Several other patients with shortness of breath needing evaluation and hospital admission had also recently arrived. “By the numbers” this day, pre-COVID, would not have been considered a busy one in the ER. However, both the mental vigilance and physical burden of patient care in PPE, in an already fast-paced environment, are tremendous.
Several weeks into the order to stay home, everyone is getting restless, my toddler among them, and the weather is more beautiful every week. While many are ‘over COVID,’ the reality is COVID is far from over for our city.
We must remain vigilant.
Our region was among the earliest, and now hardest hit, in the entire country. However, from both the ER frontline and the overview from Jefferson Health’s Incident Command Center, stay at home orders and social distancing efforts since the initial spike in cases here have helped flatten our curve. This mitigation effort means you may currently be fortunate enough not to personally know someone who has gotten very sick or died from COVID. But we do.
We must ensure that the decline in cases we hope to see in the coming weeks does not become the trough before another regional wave of COVID-19.
I saw this too many times during my work in Liberia during the West Africa Ebola epidemic. One seemingly benign dinner gathering or birthday visit is the perfect kindling for these viruses.
