Friend that works at the Covid unit of the ICU of a large state academic health center (so you can kid of guess fro someone in LA where that is) in an e mail sent out to all friends. His wife who is a nurse, is not working and is at home with their kids - he has not left the hospital in the last 7 days:
1) What's impossibly hard is that patients are presenting in very atypical ways, yesterday someone who was admitted for 14 days with no suspected covid tested positive then subsequently coded and died.
2) Our center is starting to see covid cases rise at an exponential rate. We know anecdotally that ICUs across the country are seeing the same, but we don't know this on a state or country level due to insufficient data sources and collaboration. We also don't have clear understanding of who will get critically ill; based on what we are seeing it's not just those with comorbidities or those who are old and frail.
3) It has been difficult keeping up with the staggering amount of information that is coming our way. Our email boxes are filled with 50+ covid updates every day not to mention published literature.
3)What I can tell you is that public health and infection control experts are allowing covid positive healthcare providers to work in the healthcare system with appropriate monitoring and PPE. That tells me that in the coming weeks as we learn more and let this crisis settle down we will likely be able to safely relax some social distancing. The challenge we will have is that American's don't follow rules well (as compared to let's say Japenese) and it's going to be an ongoing challenge to make policies to protect everyone, while giving enough leeway to those who can effectively self monitor and wash their hands singing happy birthday twice every single time. Hopefully all of our efforts towards infection control are not in vain.
1) What's impossibly hard is that patients are presenting in very atypical ways, yesterday someone who was admitted for 14 days with no suspected covid tested positive then subsequently coded and died.
2) Our center is starting to see covid cases rise at an exponential rate. We know anecdotally that ICUs across the country are seeing the same, but we don't know this on a state or country level due to insufficient data sources and collaboration. We also don't have clear understanding of who will get critically ill; based on what we are seeing it's not just those with comorbidities or those who are old and frail.
3) It has been difficult keeping up with the staggering amount of information that is coming our way. Our email boxes are filled with 50+ covid updates every day not to mention published literature.
3)What I can tell you is that public health and infection control experts are allowing covid positive healthcare providers to work in the healthcare system with appropriate monitoring and PPE. That tells me that in the coming weeks as we learn more and let this crisis settle down we will likely be able to safely relax some social distancing. The challenge we will have is that American's don't follow rules well (as compared to let's say Japenese) and it's going to be an ongoing challenge to make policies to protect everyone, while giving enough leeway to those who can effectively self monitor and wash their hands singing happy birthday twice every single time. Hopefully all of our efforts towards infection control are not in vain.
