Originally Posted By: artie505
And I don't agree with burdening already overworked medical personnel with questions for which they've got no better answers to offer than those we've already got on our own.

Given where you live I understand your attitude, and if I lived in New York City I would probably feel the same way. But life, medicine, and Coronavirus are different here. Although the infection rate and death rate are high and rising, we only have around 30 to 40% of our hospital beds occupied and there is no shortage of ICU beds or ventilators. 🤞(Although from his decisions, our governor seems determined to fill them up regardless of the human cost.) So around here the medical community is sharply focused on learning as much as possible about COVID-19, what its effects are on the human and animal body and how it is spread. It turns out many things we thought we knew about the disease, its symptoms, effects, etc was either incomplete or uninformed. So the more data that can be accumulated the more we know and the better prepared we will be for the inevitable second round this fall and the next variant that shows up next year. So even if staying home may be the best treatment option, information gathered from a visit to the doctor may help in the future.

Additionally, given what is being learned about the chronic heart, lung, kidney, liver and other conditions that are the legacy of having had the virus — even among those victims who were asymptomatic — the sooner the survivors get into treatment, the better their chances of an active and healthy life in the future. Coronavirus is the debilitator that keeps on debilitating. So I definitely want my primary care physician to know if I have been exposed COVID-19 so he knows what to be alert for in my future health care and can start preventative treatment if and when needed and stay ahead of the power curve.


If we knew what it was we were doing, it wouldn't be called research, would it?

— Albert Einstein