Doctor On Call: How Seniors Can Adjust To COVID In A Post-Pandemic World

The doctor is in and this time it's geriatrician, Dr. Chandini Sharma.

She joined News On 6 to talk about COVID-19 and how seniors need to learn to live their lives around it.

Reagan Ledbetter: COVID, it's something that's just here to stay learning to live around it both the senior citizen community, there's more concern, because the risks of death are higher. Sure, absolutely. I mean, when the world was hit by this pandemic, it was like everybody was affected. Now, more so the 18 to 65 years of age are not that much at risk. However, the senior population is still at the highest risk.

Dr. Chandini Sharma: So even though people are like now "it's been four years, it's not a pandemic anymore". They're right, it isn't, but it is now endemic, it's, as you said, it's here to stay. Kind of like the two flu shots, the strain of COVID changes so fast and is changing. I just reviewed it, it's now called JN.1. I didn't know that because every few months, the strain changes. So, like we've been used to all these years to get the flu shot every year because the strain changes. Same way.

The vaccine for COVID has become part of the recommendation for the usual senior vaccinations. If, suppose, some senior says, "Oh, I've had it by now already" they may have. But by the next year, they are more vulnerable because they've added one more candle to the cake. And the vaccines, the virus strain may have changed. So they might still benefit from the new vaccine. And the one other benefit that we all you and I also benefit from the vaccine is "long COVID."

We've all heard about long COVID. You survived COVID because that was only four or five days fever went away, which of course now like Tamiflu, we have the antiviral called Paxlovid, I'm not selling the brand. But Paxlovid is like, there are no two medicines inside it. So that's very good to take because it reduces the virus running around in your body. The chance of having long COVID is reduced significantly by both the pill and the vaccine a 30% reduction.

Because otherwise long COVID lasts up to four months. Some people have had it for a year. [Symptons] like fatigue, and persisting poor appetite. And what everybody says is "I'm tired, I'm tired", that thing just lives on with you. So it's like whether you're frail, whether you're as young as you whether you're as young as me or you're young as Chef Marvin if you can take the vaccine even now, I would be all for it. It has lots of benefits, lots of little little benefits that all add up.

Reagan: One more thing we got to be aware of with the flu and now we have COVID That's gonna be sticking around. So just stay aware. Dr. Sharma, thank you so much for being here.