Welcome Back!, Dr. Elaine Chin’s inspiring and informative new book, will help us make sense of the best ways to work towards a better state of well-being. Dr. Chin’s passion, knowledge, and commitment to a multi-dimensional approach to health will have a great impact on our efforts to achieve a brighter health future for ourselves and our loved ones.”

Based on the title, this wasn’t exactly the book I expect, however it provided greater insight than I had expected into how to live a longer, healthier life. The book start by Dr. Chin describing the 2003 SARS outbreak in Toronto and her involvement in fighting the outbreak in Ontario hospitals. It moves on to describing the current Covid-19 pandemic and the impact of the lockdown on both our health and mental health. The author highlights how the lockdown has negatively our physical health by reducing activity and exercise opportunities. Dr. Chin describes the importance to both getting vaccinated as well as improving your physical and mental health to ensure you are in the best condition to fight off the virus. The final half of this book focuses on a holistic approach to improving your health both to improve your chances to survive Covid-19 and more importantly to help you live a longer healthy life. Dr. Chin highlights barriers to maintaining optimal health such as not maintaining a healthy weight, inadequate sleep, lack of exercise and activity and poor nutrition. She describes how these barriers physical impact our health and clearly outline how they cause medical conditions such as hypertension, diabetes, heart disease and cancers.

Most people have found living through the pandemic difficult. Many have lost jobs or businesses, felt depressed and even suicidal, or struggled with other health issues. Even if it isn't affecting your life too much, the constant bad news takes its toll. This extremely useful book is a minefield of advice for looking after your health during and after the pandemic, and generally.

Dr Elaine Chin begins by telling how she handled the beginning of the pandemic in Canada. Apparently, it was a nightmare, and panic prevailed. For example, after raising $5 million to buy masks from China, there was actually a higher bidder at the airport, and the masks were 'kidnapped'. Dr Chin needed all of her inner strength to get things ready for the medics and a possible influx of patients in her charge in double-quick time. She also formed an organization to help other doctors obtain PPE.

Much of the book is about looking after your health during the pandemic, however. She has an interesting section on vaccines, antibodies and tests. She provides advice about knowing your numbers (including blood pressure and cholesterol), meditation, spiritual health and losing weight. She even has a section about telemares, which I will reread.

This is highly recommended for anyone interested in staying healthy during the pandemic.

I received this free ebook from NetGalley in return for an honest review.

As I read the opening few chapters of Welcome Back!, I felt a little wrong-footed, as the text didn't really seem to fit my impressions based on the blurb. I think I'd been expecting more of a self-help book, something lighter and fluffier somehow. On reflection, I feel that much of the content of Chin's "Conclusion" chapter could perhaps have been more usefully incorporated into an expanded introduction, as it more fully sets the context for many of her observations and recommendations that follow.
Having now read the book in its entirety, I've completely reassessed my initial impressions, and found this a useful and inspiring read, backed up with robust medical research data, summed up by author Elaine Chin's statement:
"This book is your manifesto, a kind of companion for living a longer and healthier life." (Welcome Back! p.271)

Welcome Back! presents a rigorous discussion of the SARS-CoV-2 (Covid-19) pandemic and its effects on the health of the population, from the perspective of a medical professional. Chin makes clear her (professionally unsurprising) preference for quantitative measures of health by way of pathology and other biomedical testing. As far as enabling and encouraging readers to consider their own health and lifestyle as we emerge from the acute phase of the pandemic, she presents useful and accessible information around the foundational pillars of "repair, recover, renew".
For many around the world, the experience of Covid-19 has consisted of a series of cumulative "microtraumas", which have had ongoing effects on our physical and mental health and wellbeing. Factors such as increased anxiety, stress, isolation from family and peers and lockdown-related physical limitations have led to many of us falling into habits that impact our health negatively. These include over-eating, under-exercising, increasing our consumption of alcohol and recreational drugs and neglecting our "normal" schedule of medical appointments & testing. As a result of our pandemic experience, we may exhibit pandemic-associated health issues such as weight gain, poor sleep patterns, reduced immunity, and negative movement in a variety of our biophysical markers (eg. blood pressure, blood glucose, cholesterol). In addition, many have experienced new or exacerbated symptoms of a variety of mental health disorders.
After a brief introduction, Chin presents a brief history of the pandemic experience in her native Canada, and especially her own unique perspective as a physician. Next, Chin expands upon the various areas of our health which may be impacted, either by contracting Covid-19 or otherwise as a result of our pandemic experience. Much of this information was familiar, and fairly generic "live a healthy lifestyle" information, however Chin incorporates throughout specific reference to the impact of Covid-19 on particular aspects of our health. She also considers the likely impacts of "long Covid" (post-viral syndrome) going forward.
The second half of the book consists of Chin's recommendations enabling readers to proactively develop physical and mental resilience (a word I prefer to the author's "resiliency") as we emerge from the most acute stages of the pandemic and establish a "new normal". Principally, these consist of setting out the means for assessing our current physical and mental health, then a variety of suggestions to assist us in finding the willpower to develop healthier lifestyle habits and rebuild neural pathways that will enable us to flourish (rather than languish) post-pandemic.
In addition to the health-related information, I also found Chin's reflections on socio-political issues around Covid-19 resonated with my own (Australian) perspective. These issues include the need for proactive lockdown strategy, a co-ordinated approach to public health communications and the desirability for a country to be self-sustaining in terms of resources and mRNA vaccine manufacturing capabilities (Australia has learned a lot in terms of each of these over the past 18 months, despite being in the author's parlance an "in control" nation). I felt that Chin's characterisation of her analysis in Welcome Back! as a "postmortem" is a little premature, given the current third- and fourth-wave crises many nations are facing with the Delta strain of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. That said, Chin does express her expectation that, as vaccination rates continue to climb, Covid-19 will enter an protracted "endemic phase" and remain a major public health issue into 2022/3 and well beyond. I was buoyed to read that the target "herd immunity" rate of 90% announced in Tasmania today equates to that proposed by qualified international experts such as Dr. Antonio Fauci (US) and Dr. Paul Hunter (UK).
As an aside, being a Tasmanian, I was delighted to read Chin's discussion of the work of Tasmania's own Nobel laureate, Dr. Elizabeth Blackburn, who pioneered study of telomeres, elements of the chromosome that have enormous importance in determining an individual's long-term health.
Chin's text is augmented throughout with illustrative graphics by Marie-France Corriveau, presenting both quantitative and qualitative information in an easily digestible form for visual learners like myself.
In conclusion, I found Welcome Back! a more intense, data-heavy and challenging read than I had expected, but highly informative and a worthy call to action for individuals wanting to regain control of their own health and wellbeing after the upheaval of the past 18 months. I'd recommend it highly to readers who seek their health information in a more scientifically rigorous form than the plethora of "wellness" magazines and websites that inspire us to better lifestyle habits.
My thanks to the author, Dr. Elaine Chin, publisher Sutherland House and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this fascinating title.

This book feels like it is trying to do too many things and not doing any of them that well. Is this a memoir? A historical account of the pandemic? A health book? A weight loss guide? A shopping list suggestion of the best items? It’s all of those but none of them well at once. The historical analysis of the pandemic is premature as we have not left it. The suggestions for health items and habits are too simple and will not fix systemic issues, the ignorance of covid long hauling and chronic damage from the disease is a huge oversight which makes the book invalidated, and her insistence on weight being the most important marker of health will do more harm than good as we are learning the number of people who have developed or worsened eating disorders during the pandemic. I started interested but then quickly was angered. She gives too much weight to the BMI. Which has been proven to be an inaccurate measure of health, is racist and sexist in origin, and contributes to increased eating disorders. She spends much of the book mentioning specific brands and places you can buy things. Barely gives a pass to long haulers, and spends too much time discussing events that we haven’t even escaped.

What I was hoping for in this book were practical ways to have conversations with others you haven’t seen in years. How to make sure you are safe and around only those who are vaccinated, how to practice good mental health practices, advocate for yourself, find a good medical team, reintroduce your body and mind to old habits, and really anything useful.

This book was preachy, personal, and pedantic. It was not what I hoped it would be and I fear it will cause way more damage than is realized.

Welcome Back is the comprehensive guide to getting back to life after the pandemic in an intentioned and optimal way for your overall health.
The book is wonderful for approaching post-covid life with a planned and careful approach.
Thank you to the publisher and to NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I found this interesting to read but it also made me sad because of how many people have died from Covid. It was interesting reading her view on it and how covid has made all feel such as depressed, over eating and many other things.
Thank you NetGalley for letting me read this book.