New York City’s COVID-19 curve has begun to flatten. But for some doctors in the metropolitan area, life in the emergency room remains a roller coaster.
Comparing the thoughtful, stressed, emotional, caring responses of these first line responders to the fools demanding gyms and restaurants be reopened makes it seem more than ever that people are inhabiting different universes as we respond to the pandemic. Unfortunately, the universes intersect.
I remember reading and hearing people in NYC discussing the frequency of hearing ambulances as a constant background noise. This was from people who lived near hospitals. Well I’ve found myself also tuning in to the noise of the ambulance sirens. I live in the middle of a triangle of firehouses, 2 from my town, and 1 from the next over. 10 years ago the hospital up the hill from me closed, so the ambulance sounds that I heard were mostly going away from me and towards the highway. But during the last part of March and through April I would hear the sirens go past my house going into town. They are still sounding, but not as much.
I just wonder when the second wave starts if those of us that live near a hospital or surrounded by firehouses will react to up tick in runs?
“Look at where we are right now: we have no treatment, no prophylactic, no vaccine, a blood test that doesn’t give you real reliable results about whether you’ve been infected or not, or tells you about immunity,” Dr. Manish Garg, an emergency medicine doctor, told TPM last week. “But all we have is physical distancing, and now people are not observing that.”
It’s a panic wrapped in a horror inside a nightmare.
One can only imagine what new, fresh Trumpian Hells lie between now and Election Day…
I guess it just throws into relief the variations you see in normal times, where some people are childish buffoons and some are thoughtful and empathetic. I often have to remind myself of this.
I just wish the rubes that want their olive garden breadsticks would spend 1 hour in an ER attending to covid patients. Perhaps there could be a virtual reality program created, to offer these guys/girls vs a jail sentence. Experience what a true hero goes thru, before you complain of tyranny and the imposition on your rights by insisting you put on a freaking mask.
Would like reporters to just ask them “Sir, where do you work”? Just so I would know what to avoid.
And the thing is, most people understand the need without much persuasion. People started distancing here well before the governor made it an order, and they were masking at the supermarket well before you had to if you wanted to come inside. They didn’t want to acquire or spread a disease, that’s easy enough to understand. If Trump and the GOP weren’t encouraging the small minority that doesn’t get it, we’d have very little of this nonsense, but this is where we are.
Nice report.
The inability to predict the future is what’s driving us crazy.
In a for-profit industry, I’ll bet.
Remember, though, we’re paying for this mess.
AZ has reached 80% of ICU capacity but COVID isn’t a dominant share. The thing is that by relaxing social distancing, an uptick in COVID cases will push AZ to hospital capacity. That’s a big issue if case counts start to spike as the models project beginning this weekend.
I’m in NYC.
I’ll be one of those soon showing up most likely (not to ER though).
I’m pretty sure I got a slipped disc around the beginning of April brought on by working from home and the chair at home not being properly ergonomic.
I was able to get into urgent care at the time to get an educated guess that’s what was going on and get a prescription to get me through the worst of it but when I tried to make an appointment with an actual orthopedist, the earliest available was June.
Now that things have settled down a little maybe that has changed.
Transitioning Into Greatness!
In welcome employment news, Twitter is expecting to hire at least 5,000 new staffers to handle the expected workload, and that’s just for Trump alone…
Trumping Into Gomorrah.
along the line of least resistance.
One would rather not.
Worth a gander.
Don’t you know? The frontline workers have been wondering whether they were heroes or (human) sacrifices.
Well, it turns out they were neither. They’re warriors!
Man what is Musk’s deal? I guess I assumed hin pushing Tesla cars meant he had a lick of sense. Guess it doesn’t include everything.
