It Ain’t Over ‘Till Its Over

For those baseball fans out there, especially ones that follow the New York Yankees, you may remember their great Hall of Fame catcher, Yogi Berra.  Yogi made the All-star team 18 times and played in 10 World Series for the Yankees during his illustrious playing career.

Despite being a great player, Yogi was/is probably best known for his “interesting” quotes, such as:

1. When you come to a fork in the road, take it.
2. It’s like déjà vu all over again.
3. No one goes there nowadays, it’s too crowded.
4. Baseball is 90% mental and the other half is physical.
5. A nickel ain’t worth a dime anymore.
6. Always go to other people’s funerals, otherwise they won’t come to yours.
7. We made too many wrong mistakes.
8. Congratulations. I knew the record would stand until it was broken.
9. You better cut the pizza in four pieces because I’m not hungry enough to eat six.
10. You wouldn’t have won if we’d beaten you.
11. I usually take a two-hour nap from one to four.
12. Never answer an anonymous letter.
13. Slump? I ain’t in no slump… I just ain’t hitting.

Perhaps his most famous quote was during the 1973 season, and while managing the Mets during a close pennant race, Yogi said :  “It Ain’t Over Till Its Over”.

I am using this Yogi-ism to refer to a serious developing situation that we all should be concerned about: Covid recurrence.  Like many of you, I read stories online about how many new cases are appearing, where the clusters are etc., but I can easily tell from my own practice what is occurring.  During the height of the Covid pandemic, we were getting calls from sick patients every day and I was in the parking lot a number of times daily swabbing people’s noses for PCR tests.  Starting about 8 months ago, this number of people slowed down to the point that it was rare for us to see a sick person asking for Covid testing.  Over the past several weeks we are seeing LOTS more people again presenting with Covid symptoms and testing positive.

The point:  We are NOT out of the woods yet with the Covid pandemic. Whether this is due to a laxing of the mask mandates, new strains developing, more people gathering for functions in closer contact or whatever, the bottom line is that Covid seems to be worsening once again, even hitting people that have been immunized and boosted.  Clearly, Yogi’s quote applies:  “It Ain’t Over ‘Till Its Over”.

I want to remind everyone that the most important risk factor for developing severe Covid illness, aside from age, is obesity and its related co-morbidities.  There are MANY reasons why weight control is so important aside from Covid risk.  However, use this Covid reemergence to energize your urgency in focusing on your own weight control efforts.