NYT : Nurses Die, Doctors Fall Sick and Panic Rises on Virus Front Lines

[Celerity]

The pandemic has begun to sweep through New York City’s medical ranks, and anxiety is growing among normally dispassionate medical professionals.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/30/nyregion/ny-coronavirus-doctors-sick.html


Nurses at Jacobi Medical Center in the Bronx gathered early Saturday to protest a shortage of protective equipment, including N95 masks.

A supervisor urged surgeons at Columbia University Irving Medical Center in Manhattan to volunteer for the front lines because half the intensive-care staff had already been sickened by coronavirus.

“ICU is EXPLODING,” she wrote in an email.

A doctor at Weill Cornell Medical Center in Manhattan described the unnerving experience of walking daily past an intubated, critically ill colleague in her 30s, wondering who would be next. Another doctor at a major New York City hospital described it as “a petri dish,” where more than 200 workers had fallen sick. Two nurses in city hospitals have died. The coronavirus pandemic, which has infected more than 30,000 people in New York City, is beginning to take a toll on those who are most needed to combat it: the doctors, nurses and other workers at hospitals and clinics. In emergency rooms and intensive care units, typically dispassionate medical professionals are feeling panicked as increasing numbers of colleagues get sick.

“I feel like we’re all just being sent to slaughter,” said Thomas Riley, a nurse at Jacobi Medical Center in the Bronx, who has contracted the virus, along with his husband.

Medical workers are still showing up day after day to face overflowing emergency rooms, earning them praise as heroes. Thousands of volunteers have signed up to join their colleagues. But doctors and nurses said they can look overseas for a dark glimpse of the risk they are facing, especially when protective gear has been in short supply. In China, more than 3,000 doctors were infected, nearly half of them in Wuhan, where the pandemic began, according to Chinese government statistics. Li Wenliang, the Chinese doctor who first tried to raise the alarm about Covid-19, eventually died of it.

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[magicarpet]

1. We need prophylactic medications pronto....

In the absence of PPE for these health care providers,...

... we desperately need a prophylactic medication or blood antibodies from prior patients who are over and fought off the virus and lived. Take these human antibodies and distribute it to the various blood types in blood banks. Match up the blood types of the people who have not yet had the virus and infuse the COVID-19 antibodies into their blood.

Something is needed desperately to protect people during the interim until a vaccine is found. Health care workers and elderly with comorbidities are very much at risk of death.

[orwell]

2. That would take weeks...

...they need help now!

[magicarpet]

5. This son of a bitch in the White House should have tested, and tested, and tested some more.

This would have permitted us to quarantine and not have allowed this fucking virus to spread around into every nook and cranny.

Now the entire medical system is catatoniclly overwhelmed in a state of stupor. After trDumpie's fuck up upon fuck up we will be fortunate if the US death toll does not exceed one million. We are going to lose a lot of first responders, doctors, and nurses.

USA, USA, USA ! ! !

FUCK TRUMP.

[orwell]

10. We know what works...

...massive testing and quarantine. At this point it is not rocket science.

Look at South Korea and Germany.

But if you don't believe in science and expertise but rather your "gut" or your belief that "God will save us" you are setting yourself up for the catastrophe that we see before us.

Who would have thought that electing a narcissistic con man for president would lead us into such a disaster...

Oh, that's right...

[magicarpet]

4. trDumpie is essentially telling them,

.. take an old pair of panties or underwear to cover your mouth in high risk locations such as ICU wards, to protect doctors and nurses attend COVID,-19 patients.

He must be going bonkers cause he can't just run off and go play golf when the mood strikes him.

[Maraya1969]

3. I'd like to know what they are working without that is causing this number of infections

IOW - Is it a lack of Googles and the virus is entering through the eyes?

They can't be working without masks right? Or is this a sign that reusing N95 masks doesn't help or regular surgical masks are worthless?

Gloves?

I also heard that the infection can go through your ears.

Do these people need full on whole face and head protection? Is working with surgical masks and gloves not nearly enough?

People without face coverings should at least be wearing glasses; even plain glasses without prescriptions would help I would think. At least that is what I am telling myself if I have to go out.

[magicarpet]

6. Maybe negative air pressure chambers are required and head to toe hazmat apparel.

[magicarpet]

7. No skin no flesh exposed.

Don't think the barrier is respiratory protection the barrier needs to be taken up a notch. No skin, no flesh exposed to this virus ?

Like a weapons bio-lab outfit that is worn there.

Chinese doctors attend covid patients,

[magicarpet]

8. Plastic garbage bags now being used by doctors and nurses as isolation gowns

NY hospital nurse dies, no face masks no disposable isolation suits.

*******

Chicago doctor shows how to make isolation suits...

[Bayard]

9. Well, they wouldn't have this problem,

If they would quit selling them out the back door.