Thank you for joining our Q&A with our health experts on July 7. You can view their responses here as well as the most common questions and answers here. If you did not get to leave a question or your question wasn’t answered, you can email coronavirus.questions@huffpost.com. Our reporters may answer them in a future story.
Pandemic fatigue has fully set in. States are in various stages of reopening, and summer weather is tempting us out of our homes. Yet we are still seeing COVID-19 spread: The World Health Organization recently reported the largest single-day increase in virus cases worldwide since the crisis began. Though we may be finished with the coronavirus, it’s clear the virus isn’t finished with us.
At the start of the pandemic, we collectively knew what to do: Stay home. But now, with no standardized guidelines on how we’re supposed to behave, everyone seems to be living by their own rules. Many are trying to determine what’s actually safe, while others have given up entirely. It’s leading to a lot of confusion ― and a threat to public health.
What questions do you have as we enter this phase of the pandemic? For example, are you curious if it’s safe to fly or stay at a hotel? Can you safely get a haircut or go to the dentist? How can you socialize with family and friends? How do you measure your own risk of getting COVID-19? How do you deal with the anxiety of an uncertain future?
Thank you for joining our Q&A with HuffPost medical contributor Dr. Kavita Patel and senior wellness editor Lindsay Holmes on July 7. You can view their responses here. If you did not get to leave a question or your question wasn’t answered, you can email coronavirus.questions@huffpost.com. Our reporters may answer them in a future story.
(Please avoid sharing personally identifiable health information about yourself or others in this thread, as these comments are public. And please be aware that any general advice provided here is no substitute for consulting your doctor or health care professional.)
Dr. Kavita Patel is a practicing internal medicine physician in D.C. and senior scholar at the Brookings Institution working on health policy. She is also an adviser to New Enterprise Associates, one of the world’s largest venture capital funds. She has worked on disaster preparedness, first in Los Angeles County, then in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, in the White House on swine flu and now on COVID-19.
Lindsay Holmes is the senior wellness editor at HuffPost, where she oversees the health content for HuffPost Life and writes about mental health. She was selected for a National Press Foundation mental health fellowship in 2016 and has participated in multiple panels on how mental health is covered in the media. She graduated with a degree in journalism from the University of Central Florida and lives in New York.