This is part one of a multipart series on COVID -19.
COVID-19 is a disease. It is caused by the SARS-CoV-2 (severe acute respiratory coronavirus 2. [Here forward will be referred to as COVID.] It is invisible. It is relatively easily transmitted. It is growing exponentially. It is deadly (for some). And it is coming. Scratch that….. it is here.
I am an ER physician. One of the ones they say is on the “front lines”. I am human. I am mortal. I have a wife, children, elderly parents, friends and family with lung disease and compromised immune systems. I have emotions like fear, anger, frustration, and anxiousness. I have to deal with those emotions. Hide them. Ignore them. Fight them.
Because my job, being one of those on the front lines, requires me to encounter and help the people that fear they may have COVID as well as the people that do have COVID, but not know it or show it. Then there are the encounters of those that will die from COVID. And then there are their loved ones that have lost them.
I am not alone. I am working along side an army of health care workers on the front lines. Doctors, nurses, medical technicians, respiratory therapists, radiology technicians, environmental service staff, paramedics, law enforcement and other first responders. All of us are singularly focused on an enemy that we cannot see and that we fear will quickly over run us. What’s worse, we don’t even have a weapon to destroy it.
Our strategy is 3 fold:
1. Slow it’s growth. This requires absolute cooperation from everyone it is attacking to participate in so called social distancing. Notice I did not say keep it from growing. It is going to grow, there is no preventing that. The rate of at which COVID grows is the singular factor that determines whether or not our health care system can sustain itself against it. However, social distancing is completely reliant on policing social behaviors. This is fraught with shortcomings as we are seeing play out all over the country.
2. Protect ourselves. This requires an abundant supply of appropriate PPE (Personal Protective Equipment.) Proper masks, gowns, gloves, etc. that are donned by health care workers prior to and during contact with a person suspected of having COVID. When a country goes off to war to battle it’s enemy it does everything it can to prepare for the fight. Stock up on ammunition, guns, tanks, fighter jets, helmets, bullet proof vests, etc. They want to be sure the soldier’s are protected and equipped in every way before deploying them to do battle. The Department of Defense does an outstanding job of this for the United States military. Unfortunately, this has not been the case for this war. A war we knew was coming. The war against COVID. The discussion of why or whose to blame is beyond the scope of this writing. This is only to recognize the unfortunate reality that is playing out all over the country. The reality that we are under-prepared for the enemy we face.
3. Buy time. The two strategies above exist primarily to buy time. Hopefully a treatment will be discovered. Eventually we will have a vaccine to COVID. Eventually enough people will be infected and as a result immune to COVID. And the combination of those factors will lead to herd immunity making COVID much less of a threat to our population. But each of these factors will take some time to come to fruition, hence the need to buy time by flattening the curve and protecting as many as possible from contracting COVID before a treatment or vaccine is available.
At the time of this writing, there are only a handful of identified cases of COVID on my front line. I anticipate that number will drastically increase as the week goes on. There is a tension in the air everywhere. Frustration brought on by the social distancing itself. Frustration in the health care community stemming from not having all that we need to battle the enemy we face. There is fear of the unknown. This is a novel virus, which by it’s very definition means it is something we have never experienced before. When will it get bad? How bad will it get? How long will it stay bad? What does bad look like? How many will die? Will they be some of my own family or loved ones?
These are trying times for the health care community, the general community, our nation and our world. There are more unknowns than I can count. There is one known that I am doing my best to stay focused on.
God is.
Part Two to come….
