Bullheaded wife/Covid

This “thing” is going to need all of us to make some temporary sacrifices. Keeping your kids inside, or away from folks 65 and older, makes good darn sense right now.

Those that work in healthcare related fields are going to have to address their risk. Our elderly in care homes are some of the most vulnerable, and the NEED care. Someone has to show up, even if it raises their own personal risk. How a person makes that decision is going to be individual- how old that person is themselves, whether or not they or their family members have underlying health issues, etc. But someone still needs to show up. Those of us that work in healthcare and emergency services signed up for this, and people other than our families depend on us.

If the infection spreads here like it has in Italy, our hospitals, healthcare workers and first responders are going to be hammered. My department is already making plans and contingencies to brown out companies as staffing levels fall due to illness. What does that mean for me? It means as staffing levels fall I’m going to be on mandatory callback. My hours will continue to increase, so will my exposure. Eventually there’s a good chance I’ll just get sick with this stuff. And I still don’t have it as bad as the folks that work in respiratory care and the ICU’s.

Hopefully it doesn’t come to that, but the die is already cast. If there are people with the infection at those slammed airports and grocery store lines we’re in trouble. San Jose Fire already has 77 firefighters quarantined and one in the ICU in grave condition. Italy has about 9,000 covid 19 people in ICU beds. The US has roughly 45,000 ICU beds, many of which are full just on a busy day. Those kind of numbers will push our healthcare system to the edge. We all have to sacrifice so we can minimize how bad this gets.