I want to be a real infectious disease physician, now.
Listen, mask-wearing is not that hard, folks. In a number of countries in the world, even pre-COVID, people were wearing masks all the time. Masks really decrease respiratory viral infection transmission—influenza, parainfluenza, RSV and COVID. If we could get people to wear their masks in the wintertime, we could decrease hospitalizations for influenza, RSV and so on. That would include COVID, as well. I also hope we will give both COVID and influenza vaccines to the designated populations at the highest risk every year, if it's endemic, so we can decrease the thing.
Let me give you one small example that I bet most of you don't know. Do you know that, for stroke prevention...? Because there's a high rate of strokes a week after you get influenza, and a high rate of heart attacks a week after you get influenza, just getting the influenza vaccine is almost as impressive in preventing strokes and heart attacks as taking antihypertensive drugs every day. Think about that.