Podcast features Dr. Gopal Chandrasekharan
Bartlesville pediatrician Dr. Gopal Chandrasekharan talked recently with local podcaster Scott Townsend of The Scott Townsend Show on steps we can all take to help reduce the spread of COVID-19. Townsend serves on City’s COVID-19 Public Information Campaign Advisory Committee. You can listen to this podcast in its entirety here.
Why is “Watching Your Distance” an integral part of defeating the COVID virus?
It’s pretty established science now that six feet tends to be a good distance to keep because of droplets that can be spread through sneezing, speaking and talking. It’s also important to know that there’s been some debate regarding how airborne this virus is, and I think the scientific community is being more and more settled on, okay, this is more airborne than we expected. And by that, we mean there are two different types of droplets — one that you spray onto people right then and there, and then another type that is a little bit lighter of a particle, lighter spit particles that can stay airborne and can kind of stay hung in the air and that can also contaminate the airspace that people can be spending time in.
Are we at the finish line?
No, no, absolutely not. Scott, I want your listeners to understand that we doctors and nurses are also humans; we’re just trying our best to make sure that we can also see our friends and family. We don’t want to wear the masks and walk around like this. This is not something that we enjoy doing, either. We’re doing this for the public health for the common good. I think vaccines have become a very good bright spot to hold on to. At least we have that now. However, as everybody knows by now, I think that’s only been deployed to the healthcare personnel at this point. I think CDC came out yesterday with some guidelines on who the next people are who should get it, which will be essential workers, and also people above age of 75, I believe. But that’s going to take months, and there are different countries, for example, India, I think, (that) may not even be able to vaccinate its entire population until 2024. So, I’m not saying that we have to stay depressed that long, but certainly we’re not at the endpoint at all. And before we can get to that bright spot, these next three months are going to be excruciating. It will be a pretty crucial part of the pandemic.
So it’s really important that we all pull together on this. It may be a big, long push.
Absolutely. I think this winter is going to be very poignant.
What’s the thing that you’re most concerned with now?
Pandemic fatigue. That goes without saying, I think — all of us doctors included. I’m sure Dr. (Anthony) Fauci is also pretty fatigued. Everybody’s tired of this, for sure. I think it’s only human that we feel that way. But we are human; what I mean is that we’re different from animals as far as we can watch out for each other and use thought and intellect and empathy that we’ve been given by God or nature, whatever you believe in, to pull together and to do this. And I think people are getting tired of the whole, ‘Wear Your Masks, Wash Your Hands, and Watch Your Distance.’ But it just becomes even more important. The healthcare sector has repeatedly (advised people) to not have Christmas holiday parties and Christmas gatherings. And it’s tough. It’s very hard. It’s been one of those more excruciating pieces of advice that I’ve had to give in my career so far. But that is my job. And that is our job, to make sure that you guys get the best advice and best guidance from us.
As tough as it is, if we all pulled together and really made a hard push here, we could really see the end of this sooner than later. But if we keep fooling around with it and some are doing these things while some aren’t, this could go on for along time.
Absolutely. It’s going to go on for a long time. And, again to that point, yeah, we have the vaccine, but we also now have a new strain of a mutated coronavirus that has come out of Britain. Different countries are struggling to try to contain it so it doesn’t (spread) to the entire world. The point is that we can get the vaccines but until that vaccine has been safely distributed to everybody, to the entire populace, (spread of the virus will continue.) Scientists have said so far what they’ve been able to establish is that this is no more lethal than the current virus we all know about. But it is more contagious. So, essentially, it’s going to spread faster. The main things that we know we can do now for sure is Wash Your Hands, Watch Your Distance and Wear Your Mask, and no matter how content or how mutated the viruses are, how bad it gets, if you just stick with the basics, it should work.
Dr. Gopal Chandrasekharan has been a board-certified pediatrician in Bartlesville since 2015.