Clinic Covid FAQ
What are we doing to keep Covid-19 out of our clinic?
In accordance with the current state mandates, we currently
maintain a careful screening process for anyone entering the building.
Any visit that is appropriate to be completed as telehealth (live video chat) is encouraged to do so (call us if you're not sure about your appointment). If you need to come into the building for a scheduled appointment, lab draw, or to pick anything up, you will ring a doorbell and a staff member will take your temperature and ask you a set of screening questions before you fully enter the building. Please bring only yourself or one other family member to your appointment if needed.
We have a strict mask policy. NO see-through, lace, vented, or other inadequate face coverings are permitted. Your mask must fit snugly over your nose and mouth and be made of solid material. We have surgical style masks if you arrive without an adequate mask. We are doing this due to the current mandate AND to protect our staff and providers. If you cannot wear a mask for medical reasons we encourage you to request a telehealth appointment with your provider.
We are also offering curbside pickup for any items such as supplements, notes, or records. Just call us when you pull into the parking lot and a friendly staff member will deliver your items.
What to do if you think you have Covid or need to get tested?
CALL US! You can be scheduled for an urgent visit with your medical provider to review your symptoms etc (telemedicine from the parking lot is the best option to allow for testing, but car-side can be accommodated if technology prohibits telemedicine). If Covid is a concern we have two options for Covid testing including rapid testing as of Jan 4th. We also offer curbside supplement purchase if you need anything for any chronic or acute condition to keep you safe and healthy. We are here for you and your family!
What about the vaccine?
We are currently offering Covid vaccination scheduling for **Established Patients** ages 16 and up in group 7 and as of April 19th will be open to all Oregonians 16 and up regardless of health or work history. Visit the Klamath County Public Health for further eligibility information: http://www.klamathcounty.org/1117/COVID-19-vaccine
To schedule a vaccination appointment, please call us at (541) 851-9320 **Established patients only**
Our providers at WFM believe strongly in science, research, and finding the benefit to risk ration with any given treatment. Based on currently available research, the risk of dying or having serious long term consequences from Covid-19 infection far outweighs the risk of death or serious risk from the vaccine for *most* patients. If you have had a serious allergic reaction, please touch base with your provider before scheduling, otherwise we believe that the vaccine is a safe and necessary step for most people to fight and help burn out this terrible virus so we can go back to a normal life. We also strongly encourage our patients to take natural steps to improve immunity, not just for Covid protection but for all infection risk. If you have not discussed steps to improve your immune system, we are always more than happy to review this at a visit.
We care deeply about our staff, our patients, and our community. We are working hard to support you with the best options for care in Klamath Falls for all your health needs, including Covid. Please understand that we are taking Covid seriously as none of us want or can afford to get sick and be out of work and unable to keep providing the care that we do to all of you!
Covid Research/Resources:
Vaccine Safety:
WHO (World Health Organization) on the Moderna Vaccine
The New England Journal of Medicine on the Moderna Vaccine
Johns Hopkins School of Medicine on the Covid Vaccine
Infectious Disease Society Review of Moderna Vaccine
UCSF Multiple Expert Opinions on Safety
VAERS Report- as of Feb 21, 2021 over 63 million doses of vaccine administered in the US with 1099 reported deaths, which puts the risk of death from vaccine 0.0015%. The current mortality rate in Oregon from Covid is 1.42% with long tern consequences (see articles below) in up to 30% of cases.
Does the Covid Vaccine Use or Contain Fetal Stem Cells?
Does the Covid Vaccine Cause Infertility?
Covid Risk including Long Term Consequences
Covid's Effect on the Heart (even in asymptomatic cases)
Covid and Increased Risk of Stroke
Natural Treatments and Covid
British Medical Journal on Vitamin D and Covid Protection
Hydration and Covid Risk (Hypothesis)
"From the desk of Dr. B 8/13/2021"
Dearest WFM patients and greater Klamath community,
Based on the response to a recent Facebook post regarding Covid vaccine I decided that I needed to do a better job communicating WHY I am recommending the Covid vaccine. If you have already gotten your Covid vaccine, thank you!! Please feel free to skip the remainder of this message, or keep reading if you have hesitant family or friends who might need to hear this too. Please do not take this letter as an open forum for debate. This is my stance, and you can take it for what it's worth to you. I am exhausted debating science and reason with "keyboard warriors" so take your typing elsewhere if you do not agree. All I am doing is caring enough to let you know my recommendation based on the research I have done and my experience treating dozens of Covid patients over the last 18 months.
Most of my long term patients know that I am NOT a typical vaccine pusher. My line is "I am not anti-vaccine, but the current CDC schedule is overkill for the vast majority of healthy kids and adults." In school and since I have followed trainings offered by Dr. Heather Zwickey, a brilliant Stanford trained immunologist who has sat on the National Vaccine Safety Council as is widely considered an expert on vaccinations. Her stance (and mine) is that vaccines are an important tool which have helped to eliminate several terrible diseases from our western world (polio, smallpox) and greatly reduce the number of cases of many others (measles, mumps, whooping cough). That said, she recommends looking at each individual vaccine and what is the risk of getting the disease vs the risk of getting vaccinated for the individual patient in front of you. When it comes to the Covid vaccine, she and I are in total agreement that the risks we are seeing with getting Covid far outweigh the risk of getting the vaccine for almost all patients. That said, no vaccine is 100% effective OR 100% safe. Every year I see a few bad reactions to common vaccinations like tetanus and MMR in my practice, but do I continue to recommend and administer these vaccines to my patients? Absolutely (unless they have had a serious reaction to a specific one previously). I do not "force" patients to get any vaccine, nor would I "fire" a patient for choosing not to vaccinate. I make sure they are educated about the risks of the decision they are making and know what to watch for in case they contracted the vaccine preventable disease. "Your body/baby/child, your choice" has long been my mantra. However, this has changed with the current pandemic where individual choices can have far reaching effects for their community and region.
Our regional medical hub in Medford announced on August 11th that they are full. According to the report they had approximately 65 patients currently waiting for admission who were given temporary beds in the OR/ER or anywhere the staff could put them. Elective surgeries (which includes any surgery not considered emergent for an immediately life threatening condition) are being cancelled. This means in some cases that surgeries that patients have waited months for cannot happen which might mean that they are in severe pain, unable to walk, unable to care for their families… for how much longer? They have said that unless you will die in the next week without surgery, you have to wait. Jackson County usually leads and Klamath is not far behind which means that our local hospital is preparing for the worst. Anyone who has had the unfortunate need to visit the Emergency Department in recent months/years will tell you that they almost always have had to wait. Sometimes for 6+ hours due to many complex reasons. If the hospital is full of Covid patients, taking even more resources and staff away from other emergencies, that wait time is going to do nothing but increase. There have already been cases across the country of patients with severe emergencies like heart attacks, gunshot wounds, etc having to wait hours to be cared for in heavily Covid hit parts of the county which dramatically increases their risk of dying or having major complications. If your grandfather had a heart attack but couldn't be seen quickly due to Covid cases and died how would you feel? Especially if you know that 92% of the current hospitalized patients are un-vaccinated. Again, the vaccine is not perfect and does not guarantee that you will avoid Covid completely, but we know from ongoing data that it significantly reduces your risk of being hospitalized or dying from Covid. Essentially, if you get vaccinated you are much less likely to take up a bed in a hospital that could be needed by someone else for the "usual" emergencies.
So what is the data showing us? I ran the data back in March and just re-crunched the numbers and they haven't changed much except even LOWER rates of major issues with the vaccine as more doses have been administered across the country. These numbers are based on the total reported number of doses administered in the US compared with the VAERS data. Keep in mind that ANYONE can report an adverse event to VAERS- patients, doctors, family members, etc. so we take it with a small grain of salt, but hope that anyone who takes the time to actually go through the VAERS reporting process does so because of a real risk and reaction. I'm looking at death, life threatening events, and permanent disabilities with the vaccine vs death and risk of long haulers with Covid infection. Long haulers or "long Covid" are cases where the patient doesn't die, but experiences significant symptoms that are lasting weeks or months (maybe permanent) after their initial infection. Depending on the study, the rate of long haulers is anywhere from 10-30% of cases so I have run the numbers for the worst and best case scenarios. I know there are those who will say that these numbers "aren't accurate" or don't reflect the total number of patients harmed by the vaccine. Well, there's no way to argue with YouTube or Facebook "scientists/doctors" who make outrageous claims but don't share their sources. I am using the most reputable sources that I have found and these numbers are very hard to argue with in terms of risk of the vaccine vs the virus.
Number of doses administered in the US by manufacturer as of Aug 12: (https://www.statista.com/statistics/1198516/covid-19-vaccinations-administered-us-by-company/)
Pfizer: 198,700,000
Moderna: 141,000,000
J&J: 13,700,000
VAERS data through Aug 12:
Pfizer: total adverse events reported: 244,188
Death 2,950 (0.00148%)
Life threatening reaction: 4,016 (0.0020%)
Permanent disability: 3,746 (0.0018%
Moderna: total adverse events reported 223,292
Death: 2,951 (0.0021%)
Life threatening: 3,289 (0.0023%)
Permanent disability: 2,887 (0.0020%)
Janssen: total adverse events reported 51,976
Death: 577 (0.0042%)
Life threatening: 935 (0.0068%)
Permanent disability: 676 (0.0050%)
Mortality rates from Covid as of Aug 13th:
US Wide: 621,000 deaths in 36,700,000 cases (1.69%)
Oregon: 2,958 deaths in 238,000 cases (1.24%)
Long haulers- 10-30% depending on the study
US 10% = 3,670,000
US 30% = 1,010,000
Oregon 10% = 23,800
Oregon 30% = 71,400
Essentially getting vaccinated is over 1000 x safer than getting Covid. With the current Delta variant surging in our region, this makes the vaccine seem like a no-brainer. Again, even with full vaccination it is still possible to get Covid but the risk of hospitalization or death is much, much lower. For those who have had Covid I generally recommend waiting 90 days, which is the time that we know you have strong natural immunity, and then get vaccinated. You may have a stronger reaction to the vaccine (24-72 hours of feeling cruddy), but studies are showing that those with both natural and vaccine induced immunity are the best protected of all.
I hope that you will strongly consider getting vaccinated, not just for your own health risk, but to reduce the burden on the healthcare system so that they can take care of your neighbor with the bleeding ulcer, your grandfather with the heart attack, or your child with epilepsy. We all hope we never need to be in the emergency department or hospital, but when we do need it we need that system to work efficiently. If they are swamped with Covid cases, they cannot attend to normal emergencies with that same efficiency. We are all a human family and have a responsibility to each other to make choices that protect the vulnerable. Just like you can choose to drink and drive, but we all understand that this puts other people at serious risk. So too, you can choose to not vaccinate, to not mask, to not social distance but please understand that this choice has serious potential consequences for others. Please, make the right choice. We continue to offer on demand Covid vaccination for established patients, ages 12 and up, Mon-Thurs 9-5. If you are interested, please give us a call. This vaccine is free to all, regardless of insurance.
From your family doctor who cares a great deal about her patients, community, and country, Dr. Blevins"
Addendum- additional numbers of relevance based on many posts I've seen:
Risk of myocarditis
Following administration of the Covid vaccine:
40.6 cases per million= 0.0041%
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7027e2.htm#:~:text=Myocarditis%20reporting%20rates%20were%2040.6,per%20million%20second%20doses%2C%20respectively.
Following infection of the Covid Virus:
0.45% in one study comparing risk of myocarditis in virus vs vaccine (hint, vaccine was FAR safer)
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.07.23.21260998v1
2.3% in athletes
https://www.jwatch.org/na53704/2021/06/04/covid-19-myocarditis-athletes
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