This is a good piece! https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/10/upshot/pets-health-boom-coronavirus.html

Rather than the “owner staring at pet” syndrome the article suggests, I think there’s a more likely reason for the apparent uptick in visits. The author hints at it, but they’re not a vet med nerd like me, so zero shade to them for not digging in on it. I will, though!

I work at an ER/specialty hospital- if this increased caseload were due to clients staring at their critters, we’d expect to see more instances of pets presenting with very small stuff. Instead, we’ve been treating an unusually high amount of really, really sick pets.

The vast majority of vet practices operate on an appointment model. If you are doubling the length of your appointments to accommodate covid concerns- which is almost an industry-wide practice at this point- you suddenly can only accept half as many appointments.

When pets have to wait to be seen, sometimes relatively minor concerns escalate into more serious issues. Voilá- higher ECC caseloads, super-long wait times, etc. We’re trying, though! If your local vet ER has recently started using a triage protocol, that’s great news,

even though it may be frustrating at times. It means they want to make sure your pet receives the best possible care from a medical team with the time and mental capacity to focus on them. Whew! Long spiel over.