Dear Readers,
This year will be a very special Christmas. The basic requirements were given by a pandemic, with an impact not seen since 1918.
In our blog post on December 7, 2020, we had warned that with a Christmas as usual, there will be no way around triage in hospitals, if peoples’ behavior does not change. Today, reality has outpaced our prediction. There are already now hospitals that apply triage with their ICU patients. This is a dramatic development! Every one of you, who is not heeding the advice of taking precautions, is responsible for this.
The holidays have not even begun, and yet infection numbers are exploding. The pretty weakly enhanced so-called “lockdown” will not make any difference. Where are the big employers who offer paid leave to their employees to protect all people involved? You expect financial support by the taxpayers, while you are not willing to make your contribution? This way, there won’t be a reduction in infection numbers, unfortunately.
Should you want to celebrate Christmas as usual, we do have a little cartoon for you. It is describing the situation better than any words:
Medical personnel will have to work overtime, while you make sure there will be more COVID-19 cases entering the ICU daily. This is showing a severe lack of solidarity.
That is all we want to say. It is in your hands.
This Blog will go into hiatus until mid-January. Maybe by that time the phase II/III vaccine trial results will have been published.
Until then, stay mindful, celebrate with care, and get started in the New Year at good health.
We want to thank our co-operation partners for a pleasant and fruitful collaboration. We say thank you to all those who are taking care of each other, who are acting responsibly, who are applying the protective measures, and who are showing solidarity. We thank our readers who pick up information in our posts, and even better, who do apply the hints given. We also thank for the spreading of our blog and its contents. Thank you to all our colleagues, and thanks to the media, who are picking up the contents. A big thank you is going to our chancellor Dr. Angela Merkel, who is tirelessly working on a way to lead the country through this pandemic, to the head of the chancellor’s office Dr. Helge Braun, our Minister for Health Jens Spahn, and to our president Dr. Frank-Walter Steinmeier.
Thanks to all, who fought for a strict and disciplined course to protect the population. In such a pandemic, this is the only way to go, as we are realizing now. All other options and compromises failed. Unfortunately, the state governors were a disappointment. We hope there was a teaching effect, since this pandemic will go on in 2021 – irrespective of the hope for the vaccines’ effects. We hope 2021 will not see a repetition of 2020’s mistakes.
Make a cool-down, relax until January, now is the time for that. We can’t change it: The pandemic’s dynamic is dictated by individual behavior that is facilitating viral spread.
Remember: One single family member who is making an exception, not obeying the contact reductions, is putting all others in danger, as well as all his/her contacts over the following 14 days. We do not have any sympathy for the dear son or daughter, who wants to get special treatment.
We wish you all a
Merry, festive, and reflective Christmas time or Holiday Season
and a Happy and Healthy New Year!
Most of all, we want to send heartfelt greetings to our colleagues and friends in the US and the UK.
Hang in there!
Yours, Sabine and Jörg
SAJO is consulting all around infectious diseases. We are applying our know-how, that we have acquired in more than 20 years. We do what we can to fight this pandemic.
SAJO – for a healthy world and better future!
A heartfelt thanks to Oliver Hoogvliet for the awesome cartoon, ollihoo (https://hoogvliet.de), and to Michel Kitenge for the great photographs (https://mkpoint.de/).
To our delight our blog is receiving a lot of acceptance, we love to share our knowledge. Single posts and contents are being adopted by others, also in media. We have learned how to correctly make a citation; this we would wish from others in return as well. Please feel free to share the link – it is an informative tool to fight this pandemic.
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