Massed Ranks
25/3/20
I feel like a bad soldier. I was exposed through incorrect triage to a sick patient who is highly likely to test positive. Since I developed a cough very soon after, I have self-isolated, but this has come just as the death rate has started to accelerate, just as the wave is about to crash.
COVID-19 patients in ITU stay there for around 3 weeks. This creates a backlog and with the rate of infectivity at 2.5 (i.e. one person on average infects 2.5 others when positive) and the exponential curve of cases and deaths only rising, a hospital with only 10 ITU beds will be overwhelmed in a single night. Our hospital plans to up bed numbers to ten times that - but with more beds that need one to one care, the more our typically undervalued, underpaid staff will need to come together, to fill the ranks for the good of everyone.
In a strange way, I’m disappointed to be be away from this. I’m disappointed that I can’t be there putting out fires with my colleagues and I’m disappointed that I went down early. Most of all, I’m disappointed that I have contributed to the uncertainty that haunts all of us as we move further up the growing curve. I can only hope in such a rapidly escalating crisis that may colleagues won’t overwhelmed as this continues.