Day before yesterday one 19-year-old Egyptian girl came with her mother. She was suffering from fever, cold, cough with phlegm, throat pain, mild shortness of breath, headache, mild upper abdominal pain and 2 episodes of vomiting from the last 2 days. She was a student. Her vitals were within normal limits except for the throat congestion and mild upper abdominal tenderness. Following the history and physical assessment, when I asked her if she wanted to do the COVID19 test, her mother’s eyes became larger. Looked like she just fell from the sky and with a disbelieving face asked me, “Doc! She (daughter) has taken two doses of Pfizer”.
It appeared that she believed that with two doses of Pfizer vaccines her daughter was protected from coronavirus infection. I tried to explain to them the actual scenario.
Yesterday morning one Omani family came to me. The mother and two of her daughters (most probably). One of the daughters brought two of her sons to the child specialist as well. All of them had the features of upper respiratory tract infections i.e. cold, cough, fever, throat pain, body pain etc. The mother and one daughter consulted first. They didn’t want to do the test for COVID19. Another daughter came to me after consulting her two sons with the child specialist. She was having similar symptoms. When I asked her if she wanted to do the COVID test, she told me, “Tabib! Shem, tum adi” (Doc! My smell and taste sensation are normal).
She believed that she would only get COVID when she would lose her smell and taste. Fever, cold and cough were not sufficient for doing the COVID test.
These two are among the many stories we are experiencing every day. Many people are out there who don't have the proper knowledge about the pandemic, even though we are in this for 2 years! We need to circulate the necessary authentic information among the people surrounding us.
The End
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