Just stay home for Christmas, and don't fear life past Boxing Day

The NPC Healthbiz Weekly is your weekly briefing on topics pertinent to healthcare marketers and executives published in cooperation with Peak Pharma Solutions. From Chronicle Companies, organizers of the National Pharmaceutical Congress. More info at pharmacongress.info

⇒ Issue #140 (In numerology, 140 stands for personal freedom, wit, a sense of adventure, and being self-reliant.)
⇒ Confirmed Covid cases in Canada as of 11/25: 346,013*
⇒ Confirmed Covid fatalities in Canada as of 11/25: 11,676*
⇒ Worldwide Covid cases as of 11/25: 59,888,630*
⇒ Worldwide Covid fatalities as of 11/25: 1,411,972*

November 25, 2020—Hello, CurveFlatteners. Senior editor John Evans here, and as today is the one-month mark before Kris Kringle's time, I have been thinking about my family, scattered across Canada and the U.S.

With an aggressive second wave of Covid-19 well underway across the planet, restrictions governments were able to loosen when we flattened the last surge have had to come back into effect. As we are headed into the traditional holiday period of festivals and family, as well as the shortest, darkest days of the year, these restrictions will feel especially burdensome. 

It is rough, I get it. I live alone myself, and my closest family is hours away. A winter solstice without the cousins, warm hugs, and home-baked butter tarts is going to be really weird. But I figure if I choose to sit this one out, I can raise the odds of having many more mid-winter festivities with my family. I don't need this one so much that I'm willing to risk it being the last one.

That's also the message Dr. Theresa Tam, Canada's top health officer, is trying to spread. “Christmas is not going to be having any kind of large group interactions. Even with family, you've got to really think twice. Avoid non-essential travel. Keep to your current household contacts as much as possible,” Dr. Tam told CBC's The National. 

Tomorrow is also Thanksgiving in the U.S. (Shout out to Cory "9-9-8" Perla over in Chronicle's Buffalo, N.Y. office, located on Broadway right by Fillmore, near the site of the old Sattler's Department Store, from whence our "9-9-8" draws his long-time nickname.) The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) strongly recommended that American citizens stay home and celebrate the holiday with only those they live with. Regrettably, many seem to be discounting this advice. Many U.S. airports have been packed with travellers over the last few days.  

It seems likely that the U.S. will experience a further jump in cases over the next couple of weeks, much like Canada did after our own Thanksgiving in October.

Some will wave negative test results as a get-out-of-quarantine card, but it isn't that simple. As an article in the New York Times points out, a negative test just means you didn't have enough of a viral load to show positive at the time of the test. It just means you do not have to go into complete self-isolation. Every other precaution—masking, social distancing, hand-washing—should still be undertaken. And that includes not gathering at Gran's house for roast meat and dressing. 

I do get it. Being without your family is hard. My own extended family all got on a Zoom call last Sunday, and while it was great it just wasn't the same as being in person.

But for the sake of so many loved ones, I have to ask if avoiding loneliness for one holiday season is worth risking being alone for all the ones to come?

The NPC Podcast resumes today (11/25). The organizers of the National Pharmaceutical Congress are proud to release our new weekly podcast series, hosted by Peter Brenders. Peter's guest on this week's program is Denis Hello of AbbVie Canada. Listen here now, or download the episode and play it at your convenience. The NPC Podcast is presented in cooperation with Impres Pharma

COVID CHRONICLE 11/25/2020

• Home health care greatly benefits Covid-19 patients discharged from the hospital, according to a new study.  In the study population, 94 % of the patients discharged to home health care, which included skilled nursing and physical therapy, achieved statistically significant improvements in symptom burden and functional outcomes and 87 percent had no adverse events.
  

• Researchers who have developed a technique that allows antiviral medications to target only cells infected with influenza while sparing healthy cells say their approach could be adapted to other viral diseases, including Covid-19.  They describe the therapeutic approach in the journal Nature Communications.
  
• The ventilation—heating and air conditioning—systems in most high-occupancy buildings are not well designed to protect their occupants from airborne infections, according to a new study. Most recirculate indoor air, and in many cases, building operators have disabled some safety functionality in the interest of lower energy costs or quieter operation. The authors say their findings suggest that greater use of natural ventilation would go a long way to reducing the risk of cross-infection in these buildings. 
  
  
• There is one group of people who seem to have found a silver lining in the pandemic: narcissists. A study in Personality and Individual Differences has observed that individuals in essential worker positions, who have narcissistic traits—particularly communal narcissists, who believe they are better than others at being helpful—were more likely to share on social media about their work than essential workers without these traits. “Having their work elevated to hero status provides them with an opportunity to shine in front of others and feel even better about themselves,” said one of the study's co-authors in a press release. 

WHAT CHRONICLE IS WORKING ON TODAY

Cory has just wrapped up a Chronicle@25 article looking at the last 25 years of advances in aesthetic dermatology. It is quite an interesting story, from the improbable tale of botulinum toxin to the ever-growing understanding of the complex interplay between facial features that we consider attractive.

TONIGHT I AM EATING...

There were some super-thin steaks on a good deal at the grocery store this week, so I am going to try an experiment—wrapping slices of the steak around pieces of asparagus, and pan-frying them fast and hot. I think I'll try one or two with raw asparagus, and if that doesn't cook well before the steak is done, I'll try pre-steaming them a bit. Fingers crossed.

LATER I AM LISTENING TO...

Novelty Christmas songs. Having worked retail in the past, I have developed life-long exhaustion with the standard seasonal fare. (Will you be competing in Whamageddon this year?) Fun variants of classics, such as this very Canadian version of The 12 Days of Christmas, are also in contention.

I have a playlist, but it has probably been 10 years since I updated it, so today is try-outs for inclusion. 

Here is one of my all-time favourites, "White Wine in the Sun" by Tim Minchin. It is a little goofy, but it makes me cry because it reminds me of my late parents. Importantly, the song ends with a reminder that if you can't be together one year, know that your family loves you, and will be waiting for you for when you can be there.

WHAT NEXT?

Come back tomorrow for the Daily Curveflattener composed at one of the three computers of Kylie Rebernik.

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