Putting People Over Profits: Ending the COVID-19 Emergency Order and the Impact on BIPOC Communities with Ryan Hassan, MD, MPH
On May 11 2023, the United States government plans to end the national and public health COVID-19 emergency. Listen to a discussion with Ryan Hassan, MD, MPH, as he shares what that means for BIPOC communities.
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Ari O’Donovan
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For more details check out Dr. Hassan's latest blog post at https://bit.ly/3GDu7bU
Transcript:
Ari O'Donovan: (00:00)
Thank you so much for listening to boosting our Voices. This program has been brought to you by Boost, Oregon. You can find them online@boostoregon.org.
Ryan Hassan: (00:13)
I am not against anyone turning a profit for the good work they're doing at the same time. You know, it is unacceptable that in the United States we have people who can't afford life-saving medicine that could keep them from getting sick or dying or being in the hospital, or even being minorly inconvenienced by missing work or school. These are ways that we are just traumatizing people in our population on a regular basis with the stress of not knowing whether they will afford their medical care.
Ari O'Donovan: (00:46)
Welcome back y'all, to boosting our voices. As always, I'm your host Ira O'Donovan and Boost Oregon's Diversity Program Manager. Today we have a very special episode. Something's happening and we're going to find out what it is and what it means. I have a special guest for today's episode, Dr. Ryan Hassan, who is a pediatrician and boost Oregon's medical Director. Ryan, can you tell listeners a little bit about yourself?
Ryan Hassan: (01:15)
Hey. Hi, Erica, to be here again. I'm Dr. Ryan Hassan. I'm a pediatrician with Oregon Pediatrics, and I am the medical Director for Boost Oregon.
Ari O'Donovan: (01:22)
Awesome. So I guess we can get right into it. Ryan, can you tell us what the term emergency means in the context of the order and when it was first started?
Ryan Hassan: (01:36)
Yeah, essentially it allowed for, at that time, the Trump administration to make several policy changes without having to wait for Congressional approval to try and rapidly address the, the COVID pandemic. There were some good decisions made and some not good decisions made, um, as was the case with, uh, every country around the world and, and every state within the country, as we all try to figure out some with more zeal than others, how to prevent the disease from which at that time was, you know, had just begun spreading within the US or, or rather, we had just noticed it spreading within the us It probably already been spreading for several months, um, and we were trying to prevent it from getting worse and getting to the point of overwhelming our hospitals and leaving people to get sick with complications without access to medical care. We were very successful in some sense in minimizing harm that would've otherwise happened. But at the same time, there were a lot of ways we could have done better, and there were still instances across the country, uh, especially in hot zones like New York and other places along East Coast where hospitals did get quite overwhelmed and there was triaged, uh, and, uh, rationed medical care for PE at different points in the peaks of the pandemic.
Ari O'Donovan: (02:52)
I know that you described a lot of detail about that in our most recent blog post, putting people over profits. Now it's more than just iPOC communities in Oregon, in the United States, it extends all the way out to Bipo community members globally. So can you share a little bit of information about that? And I know that's a topic by itself, that could be a separate episode alone, , but I'd love to hear more details about how ending the emergency order it comes with more problems than people readily understand.
Ryan Hassan: (03:28)
Yeah, so one of the benefits of the, that the American people have been able to reap during the emergency is the fact that we have not had to pay for care for Covid or prevention of covid. Uh, we have all paid in a sense in that it's taxpayer dollars, government money that has funded the development of these lifesaving medicines and vaccines. And US government paid 10.6 billion in 2022 for Pfizer's Covid antiviral drug, PAX livid a hundred million to each of the three major vaccine manufacturers for the Covid vaccine. That is our money, but also, I mean, that led to the development of these medicines and vaccines and those have been provided to US citizens at no cost. I got my Covid vaccines for free, and people who need any, anyone who needs the vaccine has been able to get it for free. And anyone who has needed the new antiviral medicines like PAX Livid have been able to get that for free.
Ryan Hassan: (04:36)
So that is, I think, a huge deal that we don't often recognize how important it is because Paxil VD is a medicine that, so this is, it's an antiviral. You take it for five days and you have to take it within five days of getting sick and it reduces your risk of complications from covid. It, it helps you feel better and get better faster and reduces your risk of hospitalization. It looked like there was maybe an 80% reduced risk for being hospitalized if you received Paxil VD with the newer Omicron strains. It's not quite as effective, but it seems like it's at least 50% protective against hospitalization. So it's, it's very helpful. You know, in 2022 90% of Covid deaths in the US that was, that was uh, there were about 250, 260,000 just over a quarter million deaths. 90% of those were elderly people, people over 65.
Ryan Hassan: (05:35)
And those people who are most at risk are the ones who need this medicine the most. And many of them were able to get it for free. Once the emergency ends, the government is no longer going to be paying for US citizens to get these medicines and so that costs will go directly to us. We get sick and now we have to pay for the medicine just like other medicines we have to pay for. The cost of PAX Livid has been a $530 for a five day course, which is not cheap, but that's actually not what we're gonna be paying for them. Pfizers announced they expect to, uh, increase their price significantly more. They haven't told us how much, but they said it's gonna be a lot more expensive. They're gonna raise the price a lot once it becomes privatized and that is the price that Americans will have to pay.
Ryan Hassan: (06:28)
And for those, you know, 90% of deaths among seniors, seniors very largely depend on Medicare to get their medications covered. And Medicare is not gonna cover Paxil VD because it's only authorized by an emergency use authorization. So it may take months or even years before that medicine is covered by Medicare. So these people who are most likely to be hospitalized and die and suffer other complications from covid are also gonna be the least likely to have affordable access to this lifesaving medicine. So we are, we are really putting the people at highest risk at most disadvantage in the sense the administration has announced they are trying to find ways to expand coverage for people to be able to still be able to get these medicines and the vaccines at affordable prices or for free potential. But of course that plan hasn't been finalized. We don't really know what it's gonna look like if there will be a plan. And I'm sure there if there is, there will still probably be some holes in this in the process where people will fall through the cracks of,
Ari O'Donovan: (07:33)
That's so terrible to me. I mean $530 like that right there is a lot of money, but to increase it substantially beyond that and there are seniors that are on fixed incomes, I mean $500 based on someone's social security check too, that might be most of their check per month. That is insane.
Ryan Hassan: (07:59)
Yeah, I mean, you know, when you think about it, it's not really new, right? I mean this is the United States for-profit health system. Insulin is a classic example I talk about a lot. Nine millions Americans need insulin to manage their diabetes. Um, but it's, it's something that we don't provide to them. We don't guarantee to people, if you can't afford that medicine, you don't get it. And the cost of insulin has nearly tripled in the last 10 years and people commonly have to either skip doses or dilute their insulin in order to make it last or choose between paying for their lifesaving medicine or paying their bills or keeping food on the table. On a brighter note, it is good to hear that there has been talk recently that thanks to recent changes in legislation that are holding pharmaceutical companies more accountable, requiring them to pay back the government for excess costs of medications.
Ryan Hassan: (08:54)
Some of the major insulin manufacturers have announced they're gonna cut the cost of insulin that they're charging drastically by 70 to 80% so that in the coming year so that it will become more affordable for many people. But the fact that they are able to do that just kind of speaks to how overly priced the medicine was in the first place. This is what happens when there aren't any constraints on pharmaceutical companies ability to charge for the medicine they make. I am not against anyone turning a profit for the good work they're doing. At the same time, you know, it is unacceptable that in the United States we have people who can't afford lifesaving medicine that could keep them from getting sick or dying or being in the hospital or even being minorly inconvenienced by missing work or school. These are ways that we are just traumatizing people in our population on a regular basis with the stress of not knowing whether they will afford their medical care.
Ari O'Donovan: (09:53)
It's really crazy because it shows how people who are most vulnerable, like Bipo communities and their health were regarded when the pandemic was at its worst. You can really see clearly that there just wasn't enough care and consideration for Bipo communities. When we look at the ending of the moratorium and the increase in the price of Paxil vd, it's all related. There hasn't been an appropriate understanding, consideration or prioritization for bipo people and others. Overall quality of life treatment for covid 19 and disease prevention, it's so many points during this whole pandemic.
Ryan Hassan: (10:34)
It's something I see every day in my clinic when I'm talking with patients. There's so much that goes into every illness that I see that is just well beyond the control of me or my patients. You know, this is something that's pretty well understood in public health, but that the American psyche doesn't seem to really contend with well the notion that we're actually not in control of our health. You know, it's especially a prominent, I think, toxic idea among parents that, well, we can control our kiddos health, we can ensure that our children stay healthy, don't develop diseases, keep them from getting sick and nothing bad will ever happen to them. The same is true of just our ideas about wellness in general, that like, you know, if you get sick, if you develop a disease or some health risk factor, it's your fault and it, it's just patently not true.
Ryan Hassan: (11:25)
The reasons that we are getting sick are systemic issues that are well beyond the control of one person. You can't just decide, well I'm just gonna, you know, eat only organic foods and you know, bike to work every day and that'll protect me from getting sick. You can make better or worse health decisions certainly, but we're all constantly at the mercy of the, the structures in place that determine whether or not we have access to, to clean air, water, soil, healthy foods, reliable medications, affordable healthcare and housing. Um, so it's, I think it's an interesting idea that I would like more people to really contend with that. You know, there's, we, we can't be blaming ourselves and individuals and each other for some of the reasons that these health consequences are visit on us,
Ari O'Donovan: (12:16)
Right? I'd really love to see more people explore that more and really think of it as something that's true. And it's not all on you to decide how your health is gonna go. It's not all on you to decide if you're going to be healthy and free of controllable health problems and if you're gonna have a great quality of life from birth, some of that, a lot of that it's out of your hands.
Ryan Hassan: (12:43)
This thinking leads to she just shaming people, shaming ourselves and others for diseases and it's, it's part of why, you know, there was such a pushback against, you know, simple things like mask measures and recommendations and you know, people were getting upset about this. And the bottom line is it's just cuz the people at the end of the day started saying, well I don't wanna be minorly inconvenienced for someone else's problem. And there are some people who were very explicit about this, some influential, uh, politicians and and quote unquote health coaches. Um, and even physicians who would explicitly say just the worst things like, you know, should we all have to pay the price for someone else's poor life choices that led them to be overweight or to have diabetes or have these other health risk factors that make them more at risk for dying of covid.
Ryan Hassan: (13:40)
It's not healthy people dying of covid after all. And that is the kind of rhetoric, it's explicit in some places, but everywhere that there's been pushback against public health measures to combat covid and other public health diseases, it's implicit that people who are at risk for problems in their health have done it to themselves. They are, they're overweight because of their choices have high blood pressure because of their choices. They have lung disease because of their choices. Again, it's just, that's just not true and I think that idea really is something we need to try to contend with a little more.
Ari O'Donovan: (14:14)
We really do. It's like, let's not be minorly inconvenience to wear masks, but I'm gonna go in here to this store and shove a senior so I can get to the toilet paper and buy 15 packs of it. Literally all that's left.
Ryan Hassan: (14:29)
I remember that toilet paper time
Ari O'Donovan: (14:32)
, it was beyond me. Yeah,
Ryan Hassan: (14:33)
The most minor of minor inconveniences, a shortage of toilet paper and uh, and no other first world problem I think was as hilarious and also just tragic in so many ways as some of the instances when we were all just stocking up and hoarding toilet paper. Then we also hoarded things, things like hand sanitizer and formula last summer with the formula shortage. And I think it kind of goes back to that idea that we are making decisions are just very short-sighted and centered around our own needs. And that's understandable, especially when you know you're trying to take care of yourself and your family. But I think we really need to think about the ways we can look past that and hold accountable the decision makers who are responsible for some of these, these issues. You know, so getting back to changes with the emergency, you know, I talked about Paxil vd, there's cost of other antivirals will probably also increase.
Ryan Hassan: (15:29)
The other thing to consider covid testing is no longer going to be free. We'll probably have to pay for that unless, you know, new legislation is introduced or executive action is taken, vaccine prices are gonna go up as well. So I think vaccine prices are an interesting topic. I mean this, there's a lot of anti-vaccine propaganda around this idea that pharmaceutical companies are just making money at our expense and that's the whole reason for the vaccine. And it's a hard thing because it is true that pharmaceutical companies make money off of us, but so does everybody. Everybody's goal is to make money because we have a society where you have to make money to live and some people make more of it than others. But anytime you purchase anything, which is what most of our days are centered around purchasing our food, our housing, our bills, and anything we want to do to have fun, you're enriching somebody.
Ryan Hassan: (16:22)
And the medicines we rely on to live are, I think more than anything something that is worth paying for. And vaccines in particular are very low cost. They constitute a sig minor proportion of pharmaceutical profits and the COVID 19 vaccines when they first came out were only $16 per dose. That's what the US government paid for them when they purchased them in mass. So that's pretty cheap. It's still five times more expensive than it the cost of producing the vaccine. So these pharmaceutical companies are still making, you know, great money off of it, not as much as they make off of treating disease, which they get to do a lot of thanks to anti-vaccine propaganda that leads to higher infection rates and then more use of pharmaceutical products. It's a good amount. And there's two problems. One is of course with the end of the emergency they have, Pfizer in particular has said that they will be raising the cost, I think they said $130 per dose.
Ryan Hassan: (17:22)
So it'll go up from about $30 to $120 per shot. It was 16 initially it was 30 at the most recent time the US government purchased it and after the emergency end they plan to charge 120. And that may not be as big of a deal, but it's still a pretty big deal. You know, we get vaccines covered through our insurance and children get them through the Vaccines for Children program essentially for free. So Pfizer has justified the decision by saying, well, you know, insurers will cover this cost. But of course this goes back to a fundamental understanding that most people have when we talk about health insurance and healthcare, which is like if costs go up, your insurance company pays for that, then they charge you more in your premiums. Like you still pay all that money. Why are premium prices going up all the time?
Ryan Hassan: (18:12)
It's because healthcare costs are going up so the insurers charge us more. So you can't just raise the cost of a medicine and expect that we're not seeing that cost coming out of our wallets. It's just in a different way. So it doesn't feel like we're paying $128 per shot, but we are. So I think that's a big problem. And of course there's other problems with access. Like not everyone has insurance and there's huge gaps in the Vaccines for Children program where there's clinics, family medicine practitioners all over Oregon who aren't even able to participate in the V F C program and kids who just don't get their vaccines only because the only way they're, they would be able to is if their parents drove 'em to another city, you know, or another county sometimes to be able to get them vaccinated cuz there's just not a clinic nearby that will do it for them.
Ryan Hassan: (18:58)
So there's significant barriers and this is just gonna be another one. But the other problem with even the initial price of $16 per dose, like that was relatively reasonable here in the US because you know, the government was able to pay for it and, and get, make sure we all had access. But the pharmaceutical companies did very little at first. They did nothing. And since they've done little to make their vaccine affordable for people who couldn't afford it, they're, as I said, you know, a 25% vaccination rate in low income countries and that's because Pfizer's charging them the same and sometimes more than they're charging governments like ours who can afford it. So we're not seeing accommodations made for people who really need this medicine and can't afford it. And that I think is another big problem. And I don't anticipate that that's gonna change soon if, if there's not someone forcing Pfizer and the other companies to do so because as I said, they're planning to raise their costs, not lower them.
Ari O'Donovan: (19:59)
That's an extremely important point, Ryan. I feel like these people that you've mentioned and so many others deserve compensation and they deserve notoriety. I'm not saying that anybody should be working for free or for the public good. These people have lives and families and this is their work and their time and a lot of people have put in hours, long hours trying to make sure that this vaccine is safe and it's gonna work for people. I just feel like there is a better way that we can distribute it and keep it available to communities in this country. That's all I think should be,
Ryan Hassan: (20:39)
Yeah, it's a revolutionary idea. Everyone should be able to make money from their, their genuity and be able to live and prosper and also no one should be dying because they can't afford their medical treatment.
Ari O'Donovan: (20:51)
Right. It's a brand new idea. Ryan, get on board, get on board with me. I don't think that's,
Ryan Hassan: (20:57)
I dunno if that's doable, IRA,
Ari O'Donovan: (20:59)
I just, I don't, I don't know that it is either Ryan, it's wishful thinking. I just wanna know that people are taken care of. I don't think there's any harm in me wanting that, but as far as getting us there, I don't know that it's possible in this country.
Ryan Hassan: (21:17)
Yeah, you know, I think the other thing that's worth noting, you know we're talking about the profits of these companies. It's important to note that those are subsidized profits, right? I mean the US government using the emergency order used taxpayer money to support the preclinical studies. They absorbed the human testing costs, they absorbed the risks associated with that. They reduced the manufacturing risk to the corporations by underwriting their investments, by advanced purchasing a vaccine, therefore eliminating market risks. So this is, you know, in many ways these are vaccines that we helped create. We the people of the United States as well as people of other countries who also contributed billions to this effort. It's not really fair to say that, well the, these corporations independently did this. This is, this is all a collective social effort. It's not as though these are just independent, brilliant entrepreneurial individuals.
Ryan Hassan: (22:18)
You know, ground breakly going where no one else has gone before with all on their own, picking them themselves up by their bootstraps. These are established interests that are getting immense support from public subsidies. And I think it's important to keep that in mind when we're talking about how we treat and think about the products they're selling that are not luxury products, their basic necessities. And of course the US government also supported prior vaccination efforts that laid the groundwork for covid vaccines. I should clarify, I misspoke earlier, I think the actual costs the government paid, I think I said a hundred million. They purchased a hundred million doses from j and j and that was for 1 billion Pfizer and Moderna, they purchased 300 million doses and they paid 5 billion each for those doses. So that's our money that went to those corporations for those doses. So it's great that we were able to do it in that way because the government was able to negotiate these lower prices and then we were able to get an equitable distribution of the vaccine that everybody needs. But it's not as though the cost wasn't still paid by the people.
Ari O'Donovan: (23:34)
Right? Right. That cost had to be paid by somebody . So we have contributed, it really is a collective effort and a lot of people don't know that that, and now they will after listening to this episode , but it really has been a lot contributed from people and the government did make these vaccines more possible so that they could test could be done and we could release them to the public and their safe to use. There are some pharmaceutical companies that may have decided, I don't know if we wanna get involved with creating this vaccine. There's too much risk associated, the government made it so they didn't have to think about it like that. So I think that's an important, definitely an important point to bring up. It's confusing for some people . Cause then you wonder, well why is it now becoming a burden? It's going to become a burden, an increased burden for people to have access to these medications and vaccines. So it's complex. It is complex. Do you know of any other plans for additional boosters? Is this gonna be something where it's like the annual flu shot where we get a different booster every so often every year to keep up with new strains?
Ryan Hassan: (24:52)
It's not definite, but uh, the last that I have seen the F D A, they met January or February to discuss the proposals for, you know, the future of COVID vaccines. The biggest proposal right now that seems like it's probably gonna take effect is that the F D A will be recommending or C D C will be recommending probably a annual covid booster once a year, probably in the fall wintertime to coincide with influenza vaccination. Just so it's easier to get them both done together. There will very possibly be, for now it's also being proposed that the BIVALENT vaccine, which is the newest formulation, there was the original formulation made in December, 2020 slash January, 2021. Then there's a new formulation that is the Bivalent vaccine that came out last summer, summer 2022. And that one, it has become the booster shot that everyone gets. Now it's likely going to replace the original for the primary series as well.
Ryan Hassan: (25:55)
Probably not gonna be super relevant except for kiddos because probably most adults at this point who haven't gotten it, I don't think will, hopefully they will. If anyone is interested in learning more about it, they can always talk to us at boost. But also it's likely that new formulations will be made to better cover new variants when they crop up. So we'll just have to see what happens there. Another proposal has been that maybe people who are at risk like children, elderly people in immunocompromised, people may be recommended to get two doses every year rather than one. But that's the current thought. The other piece of information, you know, regarding the future of the Covid vaccine is that there is work being done to create a combination of covid and flu vaccine. Sounds like that won't be ready this fall, but hopefully will become an option in the next year, fall 2024. Which if it does, would be really a great way to help get more people vaccinated more easily, where you can just get one poke instead of two and get protection from both. And when that does become an option, I would certainly recommend it to everyone because a combo vaccine is always a better idea than a solo vaccine because then you don't have to deal with getting multiple pokes, which is usually the worst part of any vaccine.
Ari O'Donovan: (27:15)
Absolutely. I think that would be really convenient. And you kind of touched on this a little bit earlier, Ryan, but I think this is a very great time to talk about it just a little bit more. If you haven't gotten a Covid 19 vaccine at all, a regular vaccine, a booster, none of it. Should you feel ashamed or afraid? Is it too late to get one?
Ryan Hassan: (27:42)
Well, no, I don't think anybody should feel no to all three. No one should feel ashamed. No one should feel afraid. And it is not too late to get one. You know, I think I like to acknowledge that, you know, it is just incorrect to blame people for problems, for their problems or the problems that others, that it's just a very primitive and antiquated way of thinking. Our decisions, our choices, our health, our fears. They're all the results of the myriad of inputs that come into our lives and the structures that we are surrounded in and the traumas that we are dealing with on a daily basis. So, you know, to say that someone who hasn't gotten the vaccine should be ashamed of themselves or, or is a bad person, it's just a, a nonsensical, it's not a serious argument. It helps maybe other people feel better, you know, as someone who is vaccinated, it might feel good to say, ah, these people who don't vaccinate, they're just so silly, they, they're dumb or they don't know what they're talking about or thinking about.
Ryan Hassan: (28:50)
I should be ashamed cause of all the people that are hurting. You know, we, there's a very understandable sense of anger that I have felt, and I think probably most people have felt at various points during the pandemic towards people who are unvaccinated because we know that it is because there are such high rates of non vaccination that we are still seeing hundreds of deaths from covid in the US every day. But I think it's important to remember that that anger is misplaced if we're directing it towards people who aren't vaccinated. Because those decisions to not vaccinate are made as a result of the many ways that people have taught to mistrust the institutions behind the vaccines. But to be to mistrust doctors and healthcare profe professionals like myself who have a very long history of patronizing people and trying to provide paternal care and doing medical interventions without consent.
Ryan Hassan: (29:45)
And this is ongoing today against the government that routinely violates our civil rights in, in myriad ways and against pharmaceutical companies that profiteer in the ways we've described today. So, you know, it's very understandable to mistrust those organizations. And at the same time there's a very robust anti-vaccine movement. The ways that they take what we call computational propaganda and methodically feed enormous amounts of disinformation to people that makes it very hard to feel confident in a vaccine. So, I mean that's a long way of saying that. I get it. There are people who are still afraid of vaccines and it is okay to feel that way. It's not, you know, there's plenty of people who are gonna be judging you for not vaccinated, but I'm not gonna add to that list because, you know, I respect everyone's desire to try to do what is best for them and for their family and their loved ones.
Ryan Hassan: (30:39)
That's hard enough without people telling you, you know, all the reasons you should be ashamed or, or whatnot. Now that said, it is never too late to get a covid vaccine and it is definitely still a good idea. Uh, as I've said several times, we are seeing death from Covid every single day. We are seeing hospitalizations every single day and the people who are hospitalized and dying are almost entirely unvaccinated. So everyone who is unvaccinated each day can make the choice to either stay in the higher risk group where you are definitely more likely to have problems because of covid or you can choose to put yourself into the group that I'm in the low risk group where you've been vaccinated and boosted and you don't have very much to worry about at all. The risk of a serious complication from covid is low. It, it's just very low if you have gotten your vaccine, if you have not, you know, it's relatively low compared to where it was, you know, last winter, but there's still hundreds of people dying every day and it is tomorrow you're gonna have a few hundred more people die and almost all of them, if not all of them, will be people who did not get the vaccine.
Ryan Hassan: (31:58)
So I definitely still recommend it. It's never too late to get and it will help protect you and your loved ones. I think the other thing to think about that we don't often talk about is, you know, people often talk about, well, COVID has just such a low death rate. Does it really matter? And I mean, first off, that really depends. It has a low death rate if you are white and if you have money, it's got a pretty high death rate for other groups. One of the most striking to me is I recently read the Marshallese community in particular in the United States has in one study in Arkansas where the largest community of Marshallese Americans reside. 9% of Marshallese Covid 19 patients were hospitalized compared to less than 0.01% of covid 19 patients nationally. So that's almost one in 10 people who get sick in that community are hospitalized, which is a ridiculously higher risk from that disease just based on their ethnicity because that is, uh, that is the level of disparity in access to services and health equity that we see based on race and ethnicity in this country.
Ari O'Donovan: (33:15)
Yeah, those numbers are still very extreme.
Ryan Hassan: (33:19)
It's unspeakably horrific and indicative of how disproportionately our system takes prioritizes groups of people over others. And then of course, there's more than just the risk of death, right? I mean, a minor case of covid is still a pretty major inconvenience. You could get other people sick, you have to miss work or school and there's up to a one in three chance in adults, maybe one in five in kids chance of getting long covid, which is, you know, that's not gonna kill you, but you don't wanna have it. I've had patients who lost their sense of smell two years ago, and it's still not back to normal. You know, I have patients who have chronic fatigue for months or, or a cough for, for months at a time, and we still don't have a great understanding of how or why that happens or how or why to treat it. But that doesn't happen if you get the vaccine and your risk of getting long covid if you've been vaccinated is also very low. So, you know, there's, I think it's important to keep in mind these non-fatal complications of covid that are very much also worth trying to avoid.
Ari O'Donovan: (34:26)
Yeah, absolutely. Ryan, my aunt is in her early seventies and she had not received a Covid 19 vaccine until about two weeks ago. And she told me she felt some shame because she hadn't gotten one, and it was so far into it that she said, well, what's the point now? Everyone else is vaccinated. I feel bad about it. I don't know if it can really help at this point, since Covid is more under control. And then I was able to have a conversation with her and it made me happy that she made that choice on her own to go and get vaccinated. So it is not too late. There are so many reasons to get vaccinated. If you need a booster, get a booster. If you need an initial vaccine, do that. There's so many good reasons.
Ryan Hassan: (35:18)
Yeah, totally agree. I think we may have covered all the big yeah. Topics. Is there anything else that we should address?
Ari O'Donovan: (35:28)
That's it. It's been amazing having you on to talk about what we can expect and what the end of the emergency for COVID 19 means. I feel like listeners are gonna be really informed and I may get some additional questions for you.
Ryan Hassan: (35:46)
I'm always happy to answer questions. It's always fun to talk about this stuff. I think it is important for people to be able to have access to reliable and accurate information. So I hope that I can provide some of that
Ari O'Donovan: (35:59)
Today. I think you did, Ryan. I think you did a really good job. I'm always happy to have a conversation with you. If you haven't read Ryan's latest blog, check it out on Boost Oregon's website, putting people over profits. Really important. We have a past episode about misinformation and disinformation. If you really wanna know more about that and the details, really check out that episode. Very informative and I will see you all next time. Don't be a stranger. Email us or send us a voice memo at boosting our voices@gmail.com with your health related questions. Your questions may even be featured on an upcoming podcast episode. Follow Boost, Oregon on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and TikTok. You can find all of our social media and our website information in the show description below. Until next time, thank you for listening and be well.