We're now making our own PPE, our nearest hospital has closed their L&D to make room for COVID-19, Trader Joe's is now limiting the store to 15 ppl at a time and Fred Meyer is out of sugar.
This is exactly what my wife heard from her old work cohort. This feels like a waking nightmare. We're not yet out of surgical masks or respirators, but with conservative use we'll still be out by next week, just before the shit is really projected to hit the fan. The president of our ED physician's group has told us not to bother soliciting the community to sew masks, as there's essentially no evidence to suggest that they're at all effective. CDC, as I'm sure you know, is recommending bandanas. It's like if we sent our soldiers to war without body armor. And then recommended that when they ran out of bullets they should just point their finger at the enemy and make a shooty sound. The first cases are trickling into our hospital. Had one guy last week in a serious way and his chest CT was sobering. He's now on a vent and people are saying critical but stable, but given that average stay in ICU before death was something like 19-21 days in China, I'm betting his ticket comes pre-punched. Then two days ago we had two more like him. I'm off until Tuesday, and I have no idea what I'll go back to. I'm a hundred percent gonna get it at some point in the following months. 35 is not young enough to feel like I'm gonna glide through. And I'm relatively healthy? But I've also had a chronic cough since I was about 15 and I'm betting my cilia are beaten all to hell. I've had at least one major panic attack per day, but I'm back on my anxiety meds so I got that going for me. But until they kick into full effect, I feel like I'm constantly progressing through finer and finer striations of dread. The dread of what work will be like when I go back. Dread of whether I'll be the one assigned to the COVID-heavy pod. Dread of what my PPE will be like. The dread of waiting for symptoms to kick in. When they inevitably do, eight to twelve days of dread waiting for my breath to get shorter and shorter until I can't talk in full sentences.
It's irresponsible of your ED's group to suggest that community produced masks are ineffective. Providence isn't going that way. We've even seen equivalency tests of like t-shirts and viral load up on Pub Med and NIH. Mine currently has inserts carved out of an MERV13 furnace filter which looks to be about an n65 equivalent. The odds are it won't hit you hard. The odds are if it does hit you hard, it won't hit you hard enough to need a ventilator. They are not odds I like but they beat the shit out of Ebola. Stay safe. And ask mk about baicalin powder. I think it made a difference for me.