Pandemic Thoughts

I haven't been writing much. I have been very, very burned out and have been neglecting a lot of hobbies. I feel like I should say something about the coronavirus pandemic. Most of what I have to say has already been said so I won't lecture you too much.

I work in skilled nursing and we had a wave of it go through out building. Fortunately, most of our staff and residents had mild cases. We did have a small number of fatalities among residents and a few hospitalizations and one staff member in the ICU, but for the most part we got through it with minimal complications. Not every facility was that lucky, so I consider ourselves lucky. We cleared the cases in our building and were Covid-free, testing our staff and residents on a weekly basis, and we were finally accepting new admissions. 

Then, the spouse of a staff member tested positive. They were an essential worker in another industry; I'm not sure if it was retail or agriculture or what, but they were exposed. Our staff member stayed home as soon as this was realized, however it was too late. Last I heard we had three new confirmed positive residents and one suspected case who had symptoms.

I've heard some say "just isolate the vulnerable and reopen for everyone else." What that fails to take into consideration is that the vulnerable population can't be totally isolated. Our residents have been locked down in their rooms since March. But their caregivers still need to to get food, get medications, go to the doctor, and be out in the community. They may live with others who are essential workers who face the public.

We get tested weekly at my workplace. Which means in less than a week, this staff member who had been negative was exposed and spreading it before we could catch it. It's no fault of the staff member or their spouse. It just demonstrates how incredibly contagious this disease is and also how quickly after exposure you can start spreading it without knowing it.

So for the love of your community and your vulnerable neighbors, the absolute BEST things you can do are wear a mask and follow social distancing. Because this thing is so contagious, even when not showing symptoms, there's no simply "isolating the vulnerable". It takes everyone to pitch in to control the spread of this thing. You could be sharing it and not even know. Please, I am pleading with you, mask up!