On the Covid disease front, our curve is on the downhill side (officially). But our numbers are too high to be able to open up all services. Everything is still pretty much only 50% capacity like restaurants, public transportation, number of people permitted in a building, etc. No public school, no flights, no tourism, no movie theaters, no parks, no pools, no beach access, no permitting people over 60 in restaurants. There won't be any Independence Day celebrations this year. Some hospitals are reporting more available ICU beds which is a good sign, and official Covid deaths seem to be decreasing. Here's hoping...
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Bus service from the departments to the Capital is trying to get up and running again. Still not allowed.
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We are enjoying getting back into our regular clinical duties around here. Our patients are starting to get the hang of calling in for an appointment rather than the usual walk-in style we used to have. It has been a little bit of a struggle to get folks onboard, but poco a poco! We are still not able to have mobile clinics in the communities as the churches are not allowed to have more than 20 meet at a time. We look forward to being able to branch out a little in the next month or so.
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Love getting to see our prenatal patients and handing out Clean Delivery Kits from our Eastside Church of Christ friends. And yes, there will be a baby boom!
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Several of our chronic illness patients (epileptics, diabetics and hypertensives) have commented how grateful they are for our services especially after having to purchase their medications at local pharmacies. Most of them were just unable to buy them and went without or only took half the prescribed dose to make them last. Our staff have been getting lots of gifts of fresh picked apples, soft drinks and corn on the cob lately in appreciation. We are loved well here.
We've gotten news of more baptisms in the area. One small new congregation will be having 7 baptisms soon. It reminds us that closing the doors of the church building doesn't stop the Spirit of God from working through his people the church. Praise God!
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Celebrating with the angels!
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One of the biggest news breaks this week was the announcing of the opening of the airport and borders this 18th of September. We will be anxious to see how this pans out as the number of flights per airline/city of origin will be only one per day or 2-3 per week. And they will be requiring a negative Covid PCR test within the last 72 hours to enter the country or a mandatory supervised 14 day quarantine. Everyone is hoping that kind of testing turnaround is even possible. But at least it's a step in the right direction for future medical teams to be able to come in country.
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As my dad says, "Won't be long..." We hope! (Photo credit: Bao Menglong)
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