fartlekpa
I first posted about the threat of pandemic on January 30th. This was 2 weeks after I started preparing in my personal life. I'm half surprised/half not surprised to see very little has changed in people's understanding of the situation. As usual, trial and error will lead the way and the idiots will not understand until they are personally affected.
I rarely use LRC anymore but decided to back in January to use as a cross section of public perception. It has turned out to be quite accurate.
For the record--I manage a large team of health care providers in one of the most eminent hospitals in the world. My work & my team cover cardiac care from outpatient to ICU to general ward. Our institution has been on alert since late January and our emergency response team has been active since mid-January.
Here is where we stand as of this morning:
- Yesterday at our surgical grand rounds some of the most well known surgeons in the world were told to prepare to do things outside of their usual scope of practice....in other words, be ready to run ventilators, ICU patients, etc. We are watching Italy closely (and the rest of Europe as it is clearly following the same trajectory)--the lack of resources is a major concern as is the expected reduction in workforce who become infected. We're already sent people home for having cough, sore throat, or congestion.
- Overnight we saw the first significant uptick in admissions and this morning we've been told to prepare to cancel elective cases. This was inevitable but quite sobering. Floors are beginning to clear out to prepare for an influx of patients--mostly rule outs.
- Our institution expects to have an in-house testing process active by next week. Currently all tests are sent to our state DPH and turnaround time is 2 days. This is good news but will inevitably increase the number of infected as testing more will allow us to see behind the curtain of reality.
I don't check this forum much any more for a variety of reasons--partly b/c it's actually painful to watch people be so stupid. There are a few on here who seem to really grasp the situation and the increasing probability that they will be affected. ANYONE who tries to predict the future (for better or worse) should be ignored, outright.
My biggest hope is that things settle out, the curve flattens and the idiots do a victory lap, but I'm not counting on it. You have no idea how much I'm hoping for that. Take this situation seriously.