public health – Usagi Medical Group

What You Need to Know About Omicron

Holiday season brought Thanksgiving festivities and Christmas parties galore, encouraging family and friends to come together and enjoy the start of Winter close together. Unfortunately, the SARS-CoV-2 variant Omicron has resulted in a torrent of COVID-19 cases worldwide. With numbers rising to their early-pandemic numbers and higher, fear of the unknown and the search for any method possible to keep ourselves and our loved ones safe is only natural. Omicron is no joke, but fear-mongering has clouded our ability to find real statistics and information on the most secure, realistic method to avoid infection. Here’s what you need to know about Omicron:

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COVID Survival Guide

Cons are cautiously coming back, and we are all looking forward to the return of all things fun. But where COVID-19 is concerned, we may not be out of the woods, yet. Many cons (we’ll use AWA as an example) are wisely establishing Mask Policies and Safety Requirements for their guests and attendees. Please adhere to these guidelines.

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Carolina Fear Festival

Carolina Fear Festival has nothing to be afraid of. Usagi Medical Group was happy to provide advisory services to Carolina Fear Festival (CFF) as they plan their reopening this year. With one phone call that took less than an hour, we quickly discussed their concerns and current public health strategy, and some additional considerations for them to make as they plan their upcoming event, scheduled for May 29 and 30 in Raleigh, NC.

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Returning to Normal?

The U.S. returning to normalcy is seeming much more likely thanks to the rapid influx in COVID-19 vaccinations, with 21.3% of Americans being fully vaccinated as of April 11, 2020 (NPR COVID-19 Vaccine Tracker). As millions of vaccines are administered every day, public events, such as conventions, can be planned under safe conditions. However, most anime conventions haven’t been held in over a year, and while usually one year wouldn’t make much of a difference in the number of people interested in the subject of the convention, 2020 lockdowns give rise to a different story.

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Prepare To Get Vaccinated

On December 14th, the first COVID-19 vaccine was administered in the U.S. Three months later, over 100 million doses have been given, and over 35 million Americans have been fully vaccinated.

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Planning And Preparing For Your Next Convention

All of us are looking at the convention-planning horizon with undisguised optimism. We are all champing at the bit to throw a big party and get back to our cons. But we must continue to exercise caution. None of us want the public humiliation of fostering another outbreak that puts our friends and fans at risk.

The recommendations and mandates that have been in place for the last twelve months are slowly changing as we get more and more data about rates of infection, hospitalization, and the availability of a vaccine. As the data continues to get updated, Usagi Medical will help your con AT NO COST on an advisory basis. We’ll help you answer some critical questions:

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Keep Your Con Safe in 2021

Keep Your Con Safe in 2021: With COVID-19 cases at all time highs, many conventions have been cancelled or postponed in efforts to keep attendees safe. However, some conventions are still continuing, but with strict safety guidelines and population control to maintain a safe and healthy environment. To keep your convention (or any big event) safe in 2021, here are some mandates you should enforce:

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COVID-19, Vaccination, and What To Do While You Wait

How Could Something So Cozy Be So Dangerous?

Here we are in early January of 2021, and the hangover from the 2020 holidays continues to darken our skies. People have grown tired of the 3 W’s: Wearing a cloth mask, Waiting 6 feet apart, avoiding close contact, and Washing hands frequently. Instead, people travelled far and wide to see their loved ones for the holidays, gathered together for meals and lodging with folks they didn’t live with, and didn’t wear their masks. “What could be the harm? It’s just me making this trip the one time.”

The problem is that most people don’t know they’ve been infected with COVID-19 for several days, during which time they are infectious. And humans believe in patterns – if someone has managed to evade the virus for 9 months so far, they may think they are somehow safe now. But the risk has only been going up and up as the prevalence of COVID infection increases. The days are short, the weather has been inclement, and folks don’t want to only meet up outside. They want to celebrate together, and with Americans, that often means food. Food means removing your mask to eat, often sitting down in one place for a while. How could something so cozy be dangerous?

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Living Life and Staying Safe in the Time of COVID-19

We need to talk about the gorilla in the room… The same gorilla as before, but the guidelines, they keep changing. Why is that?

Because this is a novel disease, something we’ve never seen before. We’re pushing out information as soon as we think we have a handle on it, and then we get schooled by the virus again, and the information changes. Information flows faster now than it ever did before, so you get to see how science itself ebbs and flows. Science has always been this way, but we’ve never before had the ability to communicate it as fast as it happens.

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COVID-19 and You

We’re all concerned about COVID-19. Whether or not you’re one of the people who are buying out all the toilet paper on the eastern seaboard, we here at Usagi Medical Group would urge everyone to try to put their anxieties in check when it comes to COVID-19 and what it might do to the local convention scene. Panic seems almost reasonable these days, but panic creates more trouble than it solves.

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