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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsNYT: A New York Doctor's Coronavirus Warning: The Sky Is Falling
Alarmist is not a word anyone has ever used to describe me before. But this is different.
March 19, 2020, 5:00 a.m. ET
We are living in a global public health crisis moving at a speed and scale never witnessed by living generations. The cracks in our medical and financial systems are being splayed open like a gashing wound. No matter how this plays out, life will forever look a little different for all of us.
On the front lines, patients are lining up outside of our emergency rooms and clinics looking to us for answers but we have few. Only on Friday did coronavirus testing become more readily available in New York, and the tests are still extremely limited. Right next to my office in the hospital, a lab is being repurposed with hopes of a capability to run 1,000 tests a day. But today, and likely tomorrow, even M.D.s do not have straightforward access to testing across the country. Furthermore, the guidelines and criteria for testing are changing almost daily. Our health care system is mired in situational uncertainty. The leadership of our hospital is working tirelessly but doctors on the ground are pessimistic about our surge capacity.
Making my rounds at the childrens hospital earlier this week, I saw that the boxes of gloves and other personal protective equipment were dwindling. This is a crisis for our vulnerable patients and health care workers alike. Protective equipment is only one of the places where supplies are falling short. At our large, 4,000-bed New York City hospital, we have 500 ventilators and 250 on backup reserve. If we are on track to match the scale of Covid-19 infections in Italy, then we are likely to run out of ventilators in New York. The anti-viral treatments we have for Covid-19 are experimental and many of them are hard to even get approved. Let me repeat. The sky is falling.
I say this not to panic anyone but to mobilize you. We need more equipment and we need it now. Specifically gloves, masks, eye protection and more ventilators. We need our technology friends to be making and testing prototypes to rig the ventilators that we do have to support more than one patient at a time. We need our labs channeling all of their efforts into combating this bug that means vaccine research and antiviral treatment research, quickly.
We need hospitals to figure out how to nimbly and flexibly modify our existing practices to adapt to this virus and do it fast. Doctors across the globe are sharing information, protocols and strategies through social media, because our common publishing channels are too slow. Physician and surgeon mothers are coming together on Facebook groups to publish advice to parents and the public, to amplify our outrage, and to underscore the fear we feel for our most vulnerable patient populations, as well as ourselves and our families.
Please flatten the curve and stay at home, but please do not go into couch mode. Like everyone, I have moments where imagining the worst possible Covid-19 scenario steals my breath. But cowering in the dark places of our minds doesnt help. Rather than private panic, we need public-spirited action. Those of us walking into the rooms of Covid-19-positive patients every day need you and your minds, your networks, your creative solutions, and your voices to be fighting for us. We might be the exhausted masked face trying to resuscitate you when you show up on the doorstep of our hospital. And when you do, I promise not to panic. Ill use every ounce of my expertise to keep you alive. Please, do the same for us.
Cornelia Griggs is a mother, writer and pediatric surgery fellow in New York.
More: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/19/opinion/coronavirus-doctor-new-york.html?algo=top_conversion&fellback=false&imp_id=286662627&imp_id=749640966&action=click&module=trending&pgtype=Article®ion=Footer
UpInArms
(51,284 posts)Try Resistbot
https://resist.bot/
You can write to all of them ...
Thank you, Mike, for posting this
bronxiteforever
(9,287 posts)gademocrat7
(10,659 posts)neohippie
(1,142 posts)I was asking our lighting specialist at work if there was a light spectrum that killed viruses and he said the thought that there was.
I then googled this and found this article from Feb 2018 about a light that does just that
https://www.webmd.com/cold-and-flu/news/20180212/can-uv-light-be-used-to-kill-airborne-flu-virus-#1
Is this even being touted as a possible solution to slowing the spread at all? Maybe so but it should be
Basically we could ramp up production of these UVC low level lights and put them in hospitals and other public spaces, this seems like a no brainer
wyldwolf
(43,867 posts)WhiteTara
(29,718 posts)One drop of tea tree oil in a small splash of water might be effective (antiviral is one of the properties) as a gargle. Be sure and spit it all out. Note though: Tea tree oil should never be ingested. Swallowing tea tree oil is dangerous and can lead to confusion and loss of muscle coordination.
I did read that drinking water through out the day might have the effect of washing the virus off the "hook points" at the back of the throat.
wyldwolf
(43,867 posts)The Velveteen Ocelot
(115,735 posts)It's good to stay hydrated but drinking water isn't going to wash away the virus.
WhiteTara
(29,718 posts)but drinking water throughout the day is still a good thing to do. I imagine most people are slightly dehydrated all the time from coffee, soft drinks, alcohol. But thanks for the debunk!
The Velveteen Ocelot
(115,735 posts)emmaverybo
(8,144 posts)medical use. Gargling warm salt water can ease sore throat pain and inflammation. It has no effect on the virus nor does hydrating every fifteen minutes, much as keeping sufficiently hydrated is a good idea, nor does using a hair dryer to blast the virus out of nasal passages.
appalachiablue
(41,146 posts)this hasn't been known and implemented more broadly.
jberryhill
(62,444 posts)There's a reason UV light is a disinfectant.
appalachiablue
(41,146 posts)time outdoors only one had melanoma, prognosis good. No eye problems.
paleotn
(17,931 posts)sunlight is the best disinfectant. And that's with much of the UV end of the spectrum blocked by our atmosphere.
MissB
(15,810 posts)But not all are rated to do so.
There was a photo floating around the media in recent weeks of buses being disinfected with uv lights that were set up in a circular pattern bulbs ends facing up and down.
SammyWinstonJack
(44,130 posts)crickets
(25,981 posts)The World Health Organization has cautioned that UV lamps should not be used to sterilise hands or other areas of skin -- as UV radiation can cause skin irritation -- but Qin said the chambers are closed off and activated by staff outside.
Health experts told AFP that UV light is not typically used to disinfect public areas, but can be effective if done right.
Paul Tambyah, president of the Asia Pacific Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infection, said UV disinfection is effective but needs to be used with care as the light can cause skin cancer.
"UV disinfection is widely used in hospitals worldwide after patients have left a room," he said. "This is used for antimicrobial resistant pathogens, tuberculosis and other infectious agents."
eta--There's more discussion further in the article about research into using'far-UVC for disinfecting the skin since it's thought not to penetrate skin/eyes enough to cause cancer or cataracts. So yes, it's a thing.
forkol
(113 posts)Is quite common. It's already used in laboratories and hospitals. I'm not sure about the efficacy against COVID-19.
It's good for where you can shine it line-of-sight. It's not so good for moving air. It's used a lot in water treatment and aquariums.
robbob
(3,531 posts)Last edited Thu Mar 19, 2020, 01:42 PM - Edit history (1)
She says dont go into couch mode, and I dont intend to (long walks are good for the mind), but in terms of helping the fight against covid19, what can any of us do?
Looking for suggestions here...
<on edit> she not he. Thanks for pointing that out.
Baclava
(12,047 posts)I dont know what she wants from me, i dont have a bunker filled with bins of masks, gowns and gloves
robbob
(3,531 posts)but Im not sure that was the authors intention. Unless self-quarantine is all hes asking for. Which might be the answer, actually...
Baclava
(12,047 posts)Mme. Defarge
(8,034 posts)I cleaned out two kitchen drawers and finished my tax returns. Anything to take my mind off of the news for awhile.
Baclava
(12,047 posts)Clicking off all the news is good
eilen
(4,950 posts)Crowd sourcing the design and production of needed supplies
r/crowdsourcedmedical
I think she is talking about something like that. We need creative problem solvers. People who like to fabricate stuff. Also connectors--people who can connect the right people together to make things happen like investors or connections with raw material vendors etc. If there are people out there with PM experience, they need you too.
Because cough cough, I hope you aren't waiting for anyone in DC to do anything useful. Lolz.
I mean, people in Washington state are getting crafty to put together PPE for the nurses and doctors.
Oh and forget about Musk.. he is a pandemic-denier.
WhiskeyGrinder
(22,357 posts)HarlanPepper
(2,042 posts)Thats what they want you to do.
jmbar2
(4,890 posts)I'm in the higher risk group so I can't do public contact, but would gladly pitch in if I had a way to do so. I think of the civil war civilians rolling cloth bandages, the Victory gardens of WWII, collecting tin and aluminum.
We have so many idled people right now. I wish we could all be making masks or respirators.
calimary
(81,322 posts)SunSeeker
(51,574 posts)liberalla
(9,249 posts)Thank you!
tclambert
(11,087 posts)and over 1 million by the middle of April. Sometime in June, we could pass 100 million. Then the number of active cases may finally begin to go down.
Then Trump will try to take credit for the decline and urge everyone to go back to work. The experts will scream, "NO! It's a long way from over!" Trump will fume and keep saying "It's over! It's over! I cured it!" And the number may start to go back up again.