Summer vacation 2020?

Olga's home made Salmon and potato Ukrainian Soup

When one of my staff asked me about whether we would take our regular summer vacation in August, I stared back in disbelief. After all we had been closed for almost three months an had recently reopened. After my initial shock wore off I was able to give this question more serious consideration. Since our practice numbers were clearly down (30-40% below our normal numbers) we actually could take tbe last week in August off. Clearly all our patients could be seen in the first three weeks of that month. Many of our patients were at least temporarily residing out of the city and were not as keen about coming to the office for regular care.

After only a few minutes of this contemplation I assembled my staff and suggested we could close the last week in August for some time off this summer.  Seeing as we all are seeking a little normalcy in these uncertain times, a weeks summer vacation might be a good moral booster for my team. This year would likely be a staycation for them, but all would welcome a short break. Since our reopening in the beginning of June , we had pulled together, made the necessary changes to our protocols and were treating our patients four days per week, The end of August is traditionally our slowest week of the year and closing down then made the most sense to me.

We will reopen August 31 rst and may not have another break until the last week in December.  At the moment NYC's infectivity rate is less than one percent and New Yorkers have figured out how to wear their masks properly. Those who haven't or refuse  to are likely to already have been exposed to the virus and  have recovered .

I have stayed at home for my vacation, preparing delicious meals and streaming Netflix.  I have had ample time for contemplation about NYC and the pandemic and I have come to the conclusion that we may have achieved a form of herd immunity, since either people are maintaining social distancing and wearing masks or they have probably already contracted the virus, so effectively our risk for currently getting infected is lower than most parts of the country. If we can keep this up until a effective vaccine is tested and generally available, the worst may be over.

That being said, with the public schools contemplating re-opening and more businesses likely to be encouraging workers to return to their offices, this is not a forgone conclusion. The late fall usually brings an increase in influenza cases and the same may be true for the corona virus as colder weather arrives and people are more likely to stay inside with windows closed. No one really knows things will be like several months from now, but why not keep our fingers crossed and our masks on correctly.

from Ask Dr. Spindel - http://lspindelnycdds.blogspot.com/2020/08/summer-vacation-2020.html - http://lspindelnycdds.blogspot.com/