Coronavirus Updates, Important Information, and Ancedotal Experience

ZyyzYzzy · Mar 21, 2020

Kuriin said:
For those who have yet not been made aware...we at the hospital are now required to wear only one mask per shift unless visibly soiled. That is 8-16 hours. One mask. We have to fold it and place it outside a patient's room in a paper bag with our name on it. N95s are locked up. PAPR shields which used to not be cleanable are now "cleanable" due to not having stock. Entire wings in the hospitals are filled with PUI (person under investigation) while the ICU beds are filled with proned Covid patients.

They are now finding out that Covid-19 is in fecal matter, too. So that food you are eating from people? Hope they washed their hands. =P

If you are hoarding a stash of masks, please go take them to the hospital.

I assume you're not talking about thick plastic papr shield with a higher grade protective material on the hood but the thin tyvek(ish) ones?

fanaskin · Mar 21, 2020

Kuriin · Mar 21, 2020

ZyyzYzzy said:
I assume you're not talking about thick plastic papr shield with a higher grade protective material on the hood but the thin tyvek(ish) ones?

The plastic shields that go around the ears. Those are disposable but we are running out so we have to clean them with bleach. Lol.

MAXAIR CAPR® Series: The No-Hose PAPR (Powered Air-Purifying Respirator) | Mopec

Equip your workspace with the most innovative and easy-to-use Powered Air-Purifying Respirator available. No fit testing. No N95 masks. Mopec is proud to offer the MAXAIR CAPR® Series: The No-Hose PAPR from Bio-Medical Devices International. In laboratories and autopsy suites working with agents...

www.mopec.com

We don't get the fancy shit.

Khane · Mar 21, 2020

Kuriin said:
For those who have yet not been made aware...we at the hospital are now required to wear only one mask per shift unless visibly soiled. That is 8-16 hours. One mask. We have to fold it and place it outside a patient's room in a paper bag with our name on it. N95s are locked up. PAPR shields which used to not be cleanable are now "cleanable" due to not having stock. Entire wings in the hospitals are filled with PUI (person under investigation) while the ICU beds are filled with proned Covid patients.

They are now finding out that Covid-19 is in fecal matter, too. So that food you are eating from people? Hope they washed their hands. =P

If you are hoarding a stash of masks, please go take them to the hospital.

And it's still unclear if our President has started actually invoking the Defense Production Act. And this late in the game, and with all the hospital equipment shortages and millions of Americans losing their jobs as entire local economies are shut down, nobody knows when that will change. State and local governments are essentially being told to fend for themselves and the only action the feds seem to be taking is promising relief in the form of money.

In his press conference yesterday CT governor Ned Lamont was pleading with construction sites who may have extra PPE to donate it to hospitals. Other countries are now pledging to donate PPE to the USA. This is how Donald Trump makes us great again? In 2 months we are only now starting to mobilize industry to deal with this problem?

When you're in a race you don't look behind you, notice you aren't in last place, and then congratulate yourself on a job well done. You look ahead, see people in front of you, wonder why the fuck you aren't up there yourself and push harder. That is greatness. We used to be the country that would provide aid to everyone else in dire times. Now we have countries donating materials to us and cannot seem to get our act together enough to provide our healthcare system with the support it needs to deal with this catastrophe.

But hey, at least he's still entertaining us by throwing temper tantrums at press conferences when asked reasonable questions.

Blazin · Mar 21, 2020

Meanwhile my wife has worked at our hospital for 20 years and it currently is slower than it has ever been by a long shot. They are shutting down large areas from the lack of patients. Now this is likely the more common situation outside of a handful of cities because anything that can be called off or delayed has been. I'm sure the surge is coming at some point or maybe hopefully we cratered the economy to some benefit and it won't. If the virus outbreak starts looking like an election map we should be able to start shifting supplies to the hot spots.

Maybe I'm too optimistic, I think like WWII, the US will be slow to start then blow us away with the shear scope of the response. Our emotions in the moment may have us doubt this country but truly believe nobody is more up to the challenge. Our govt does not in and of itself represent what this country can do. We have the smartest most innovative people on the planet. I know nobody wants to hear positivity right now and I'm not trying to invalidate peoples frustrations.

Khane · Mar 21, 2020

Population centers are obviously going to be reeling while lower population areas are wondering why everyone is up in arms. Population centers are going to be where we succeed or fail with this virus. Right now we are failing.

I'm glad we have areas of the country with lower populations and responsible citizens who are maintaining distances and keeping their local healthcare systems stable. But that is not "the more common situation" when you think of things in terms of people affected. 100 hospitals doing just fine and 10 hospitals in dire straits is not a positive thing when those 10 hospitals service 80% of your population and the other 100 only 20%.

Blazin · Mar 21, 2020

I no way was stating as a form of downplay but rather the opportunity to shift resources if it continues.

Right now they are calling off nurses and cutting their hours. At some point a national program to ask nurses and doctors to come help at hot spots could be beneficial. Many won't want to be put at risk but we also have people who would die doing anything they could to help save others. And we can pay them a shit ton of money while we are at it.

Kuriin · Mar 21, 2020

They are cutting hours? The only department that may be cutting hours are perioperative services. They are cancelling 95% elective surgeries and the remaining 5% are electives that need to be done urgently (think cancer). The emergency department, ICU, and other floors are being slammed busy right now. May I ask what department your wife works in?

Blazin · Mar 21, 2020

She runs the cardiac step down unit at a regional trauma center. I'll dox myself if I get too specific.

And yes last few days having to call nurses off and close pods down. As I said she has never seen the hospital so quiet.

Khane · Mar 21, 2020

The thing is... how come a shift in resources hasn't already occurred? Connecticut doesn't even have that many cases in the grand scheme, but we are already asking for help with PPE stock. We are not in the same situation as Kuriin yet, our hospital staff isn't yet being asked to reuse equipment that is not meant to be cleaned or reused. But we are teetering.

There are of course, problems with the fact that hospitals already find themselves in these situations when local and state governments are supposed to have pandemic stocks and those stocks are already depleted. That's a failing on the local level. But the alarm was sounded a while ago and a call to action still seems like it's "in the works" instead of full steam ahead.

Blazin · Mar 21, 2020

All PPE was gathered up last week and put in lock down to protect from the thieving I mentioned earlier. I don't want to get into too much speculation type thinking, but as this point they still believe it's the calm before the storm. This is suburbia but quite dense suburbia not a small town. Over a million people in the region.

Blazin · Mar 21, 2020

Khane said:
The thing is... how come a shift in resources hasn't already occurred? Connecticut doesn't even have that many cases in the grand scheme, but we are already asking for help with PPE stock. We are not in the same situation as Kuriin yet, our hospital staff isn't yet being asked to reuse equipment that is not meant to be cleaned or reused. But we are teetering.

There are of course, problems with the fact that hospitals already find themselves in these situations when local and state governments are supposed to have pandemic stocks and those stocks are already depleted. That's a failing on the local level. But the alarm was sounded a while ago and a call to action still seems like it's "in the works" instead of full steam ahead.

CT has 190 active cases probably only a fraction of those hospitalized. For your hospitals to be teetering just seems questionable. Don't want to get too deep into theory crafting, I'll just take it that you have that on good authority that is actually happening, but it does bring up questions.

Noodleface · Mar 21, 2020

Captain Suave said:
Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night, motherfuckers.

Qhue said:
Fiance also was at WB Mason and was giving walking papers yesterday. This wasn't a 'we are furloughing people for the duration...' sort of thing , it was full on severance + PTO payout. I guess they had been wanting to do a total restructuring of the company for awhile and saw this as the best opportunity to do so.

Ah damn, that sucks. The way he talks about that company, I don't understand how their still in business. Lot of things I can't post, but I'm sure your fiance knows.

Khane · Mar 21, 2020

Blazin said:
CT has 190 active cases probably only a fraction of those hospitalized. For your hospitals to be teetering just seems questionable. Don't want to get too deep into theory crafting, I'll just take it that you have that on good authority that is actually happening, but it does bring up questions.

Here is my understanding from being a situation similar to you, close friends and an ex girlfriend who are all nurses or hospital staff.

190 active cases with

1) Very little testing capacity to date
2) MANY people panicking and showing up at hospitals with minor systems so the confirmed case number is mostly meaningless when symptoms are showing up and people are ignoring advice on how they are supposed to proceed, and can't or won't even be tested.
3) PPE is intended to be used PER ROOM, PER PATIENT and then thrown away so #2 is skyrocketing PPE use
4) We are in close proximity to both NYC and Boston and our biggest epicenter is Fairfield county which is relatively close to the NY border. A lot of CT residents work in and commute back and forth from NYC
5) And this is the saddest one. Many of my friends wives were reporting a lot of very irresponsible hospital staff doing things like putting on masks to take selfies to post on social media when this fiasco started to gain speed.

Kuriin · Mar 21, 2020

Blazin said:
She runs the cardiac step down unit at a regional trauma center. I'll dox myself if I get too specific.

Yeah, no need to mention the hospital and such. I'm expecting everyone's units to be filled to capacity within the coming month(s).

Khane · Mar 21, 2020

Blazin said:
All PPE was gathered up last week and put in lock down to protect from the thieving I mentioned earlier. I don't want to get into too much speculation type thinking, but as this point they still believe it's the calm before the storm. This is suburbia but quite dense suburbia not a small town. Over a million people in the region.

Based on the anecdotal evidence it seems like the people in your area being a lot more responsible than most of the rest of the country and taking their own personal accountability to limit spread seriously. And taking a correct course of action if they show symptoms and are concerned.

Blazin · Mar 21, 2020

Khane said:
Here is my understanding from being a situation similar to you, close friends and an ex girlfriend who are all nurses or hospital staff.

190 active cases with

1) Very little testing capacity to date
2) MANY people panicking and showing up at hospitals with minor systems so the confirmed case number is mostly meaningless when symptoms are showing up and people are ignoring advice on how they are supposed to proceed
3) PPE is intended to be used PER ROOM, PER PATIENT and then thrown away so #2 is skyrocketing PPE use
4) We are in close proximity to both NYC and Boston and our biggest epicenter is Fairfield county which is relatively close to the NY border. A lot of CT residents work in and commute back and forth from NYC
5) And this is the saddest one. Many of my friends wives were reporting a lot of very irresponsible hospital staff doing things like putting on masks to take selfies to post on social media when this fiasco started to gain speed.

Are they keeping the people approaching hospital outside? We have three testing sites outside the hospital so that all the sniffles people don't overwhelm the system. So far the vast majority who have been tested have come back negative. We have 4 cases so far that came back positive.

I absolutely believe #5 and you can add stealing to it I"m sure.

The masks are coming hopefully very soon. 3M alone is at a 1.1 billion/yr production rate.

3M doubles global production of respiratory masks; warns of counterfeits

Two other Minnesota factories start producing thousands of COVID-19 test kits and ventilator parts.

www.startribune.com

...edit and wanted to note none of the 4 positives so far are in the need of hospital care and are at home.

Kuriin · Mar 21, 2020

In the emergency department, it's the patients and family members that are stealing BOXES of surgical masks. We used to have boxes out outside of each patient room (64 bed ER) and now we no longer do this.

Hosix · Mar 21, 2020

Kuriin said:
In the emergency department, it's the patients and family members that are stealing BOXES of surgical masks. We used to have boxes out outside of each patient room (64 bed ER) and now we no longer do this.

So along these lines....

At my gym before it closed? They removed the hand sanitizers cause people were filling empty water bottles to take home.

At my grocery store they used to have wipes out front? Ya....some asshat stole them.

Khane · Mar 21, 2020

Blazin said:
Are they keeping the people approaching hospital outside?

This was the last correspondence I had with any of them. This was 3 days ago:

We just got an email that people who were normally required to wear a mask because they refuse their flu shot are no longer to wear masks, and that people shouldn't wear masks/PPE unless they're going in to precaution rooms or are instructed to.

We're running out of supplies already. All PPE is on back order. What we have is all that we have.

At this point, it's not IF I get COVID, it's WHEN will I get it?

Didn't realize it was that long ago so I sent out a text message for an update and immediately got this response:

So the nurses at *local hospital* are apparently sanitizing and reusing things already. *Friend's name here* says it's the same at *other local hospital*

My university has an alumni forum I frequent and one of my good friends works for the health department of NY state. He posted this 3 days ago

OK guys, here's the deal.

Every county is supposed to have a strategic emergency stockpile of supplies based on population. New York State has a stockpile, and the country has a stockpile. These are kept around the country and state so they can distributed during emergencies.

We are in an emergency.

I started at the county stockpile yesterday and we were already out of N95 masks. The state is opening up their stockpile and sending us some tomorrow, after that, no more N95 masks. This is not a New York problem, there are no N95 masks anywhere. The places that make them, China, can't staff enough people to make them, and the back order is long. If you want to make money for the next year or so, open a N95 mask factory.

Everyone and their brother is asking us for masks, from *hospital name* all the way down to the *hospital name*. We can't give out what we don't have I am sending many emails asking for providers to give me two weeks of supplies, but that is just so when the federal stockpile opens we can make an appropriate claim. We have tapped into the state supply of surgical masks and I imagine those will be gone by the weekend.

Speaking of weekends, I'm now working them. We are into the point of the emergency where key members have to take days off or burn out. We have four people covering a three man team in a 6 days on, 2 days off shift. When we eventually run out of stuff to give away we will probably be put in other roles.

*County name* is testing a drive through testing area tomorrow, so expect that to go live shortly. The more the tests are administered, the more the numbers will climb.

I drove by *hospital name* on the way home and they have large tents set up outside the ER doors. They are preparing to triage.

We are 7-10 days out from the point when things were the worst in Italy. It's gonna get worse, be prepared. Stay safe.

Coronavirus Updates, Important Information, and Ancedotal Experience

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