami. Mentally it is threatening their emotional well-being in Miami because they are running across people in their everyday life who are not wearing masks and they believe the likelihood of catching COV-ID 19 in Miami is easy from others without masks. This fear of Miami leads to isolation, where our patients self-quarantine which results in high anxiety, depression and loneliness in Miami. Now add to this COV-ID 19 crisis mandated shutdowns and our patients, many of them, are being laid off or their ours shortened and now we have economic issues living in Miami. It is so very clear that our Miami patients are being asked to deal with the COV-ID 19 crisis on an economic level, emotional level and our job as doctors is to deal with their health issues, which we can do and are doing in Miami.
There are several questions that I am asked frequently in Miami and I’m sure you are asked as well, “When will the COV-ID 19 crisis be over? Is this strain of COV-ID 19 resistant to treatment?” The only honest answer that we can answer our Miami patients is that we do not know when it will end, but there is a 99.999999% chance that it will end in a manner that will allow us to go back to a way of life without fearing the people we see on the sidewalks of Miami will be carrying a virus that can kill us. Every virus that we have ever dealt with in Miami has been successfully dealt with in the past. I see a bright ending in the future.