Ok folks, I need to talk to you about the coronavirus for a minute. This is not a drill. Things are going to get seriously worse in a very short time and most of what I see around me is denial, denial, denial.
The situation in Italy is terrible. The Italian College of Anesthesia, Analgesia, Resuscitation and Intensive Care has published triage guidelines for determining how to allocate scarce resources like ventilators. Doctors are having to make decisions about who gets a ventilator and who doesn't. We are only 11 days, at best, behind Italy in this pandemic and nobody seems to be really grasping that this is serious. Social distancing 3-6 feet and staying home as much as possible, washing hands frequently, are the only real tools we have to slow this down so it doesn't exceed our hospital capacity. Changes in behavior need to start right now.
And what does get serious mean KML? Just what would you like be done. We’ve already lost our minds and are trying to shut down the country. How/why is this different than swine flu or Ebola or SARS. We’re closing schools, shutting down near every social event from sports to broadway to Disney. What in the hell else should we do?
DonH Midwest Me 56 WAW-EXW 55 Met 11/95 / Married 5/00 Bomb 6/20/05 / She Filed on 6/2/06 / Divorced on 10/9/06 4 who'd qualify as GF since D & dated about 25 women since D
Well, we have taken this very seriously where I live/work. Social distancing, no one person meetings, hand washing out the wazoo, of course. Everything being cancelled. School preparing for online study. Our local nursing facilities are not allowing any visitor in unless their loved one is actively dying.
We had our positive case in the hospital I work in. And it’s a small community hospital. We all have contact with eachother.
Spent most of today in pandemic planning meetings. All non essential travel has been cancelled. We're working with our business partners and carriers to minimize contact while still keeping the trucks rolling. No visitors will be allowed on site without an appointment and all documents that used to be hand delivered will be reviewed to see if we can do without them or get them electronically.
We supply water treatment plants and need to ensure a steady supply of product. One of our biggest concerns beyond the safety of our own people is the possible disruption to our carriers if the drivers come down sick or refuse to work.
Each staff member who can is going to trial working from home. I will not visit the corporate office which required a ride on the subway until all clear is given
We've had customers return sports tickets saying they aren't allowed to go. It "was" just the Maple Leafs but still ...
On BD H52, W50 T27, M26 S21, D23 BD-9-Mar-16 D-15-Jan-18 Final-19-Apr-18 I am a storyteller. The story may do you no good. But a story is never for the listener. It is always for the one who tells
DonH - yeas it’s different. SARS and Ebola, because of their high death rates and short incubation periods, were actually much easier to control. Swine flu caused many deaths but people could be vaccinated.
The problem here is surge capacity and flattening the curve. Left unchecked, this virus will overwhelm our hospitals. We don’t have enough ICU beds and ventilators. Doctors in Italy are already having to make tough choices about who gets a ventilator and who doesn’t.
We are about 11 days behind Italy. We need to flatten the curve - slow the rate of spread so that, instead of 100 patients in a week, a hospital might only have to deal with 35 patients in a week. If your hospital capacity is 50 patients a week, it’s the difference between being overwhelmed versus being in control and able to render care.
The ONLY tools we have to flatten the curve are hand washing and social distancing. Be prepared for the possibility of having to be quarantined at home. Schools are closing in my town and people are being converted to working from home.
E’s schools just closed indefinitely. Today my daughter has a two hour delay tomorrow to learn from home. The colleges switched to online and sent their students home if they lived on campus.
I, however, will never work from home. We actually could, though. But I’m making a point in our huddle this morning ( which is now via Skype call) that we do not need to be seeing every single patient, every single day. If a plan is established, I have no reason to pop in that room. And just about anyone with a respiratory symptom , not even diagnosis, is on contact and droplet precautions.
Our N95 masks are locked up somewhere and we have no clue.
Our university went to "remote instruction" as of 5:00 yesterday and will remain all online until April 13. How the h3ll am I supposed to do hands-on lab activities online????? Oh well, my problem to deal with. Students were sent home and only those who absolutely cannot go home or have nowhere else to go (mostly a very small number of international students) are allowed to stay in the dorms. Those students are restricted to their dorm and the dining hall and are not allowed into any other buildings on campus for any reason without being accompanied by a university employee. Most of us are working from home part of the time with sparse office hours on campus to service those who require face to face interaction for whatever reason, but this is VERY limited. Sparky works for a small company that only has 7 employees so for now, they are going about business as usual, but I am staying home as much as possible. Sparky can be a bit of a germophobe anyway, so other than going to work, we are ordering groceries online and not eating out or going out for entertainment purposes. We live out in the country, in a fairly remote area so I think we have the social distancing thing down. We had planned to go see a movie this weekend, but have decided to just stay home and work outside, weather permitting. If it rains as it is supposed to, we'll hang out in the house and read, visit, play games, whatever.
Like everyone else, we are mainly mostly inconvenienced by the lack of TP. I'm not saying this is all hype or anything, but good Lord people...………..who needs 15 cases of toilet paper? I'm going to have to brave a few stores today in search of some, not because I need to hoard, but because we are down to 2 rolls.
This whole thing was actually a great jumping off point for a very open and frank discussion with my class yesterday because a young man asked me when he came in what I thought about all of it. I asked him to hold that thought until class started and we would talk about it and we did. It was interesting to hear a young person's perspective, especially those of people who are just now really feeling their independence for the first time, so this may be the first adult thing they have really had to face. It served as a great discussion and we talked about the importance of washing hands, social distancing, being very cautious, making hard adult decisions about NOT going to do that fun thing (whatever that may be, assuming it isn't cancelled). At the time of the discussion, we didn't know our university would be going all online by the end of the day, but we talked about what if and why that was a good thing and what the potential bad parts of that was. Believe it or not, they did actually have some bad points to go with their good ones, which kind of surprised me because I thought I would get a lot of answers about it being good because they would be able to sleep late and do their coursework late in the afternoon or in the evening or not having to actually attend class but being able to just go online and do it on their time.
I appreciate your comments, kml, and I appreciate that they were general and not necessarily aimed at anyone in particular, but I think it is imperative for informed people to continue to speak out and HOPEFULLY get through to some of those not so informed people. I am not necessarily saying I'm super informed, but I do think I'm reasonably intelligent. I'm not going around saying this is all a hoax, but I'm also not panicking and buying 700 rolls of toilet paper (clearly, since I am down to 2...LOL). I am going to do my part and help my husband do his part and we will also help his mom do her part, since she is actually one of those in that great risk factor category (elderly, has an immune-compromised health issue already). We are going to keep to ourselves and avoid crowds and buy what few groceries we need online until all this blows over. I wish those tp hoarders would just calm down and do the same.
Me 52, H53 Bomb drop 9/29/2014 Divorce from XH final 12/17/2014 Marriage #2 12/31/2019 5 adult (step)daughters (3 from XH's first marriage, 2 from current H's previous relationships) 6 grandkids
I wish those tp hoarders would just calm down and do the same.
Why are people hoarding TP? It sounds like a bad joke.
My sons have spring break next week. My XW will have the boys during spring break. She'd planned on taking the boys, and a couple of their friends, to Disney World during spring break. Unfortunately, Disney World will be closed starting Monday; they were planning on going down there on Tuesday and staying for a few days. They'll be disappointed.
The first official case hospitalized in my suburb was announced last night, 6 so far in my city (up from one Tuesday). Undoubtedly many more but the lack of testing makes it invisible.
The top health official of Ohio estimates they probably have 100,000 cases undiagnosed!
I will be running a couple necessary errands today (office is closed Friday) but with my mask and hand sanitizer at the ready.
Btw if you need a mask ( let’s say you were around someone with a cough and now you need to go attend to an elderly relative and want to protect them from your droplets) I did see a handy video online on how to make a mask from parchment paper. Basically you cut a rectangle, accordion pleat it, lay a rubber band over each end. Fold the end over the rubber band and staple it. It’s not ideal but might be helpful for some.
