Right. I have that experience clinically, constantly, where I tell my patients, you must do X, Y, and Z, take your medication every day and wash your hands constantly or whatever. This person has their own agency as an individual, so I have to arm them with the knowledge that they need to make that decision.
There are different ways to go about this, and I think what I’ve learned to become very comfortable with is that we have to understand we don’t know the future, but we know what the possibilities are. We know the possibility is that with this increase in cases, we’re going to have more hospitalizations and we have to be ready for it.It doesn’t mean that we don’t do things to try to stem it. I have lots of patients who will send me messages saying, “I’m going to go do this thing.
If you could advocate for the mayor to do one or two things right now to address the spread of COVID, do you know what you’d tell him?Perhaps he could try doing something like a lot of what my colleagues and I do. What we do is try to tell people of a range of things that they can do to reduce their risk. I consider that a harm reduction policy: Here are things you can do to reduce your risk of getting COVID.
But you said vaccines WOULD prevent illness and the spread of illness.