Author Archives: ceopate

How a viral illness impacts a population will be influenced by the behavior of the virus and the behavior of the people. Background What we are seeing today is a consequence of our failure to aggressively decrease the transmission of the virus. The SARS-CoV-2 virus, which causes COVID, is an RNA virus, as opposed toContinue reading “Understanding What is Going on with COVID and a Guide to Making Decisions for Parents, Teachers, and School Board Members”

Thank you for reading this. First of all, I want you to know that I understand your confusion, your fear and your reservations about the vaccines. This is complicated stuff and unfortunately, there are people who are intentionally trying to mislead people and others who are not intending to pass along false information, but doingContinue reading “A Note to Those who are Confused, Afraid or just Uncertain about Whether to Get the COVID Vaccine”

With apologies to William Shakespeare for adapting a line from Hamlet to current day questions of great importance, I thought that I would address one of the most common questions I get about COVID. That question comes from those who know or believe that they previously had COVID as to whether they should get vaccinated.Continue reading “Post-COVID: To Vaccinate or Not to Vaccinate? That is the Question.”

I have previously posted a number of blog pieces on the legal challenges to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (commonly referred to as the Affordable Care Act) since its enactment in March of 2010. To understand the basis for the latest challenge to the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act (“ACA”), one needsContinue reading “The Affordable Care Act Survives Another Challenge in the U.S. Supreme Court”

A number of hospitals and health systems have announced that their employees will be required to be vaccinated against COVID. Among the first to make this requirement was Houston Methodist, a large and well-respected health system in Houston, Texas. A group of employees facing loss of their jobs sued Houston Methodist making a number ofContinue reading “Can A Hospital Require Its Employees to Be Vaccinated Against COVID?”

One of my Twitter followers asked me for my reaction to the CDC’s welcome, though surprising to many of us, new guidance that fully vaccinated individuals need no longer wear masks in most settings. At the time of the tweet, I was still trying to determine what led the CDC to take this step muchContinue reading “Thoughts on the New CDC Guidance”

For the past two months, I have been warning of a likely 4th surge of coronavirus cases in Idaho, likely to occur by late March or sometime in April. I have been pleading with our local school districts not to bring back more students to school than can be successfully distanced given the CDC’s predictionContinue reading “It Will Get Worse Before It Gets Better”

Dr. Marty Makary is a brilliant physician and communicator. I am a fan. However, he just wrote an Opinion piece for the Wall Street Journal entitled, “We’ll Have Herd Immunity by April.” He could not be more mistaken. He points to the significant decline in cases, his projection that 55 percent of Americans have naturalContinue reading “No, We will not have Herd Immunity by April”

Should I get the vaccine? For most people, the answer is yes. For this first vaccine, you will have to be at least 16 years of age. Those who have had severe allergic reactions (e.g., anaphylaxis) to any components of this vaccine in the past will not be eligible to receive the vaccine. We don’tContinue reading “Commonly Asked Questions about the New (Pfizer) COVID Vaccine”

As we approach the Thanksgiving holiday, people long to get together with extended family, and surveys indicate that more than half of all Americans plan to travel for this Thanksgiving. However, we are also seeing record numbers of COVID cases, hospitalizations and deaths. Given this uncontrolled disease transmission throughout most of the United States, theContinue reading “How to Have a Virtual Thanksgiving”