January 26th, 2023 | 3 min. read
We held our very first COVID-19 update on March 20, 2020. With COVID-19 settling in as a continued presence in our lives, after nearly three full years, this will be our last regularly scheduled update.
Of course, if anything major happens in the coming weeks and months, we will provide another update. Watch Dr. Bishop's final update below or read on for the recap.
Thank you to everyone who tuned in, asked questions, and became a part of our community over the last three years. As always, if you have any questions at any time, please let us know. Watch Dr. Bishop's video below or read on for the full recap.
Wow, we've been on a journey for the last three years. It's been almost three years since we did our first COVID update. We're not going to quite get to a three-year anniversary, which I am very thankful and grateful for.
But I am thankful and grateful for all of you as well who've been with us from the start. From the first week on, you have been involved in asking great questions, keeping this as a great place of conversation about everything around COVID, from masks to social distancing to vaccines to treatments and to everything in between that we've all been through over the last almost three years now.
It is hard to believe. I do have a little bit more gray hair than when we started in March 2020 doing these updates. Some of that's from COVID, some of that's from my kids, and some of that's just from regular life.
But as we predicted early on and it has come to fruition, I think we are finally seeing the normalization of COVID within our daily life and world.
The FDA released this week a plan for an annual covid booster, and I've thought all along that's probably where we're going to shake out in the long run. This will be somewhat equivalent to how we manage the flu in terms of both treating it and trying to prevent it or at least reduce the severity of it.
We'll probably be transitioning to an annual vaccination program rather than these frequent boosters that we've been seeing the last year and a half or so. It's just much simpler. It makes much more sense. It's easier to get people to do that than to do something every few months. So you guys can check out that link and see what you think about the FDA's announcement.
That's my major update. What started out as something very scary, and does still remain scary for a lot of people, has turned into something that we'll be dealing with for the foreseeable future.
We have good vaccines that are helpful. We have treatments that are helpful, and we know lots of ways to minimize the impact of the disease in terms of taking good care of ourselves. That means managing our fitness, managing our nutrition, getting all of our well checks, and doing all of our good preventative care, both screening for general diseases, but also for metabolic diseases, and heart disease, and doing all of our good normal healthcare that we know we should be doing.
Those are important things that we have to never lose sight of as we continue to go forward. Get those cancer screenings. See your health coach. See your primary care doctor for your annual physical. Make sure you're in the best health that you can be so that when, not if, but when the next pandemic happens — because there will be another one — you're in the best health you can possibly be in.
That way you are going to have an excellent chance of doing well whatever faces us in the future. There will always be more illnesses. There will always be more pandemics. It's only a matter of time in this connected world that we live in until we have another one like this of some variety. Who knows? It may be totally different. No one can predict the future.
The bottom line is thank you to all of you who have been with us from the start. I appreciate all of you. I've loved getting to know many of you, answering your questions, and going through this journey with you.
As I said, this will be our last scheduled update. If anything major changes in the coming weeks and months, of course, we'll pop on and do a big update, but I hope to never have to do another COVID update again because of bad news.
So again, take care of yourself. Get your annual physical. Take good care of your health. Eat well, exercise, get good sleep, and manage your stress. Talk to your doctor about vaccination. If you get COVID, talk to your doctor about appropriate treatment. And we're going to sign off on these COVID updates. Be well.
As a board-certified internist and concierge doctor in Richmond, VA, Dr. Steven Bishop is passionate about helping his patients improve their lives through better health. He helps healthy adults adjust their lifestyles as they age and helps patients with complex medical diseases manage and improve their health.
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