Urgent Request for Your Active Cooperation to Communicate Critical
Messages to Your Patients to Contain COVID-19 Transmission

Dear Medical Leaders:

On behalf of JPMS & OPMS, we are asking for your immediate assistance to
communicate urgent messages about COVID-19 to your patients and their
families.

We are facing a critical juncture in the pandemic. Even though we have
worked so diligently to flatten the virus curve, we are currently seeing
spikes throughout most of the state.

The current trajectory of virus infections will soon impact our ability
to offer the best care to our patients. The shortages in staff, ICU
beds, ventilators and testing supplies now being experienced by other
states could occur here if we don’t take every action possible to
contain COVID-19!

Louisiana has had more than 3,000 people die of COVID-19 already, and
younger people are not only getting the virus at an alarming rate, but
they are getting sicker and requiring more medical care than at the
start of the pandemic.  No one is immune; even babies get the virus.

Also, we are just weeks away from a new school year beginning. While we
may not be able to eradicate this virus entirely, we need to urge our
patients and their families to do all they can to reduce the spread so
that schools can reopen safely.

The time is now to make a difference! As a physician, you are critical
to the success of our effort to obtain community-wide support to contain
COVID.

This starts with asking every patient to Make the COVID Commitment! 
It’s a very simple pledge of prevention.

COVID COMMITMENT

On behalf of myself and others:
1) I will wear a mask, particularly when indoors, wash my hands
frequently and keep surfaces disinfected.
2) I will socially (physically) distance at least six feet or more.
3) I will minimize my trips outside of my home and I will not congregate
with people outside of my household.
4) I will quarantine for 14 days if I have been exposed to COVID-19,
even if I have a negative test during that time period, because I
understand that I may not exhibit symptoms until as late as the end of
the 14th day.

Ask your patients to be a role models in their family and friend groups.
When he/she makes this commitment to defeat COVID-19, ask him/her to
share this news on social media using this hashtag: #covidcommitment

Thank you again for your commitment and dedication to caring for your
patients every day, and especially during this COVID-19 pandemic! We can
make a difference to help overcome this crisis if we do this
together……NOW!

Thank you!

Tanya Busenlener, MD, President, Jefferson Parish Medical Society
Juan Gershanik, MD, President, Orleans Parish Medical Society