Suspected Respiratory tract infections
When should you consider to go directly to the emergency room for evaluation
If you have:
a fever of 38 degrees Celcius,
worsening shortness of breath at rest or with exertion,
cough, and
have come into or suspected contact with someone who has Coronavirus or has arrived back from an international location in the previous 14 days
Do you need to come to the office to be checked out?
At the current time we are strongly discouraging people from coming into the office for evaluation. Why? For two reasons:
In younger patients, 15% have no symptoms
In a good portion of others, coronavirus manifests itself with just minor symptoms that you might not think are anything other than a cold or a simple cough. Not everyone has severe symptoms.
Additionally, the majority of people are going to get better on their own, and there is no specific information other than what is listed below in the next section.
For Patients with non-urgent respiratory tract infection symptoms
If you have a cough, sore throat, nasal congestion, runny nose, and no fever, we kindly ask that you observe your symptoms. Drink plenty of fluids and consider using ibuprofen and acetaminophen together every 6 hours for fever and joint/muscle aches
The proper dose of ibuprofen is 10mg per kilogram up to 400mg every 6 hours. The proper dose of acetaminophen is 15mg per kilogram up to 1000mg every 6 hours.
If you have to come to the office with symptoms that may be Covid related, you will be shown to a dedicated room in our office that we are seeing patient in.
The room has dedicated equipment in it for our team to use, and it thoroughly cleaned after each appointment.
Put on a mask when you arrive and keep it on. We know it is uncomfortable, but this is to protect our other patients and our staff
Wash your hands thoroughly upon entering and leaving the office for at least 20 seconds. Alternatively, use the hand sanitizer and rub it all over your hands
Please cough and sneeze into your elbow
Please refrain from touching anything. Keep your hands in your pockets or folded across your chest
We will not be swabbing every person with respiratory tract infection symptoms. There simply are not enough swabs. Only patients that are ill enough to warrant admission to the hospital will be swabbed at the current time.