Coronavirus and Social Distancing

I don't know who wrote the item below about the vital importance of social distancing during the rapid spread of the coronavirus. If you know the original source, please let me know and I will give the proper credit. It has been shared over social media without crediting the original author. Several sources attribute it to a nurse in KC. The advice seems to be accurate:

I am not a confrontational person at all. And I’m struggling to express in words everything I want to say to really stress the importance of this. But after seeing some of the discussion recently regarding social distancing (or how you are going to blatantly ignore it) really has me straight up terrified. TERRIFIED. Let me tell you why.

I am an ER nurse. I will be on the front lines, in the trenches battling this thing when it really hits KC. And the general attitude regarding social distancing and how “it won’t stop me from living my life” is making me absolutely terrified at the battle we healthcare providers are gearing up to face.

Social distancing isn’t because you’re scared of contracting the virus. Social distancing isn’t the media causing a frenzy. Social distancing is our last effort to gain control of this thing before it overwhelms our healthcare system. Social distancing is for the benefit of your entire community. Ideally, if everyone would limit themselves to staying home aside from absolutely essential things, the virus would spread at a steady, stable, continuous rate.

If social distancing is ignored and the masses continue to unnecessarily contract and spread the virus in groups in public, then we as a community see a very LARGE, rapid spike in sick people. So many sick people in such a short period of time that the hospitals can’t keep up. They don’t have the physical space, resources, staff members, ventilators, etc to be able to effectively care for such a large group of sick people, with multiple critically ill patients. Aside from that, people don’t stop having critical illness such as heart attacks, strokes, sepsis, pulmonary embolisms, respiratory failure, etc just because there’s a pandemic. There ARE NOT enough hospital rooms to house all these sick people, NOT enough ventilators or ICU rooms/nurses to take care of a large influx of intubated patients, NOT enough staff members to be able to care for such a large number of patients presenting for care at once.

If you’re not scared by the implications that could potentially have on our healthcare system, you should be. I’ve had years of disaster training and let me tell you, if we don’t contain this thing to a slow spread, the effects will be dire. Under normal circumstances if a patient presents to the emergency department with an illness critical enough that it will kill them, they receive all the resources and staff members the department can spare until they are stabilized. No effort is spared. That is not the case in a disaster. In a disaster, we have to determine where we can do the most good with the least amount of resources.

If a 65 year old with health conditions and a 25 year old with no health conditions present with the same critical illness and will both die if they don’t get immediate attention, and we only have enough resources to help one of them, we have to choose who dies. Let that sink in. I, as a healthcare provider, along with my team mates of nurses and physicians, have to decide whose LIFE ENDS because we don’t have the resources to care for both. And we have to help that patient pass comfortably because, under these circumstances, we don’t have the resources to even attempt to save them.

Can you imagine the emotional trauma and burden this places on our healthcare workers? Aside from them being forced to work an inhumane amount of hours and care for patient ratios that would never be considered safe or legal. Simply because there are too many sick patients at once. This horrifying scene is Italy’s reality right now. And could very easily become our reality if we continue with the “I’m not scared, I’m going to continue to live my life” attitude.

I know it sucks to be shut away in your house with your kids after you’ve been doing it all winter. Believe me. I freakin know. We are all moms, we KNOW. But going to public places just for the sake of getting out could have SERIOUS implications. Italy is literally collapsing. They’re on complete, mandated lockdown because they couldn’t stabilize the spread. They’re literally having to decide who is worthy of life saving measures and who has to die without help. Because it spread so quickly and exponentially. If we don’t take this seriously, we could end up in a similar situation. If we do not stabilize the spread, our healthcare system can NOT handle this virus in a way that’s going to have good outcomes. Seriously. I’m not sure what else I can say to stress the seriousness of the situation.

Please. Stay home unless it’s essential. For the sake of your community and the healthcare workers that will already be stretched SO thin to battle this thing under even the best of circumstances. Do it for those vulnerable populations who can’t afford for the hospitals to not have the resources to help them. They will pay with their life. And I don’t want to have to be a part of the decision to let them die because we can’t help them. Please. A slow, steady, small number of infected people spread over a longer period of time is manageable. A rapid, large explosion of infected people is not.

It’s going to take all of us, our entire community, to adhere to the recommendations in order to get a handle on this, if we are going to be able to manage it effectively. Don’t let us get to the point of Italy.

Thanks friends. Stay safe, and stay smart.

jlferri@epix.net