Oct. 29, 2021
Dear Members of the Baylor College of Medicine Community.
As I continue to work on my 5-point plan for living with COVID-19, I think we should all prepare for that to happen. And, we should all become experts on making our own risk assessment. Fortunately, there are some great resources out there to help with this and I speak about those in this week’s video.
Worldwide, Italy continues to do well, the UK is a mess and Russia is going to enact an everyone stay-at-home week because of the high number of deaths there. In The United States, the southeast is beginning to look much better; unfortunately, it is because more people got the virus and more died from the virus. The U.S. numbers are coming down, but at a slower pace than the last phase.
Along with new studies out on boosters and a closer look at the numbers, I also review the difference between an endemic disease, epidemic disease and pandemic. I’m beginning to be optimistic that we will be out of the pandemic soon and that COVID will become an endemic disease. Of course, if the virus mutates it will have a huge impact on whether the virus remains a pandemic or becomes endemic. If it becomes endemic, we are likely to see seasonal variations as we do with the flu.
I hope you have a safe and enjoyable weekend. Go Astros!
Paul Klotman, M.D.
President & CEO
Executive Dean
