Interview with A Doctor on The Frontline

As we all know, COVID-19 is an infectious disease that can spread rapidly from person to person. And because of this, we are to self-quarantine to slow the virus down. However, there are still many people putting their lives on the line to help during this crisis. Doctors and nurses risk their lives every day by helping patients who are coming into contact with the virus. During this weird time, health care professionals are needed more than ever. I thought it would be interesting to get a doctor’s point of view on the Coronavirus and what it’s like at the hospital. My dad is a doctor and has been working in close proximity to coronavirus patients. So, I asked him to answer a few questions to get his perspective.

Do you think the government has been under-reporting COVID-19 cases based on what you’ve seen? 

There is likely not under-reporting but my guess is that there is overall under-testing. I think from my experience and the numbers I have seen reported from Georgia, they seem reasonable.

Just like in any sort of bureaucratic hierarchy, there’s always some miscommunication that will occur. If you take GA as a microcosm of what’s going on, you have lawmakers looking at things from top-down and the info they are getting is being filtered through a lot of different levels. What these people might be looking at is something as straightforward as how many beds are available in an area. That doesn’t tell you things like negative pressure rooms or ventilators. All of this adds another layer to trying to decipher the type of data that they are getting. The other big thing that they may not realize is manpower, so nursing. An example would be a hospital that has 600 beds, all of those beds may not be open because they don’t have the nursing staff to care for those patients. So a 600-bed hospital may only be running at 500 beds or even 400 beds because that’s the staff that they have. And that can also be the same thing with the idea of testing, are we really under-reporting testing or are we not testing enough people. Are they under-reporting? If you look at Georgia numbers they do seem accurate. Are we testing enough? Probably not. 

How has your mental health been throughout this? Is it any different than normal days at the hospital before Corona?

There have been longer days, extra shifts, and sicker patients. As a team, we’re pretty comfortable taking care of a variety of different ICU patients. So with the Coronavirus patients that we have cared for, we have been comfortable with additional precautions. 

In regards to the high death rate, on a regular basis, we deal with the life-ending issues. Unfortunately, death and dying is not new to us. Overall I don’t think it affected my mental state. 

Are you worried about bringing it home to your family?

Yes. This virus made me more attentive to what I should be doing to minimize transmission to not only my family but my other patients. 

Initially reading all of the articles and seeing what was happening in New York City, I was concerned that we weren’t going to minimize the spike of patients that were going to present to our hospital and I took precautions. We started to change our schedule as an ICU to help cover more and more beds. And that meant more time in the hospital. Reading about New York City running out of supplies, I  ordered things that I knew our hospital would be slow on getting because of likely low stockpiles, such as goggles and face shields. Unlike New York City, Georgia and Cobb County weren’t absolutely blindsided by the virus. For the most part, I think we got in front of the pandemic and we were able to flatten the curve, but it is not over. 

 It’s been said that younger people are not as affected by this. Is that true? 

That’s a very good question. It depends on how you look at the numbers. So, are younger people out of danger? Absolutely not. You as a young person can still get Coronavirus and suffer from its numerous complications and continue its spread. But, you are less likely to die from complications when compared to an older individual with a more chronic disease like high blood pressure and breathing disorders. 

The other interesting thing about your question is something that has only been hinted at in the press and medical literature and that is something called “post-viral illness.” In theory, these are problems that occur after a viral illness has subsided and can affect any organ system. Some of the most disabling symptoms are neurological and tend to be seen in younger people. 

Should quarantine be lifted and should GA be opening back up this soon?

Should quarantine be lifted? No. Unfortunately, there hasn’t been a lot that has changed other than more sick patients in the hospital. Without robust testing, patient quarantine, and encounter tracking, I think we may be setting ourselves up for a potential second spike. The obvious problem is people are suffering from the economy being closed, but I think we may inadvertently cause more problems if we open things without appropriate precautions. What worries me also, in the last few days I have seen more people out. A lot more people in grocery stores and it seems like the only precaution people are taking is a mask, which is not as helpful as social distancing and sheltering in place. 

Things are starting to go back to normal. The other thing to mention, in general, even if you had an additional 40 ICU patients that are all Coronavirus patients, they tend to be very sick for a very long time, around 2 weeks easy of an ICU stay. That is typically a much longer stay than a majority of other ICU patients, so that continuously blocks up the system. Those beds are out of the rotation for that long and we are running right now at a 90% capacity, so that’s just to say that if there is another spike as we open things up again, it is possible now that maybe we did flatten the curve but we’re still just under the capacity mark. If there is another surge now, we are even closer to the capacity mark than we were 2 months ago and we can stress the system even more and make it easier to go into failure, if we aren’t careful. 

It’s a scary time right now and there are many many people who are putting their lives on the line. It was interesting getting a doctor’s point of view on the pandemic.  If you know any doctors or nurses who are working during this strange time, just send them a simple text such as, “thank you for what you’re doing!” At the very least, that may make their day a bit less chaotic.