Roadmap to recovery will involve reinvention of life
WE have all become familiar with the COVID-19 ‘ lockdown’ world. The only way to cope with it has been to accept that it’s temporary. One day, we will look back on this time, remembering how difficult it was.
But how will things change as we emerge from this phase? How will we cope with the low-level virus that is likely to be ever-present as we start to re-engage with normal life? In particular, what will happen with vet clinics?
To me, there are two stages to this. The second stage is the easy bit: once a reliable Coronavirus vaccine has become widely available, everyone will be vaccinated, and we will all be able to return (more or less) to life as it was in early 2020.
How long do we have to wait for this to happen? The autumn of 2021 has been mentioned; It may happen sooner, or it may take longer, but this is a useful estimate to have in our minds.
Which takes me back to the first stage: how are we going to get through the interim period, until the autumn of 2021?
To understand this, it’s easiest to split up the population into two groups of people: the general population and ‘ at risk groups’ (as defined by HSE).
The ‘general population’ means every healthy person under the age of sixty. These people are likely to have a low risk of serious harm from COVID-19 (although low risk does not mean no risk). This means that moderate measures are going to be needed to reduce the chance of people in this group being exposed to the Coronavirus.
Meanwhile ‘at risk groups’ are those people who are more vulnerable to severe consequences from COVID-19: those who are over 60 (and especially those over 70), those with long term medical conditions (such as diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease and others), those who are immunosuppressed (e.g. cancer patients, but many others too), and residents of nursing homes.
People in ‘at risk groups’ are going to need to be strongly protected from the Coronavirus on an ongoing basis until a vaccine is available. This means that even as society opens up again, it’s going to be very important to maintain ultra-strict measures to protect these people from any exposure to the Coronavirus.
As we move from the strictest ‘ lockdown’ type measures into the next stage, every business will have to address how to achieve the protection needed for each of these groups. Like vets across the country, we are currently reviewing how our vet clinic will do this.
First, ‘at risk groups’ may have to continue to live secluded lives, with ongoing continual awareness of the risk of infection. They may need to avoid normal activities (like taking their pet to the vet), asking friends or family to do this on their behalf. Our clinic is now equipped to do telemedicine to some extent, and we may have to start to do this routinely for those in the ‘at risk group’. Telemedicine is never going to be as useful as physically examining an animal, but we may be forced to do more of this to minimise any risk to humans.
It will be up to each ‘at risk’ person to work out how much of normal life they carry out. We all need to be prepared to help them in any way that we can to stay safe.
As for the rest of the (lower risk) general population, it seems likely that much of normal society will have to resume again, but with an enhanced level of awareness of minimising the risk of a respiratory virus passing from one person to another.
So it may become normal for us all to wear protective facemasks when going about our daily business. This feels strange just now, but we’ll probably adapt. I have this idea that there should be facemasks that are personalised with a photograph of your own face, so that we at least know who we are talking to.
I also think the style of greeting each other will be different: I will no longer shake hands with new pet owners. Perhaps we’ll adopt the Japanese custom of bowing to each other.
We will be acutely aware of the risk of being close to people: that two metre distance has become engrained in our consciousness. In our vet clinic, this may mean that we’ll need to limit the number of pet owners coming into our building. In the past, up to six people with their pets might congregate in our large, airy waiting room: we may now reduce this to two people at any one time. Pet owners may have to wait in their cars with their pets until it’s their turn to be seen.
The normal way of carrying out a veterinary consultation involves examining the pet on a table in the consulting room while discussing the pet’s problem. This inevitably involves sharing air space. We may now do this in two stages: talking to the owner first (on the phone or in an airy open space) then examining the animal in the consult room without the owner.
Our reception area will change too: perspex screens ( as in shops) will be installed, and contactless payment will be standard.
As vets, we are very familiar with controlling infectious diseases (Parvovirus of dogs is far more challenging than this Coronavirus) so we know what we need to do to allow people to come to the vet with their pets with minimal risk to themselves.
This is going to be a complete reinvention of activities and processes that we have all been used to, but we can do it. Science and human creativity will sort this out.