Healthcare worker safety with Covid-19

[wakproductions]

My wife graduated from nursing school in December and began working as an ED nurse just several weeks ago. We are very concerned about Covid-19. There is a certain level of risk as a healthcare provider who directly interacts with patients, but the unknowns on the deadliness of this new germ and how it spreads is something we weren't prepared for. Because some people carry this asymptomatically for a while and there seems to be some sort of through the air transmission, my wife is most concerned bringing this thing home and infecting the rest of our family.

Her employer does not seem to be taking the steps we would expect to be proactive in keeping workers safe. Because personal protective equipment is in short supply, they are making such items unavailable to the nursing staff except for special circumstances. They haven't been thoroughly testing new patients. Many of the other people we know working in healthcare (including people at her workplace) seem to not be as concerned as we are. They seem confident that they will just fight it off and recover if infected with Covid-19.

We're not sure what to do. If my wife quits her job so soon after just starting because of this crisis, would that be a career ending decision? If you work in healthcare, do you have an opinion on how to improve your personal safety as an ED nurse in this situation?

 

[Rookie]

Paging Hoosierdoc....

 

[OurDee]

"Many of the other people we know working in healthcare (including people at her workplace) seem to not be as concerned as we are. They seem confident that they will just fight it off and recover if infected with Covid-19."

Relax, Go to church Sunday and cover your bases, Turn off the news and quit reading all the C-virus stuff on the webz. Chances are it will be mild if she finds it. Wash your hands. Flu or something else will probably get you first: Needle stick, car wreck, slip in the tub, lightning strike, mugger stabbing, neglegent discharge, snake bite, fire, swatting, drowning, it goes on and on. Most deadly? I think heart attack is still in the lead. Biggest solution is turn off the news.

 

[wakproductions]

"Many of the other people we know working in healthcare (including people at her workplace) seem to not be as concerned as we are. They seem confident that they will just fight it off and recover if infected with Covid-19."

Relax, Go to church Sunday and cover your bases, Turn off the news and quit reading all the C-virus stuff on the webz. Chances are it will be mild if she finds it. Wash your hands. Flu or something else will probably get you first: Needle stick, car wreck, slip in the tub, lightning strike, mugger stabbing, neglegent discharge, snake bite, fire, swatting, drowning, it goes on and on. Most deadly? I think heart attack is still in the lead. Biggest solution is turn off the news.

That's exactly what a lot of healthcare administrators are saying about this. If it was not such a big deal, then why have countries quarantined entire major cities to contain this thing? This is spreading a lot faster than other diseases and has dwarfed the number of total known cases of SARS and N5H1. How are we so confident that the symptoms will be "mild" when it's killed people in their 30s and 40s, and healthcare workers in China seem to be getting it a lot worse? What's the deal on the cases of reinfection with people who have been released based on negative tests? We know so little about the pathology about this thing. It's so new that for all we know, it could be like HIV that spreads like the common cold.

There is an incredible amount of conflicting information being put out by authorities here. Some health officials are very concerned about it. Enough to warrant the shutting down of major conferences like SXSW. Then other people in healthcare are saying this is just the flu. The flu has never prompted such extreme measures. What is it? What do you do if you are caught in the middle of this at work, your employer denies you protective equipment, and you disagree with the lack of caution?

 

[CPT Nervous]

My wife and I both work at a hospital. So does my mother in law. I'm a police officer, and my wife and her mom both work in the ED. We're not particularly concerned about it. Just normal Flu precautions.


Not a lot of use worrying too much about it. I'm sure your wife could find a job at another hospital if it's that much of a concern, but she will likely encounter the same thing.

 

[csaws]

That's exactly what a lot of healthcare administrators are saying about this. If it was not such a big deal, then why have countries quarantined entire major cities to contain this thing? This is spreading a lot faster than other diseases and has dwarfed the number of total known cases of SARS and N5H1. How are we so confident that the symptoms will be "mild" when it's killed people in their 30s and 40s, and healthcare workers in China seem to be getting it a lot worse? What's the deal on the cases of reinfection with people who have been released based on negative tests? We know so little about the pathology about this thing. It's so new that for all we know, it could be like HIV that spreads like the common cold.

There is an incredible amount of conflicting information being put out by authorities here. Some health officials are very concerned about it. Enough to warrant the shutting down of major conferences like SXSW. Then other people in healthcare are saying this is just the flu. The flu has never prompted such extreme measures. What is it? What do you do if you are caught in the middle of this at work, your employer denies you protective equipment, and you disagree with the lack of caution?

Firstly take a breathe, the vast majority of this is precautionary, calming the sheep, stuff. The biggest threat of this is to those not in first world countries and in closed communities, i.e. nursing homes etc. I’m sure the hospital has air scrubbing, they told our ambulance crews today to open the window of the ambulance “if” they have to transport someone with it as the slight air movement will help “clear” it out of the ambulance. We are limiting non essential personnel to remain outside homes of those possibly infected, sending 1-2 into the home is way better than 5-6. Your wife should “avoid” as much as possible, only go into a room if called to or protocol requires. Wash her hands, however I do believe that too much washing has just as much negative effect as not enough, washing away good germs and oils helps the virus/germs find weak points to enter. Also and I have no idea why, we were told to only wear 1 pair of gloves and change them if they got torn, so no “double bagging”. We were told department issued safety glasses and N95 mask are required on COVID-19 runs. Anyway I hope this helps some to ease the fear/concern. Ultimately building an immunity to the virus is best, “unfortunately” the best way to do that is to get it.

 

[PRasko]

Also keep in mind that the "Fatality" rate of this is drastically lower than what it is estimated to be.

It's a simple numbers game. Nobody has enough tests to test everyone, and most people end up with a sniffle and mild cough and never seek medical attention.

In hubei, a province with 60 million people, you honestly believe only 84k fell ill? It was more likely in the near million range. They don't know because they can't test everyone. China was testing people with severe symptoms by using cat scans. Mild symptomatic people didn't get those cat scans, nor probably sought medical help. So the realistic number of people that fell ill is much higher, driving down that 3.4%

Same issue here in the states. We had 11k tests only, for the entire country. We've already seen community spread. That 3.4% fatality rate is more in the, less than 1% range. Probably much less.

Also, it was found in Seattle long before the first person had went to the hospital with severe symptoms.

Dr Helen Chu was doing flu studies and had almost 2500 nasal swabs from people she had been testing for her study. When she asked the cdc if she should start testing those samples for covid-19, they told her no because she didn't have the subjects consent for that, only for flu. She started testing anyways and found out a 17 year old boy had tested positive in early january. She called him and his school and they shut it down. The CDC stepped in and sent dr chu cease and desist to stop testing for covid-19.

https://komonews.com/news/coronavir...for-covid-19-against-federal-state-guidelines

South korea is testing almost 10k people a day, but we have only 11k test total. Some shady **** is going on in that front.