Encounters

Immunocompromised

Week 3 (9/18/2020)

     Today, I was at home reading my news app on my phone and came across an article in The Washington Post, where Dr. Elinore McCance-Katz, a psychiatrist with a Yale doctorate in infectious disease epidemiology, mentioned that the shutdown of the government and state had more of a disastrous effect since the healthcare system was also shut down with everything else. I agree since this makes people feel as though they can't even leave their home, especially if you fall under the category of being immunocompromised. This dangerous because if someone that is immunosuppressed contracts covid-19, the ultimate result may be death. Katz mentioned those with obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and pulmonary diseases especially, are at a higher risk. As we know from class, those who are immunosupressed have weakened immune responses, affecting its ability to fight off infection and disease.   Also, we learned that when it comes to combating disease, the innate and adaptive response work together to eradicate the antigen more efficiently. The effectiveness of these two systems functions much slower and is less efficient in those with an underlying disease such as the ones I mentioned previously. 

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