I like this site when I need to sort out an unfamiliar acronym. It worked perfectly in this case - choose the “science and medicine” tab and Upper Respiratory Infection comes up as the first candidate.
Didn’t read the whole thread. Sorry if my question was already covered.
I’ve seen several articles lately which raise alarms concerning lingering effects of the Covid-19 virus. Here is the latest one: https://www.aol.com/article/news/2020/10/15/long-covid-may-affect-multiple-parts-of-body-and-mind-doctors-say/24651271/
My reading tells me that anywhere from 10 to 30 percent of Covid-19 cases result in long-term complications. What has been Qadgop’s experience?
Evolving. I’ve got guys who are 3-4 weeks out, still complaining of significant fatigue, pain, shortness of breath. But I’m busy differentiating who’s still sick but stable and who’s got complications needing treatment. Frontline stuff, no time to sit back and analyze the bigger picture. I only have time to chime in here because patient movement is episodic and slow, boom or bust, due to covid precautions.
QtM,
From the current vantage is there anything you wish had been done differently and of those wishes any that were realistic?
DSeid
I wish our Republican state legislature and conservative state supreme court had not blocked all the efforts of our Democratic governor to restrict numbers of people allowed at public gatherings, restaurants, bars, and overturned his efforts to require people to wear face masks in public and in places of public accommodation. Common sense measures many of the blue states adapted which seemed to have helped some, until folks got complacent.
I wish the rural areas where we draw most of our prison officers from were not filled with folks so quick to reject science and defy good orderly direction from those authorities in their scientific fields, hence bringing the virus into the prisons.
So: Realistic, probably not. But I wish
Any policies or practices within your specific institution that you, in retrospective analysis, would prefer a do-over on?
Is it impossible to enforce compliance with workplace rules by prison employees even if they disagree with the rules?
FWIW prison outbreaks have occurred in Blue states too. Riker’s Island, Cook County jail … and those before complacency.
- Not really. We kept covid out for 6 months before it all fell apart, due to pretty aggressive isolation (and lots of luck!) But the CDC just finished their evaluation of our situation, so we’ll see what their report says. Prelim info stated that they recommended “patient education about covid precautions they should take, in addition to the measures already taken” or similar. Ignoring the fact that we had MASSIVE education by nursing and others in person with patients, about masks, hand washing, social distance, complete with CDC guidelines posted EVERYWHERE on their units, which got ignored.
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We can (and did) enforce workplace rules at the workplace, but we can’t keep Corrections Officer Bob out of the local Friday Fish Fry on his off hours if he wants to go there.
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Yeah, I have seen and followed those from the start. Virus is gonna go viral, honestly. That’s what they do. Which it did.
Thank you for the in the trench perspective and appreciation for the care you give.
Do you mean for points 2 and 3 to reconcile?
Definitely NOT. Our goal has always been to slow the rate of infection down so our health care system would not be overburdened like it is now by so very many getting it at the same time. Local hospitals are overloaded, vents are in short supply, other critical equipment is too. Staff is burnt out beyond belief.
The experts knew from the start that flatting the curve’s peak was truly the best we could hope for, and that’s been our goal from the start. We thought we were working miracles when we seemed to keep the virus out completely for so long, but that was just a bit of luck.
BTW, now over 75% of my patients have, or have had covid. We’ll be retesting the remaining 24+% next week. Hopefully we can succeed keeping the infection out of the remainder, especially the high risk remainder.
So by keeping it out for 6 months, you didn’t flatten the curve, you just delayed the inevitable.
State DOC should do like my employer, you get Covid but not from a workplace spread and you don’t get paid. I am quarantined now for 2 weeks on my dime for visiting with my father several hours before he died of Covid. OK one week is bereavement but the next will be unpaid.
That’s kinda the definition of flattening the curve. The area under the curve is the same, but the peak is flattened, spreading things out so that medical services aren’t overwhelmed, IIUIC.
God, this sounds horrible Qadgop. Best wishes to you and good thoughts for your efforts to protect your patients and coworkers. I hope you will see success from your efforts and that this wave of COVID will burn out soon. Stay safe and keep at it; I’m glad your patients have someone so dedicated and capable helping them out.
That sounds like an excellent way to incentivize folks coming to work sick.
Which is really the wrong thing to do it the employer is trying to minimize the disruption to their operation.
A big problem with that is how do you prove where you were infected? In many states, you are automatically assumed to have been infected away from work, so if nurses, EMTs, police officers, and other front line workers need worker’s compensation or other benefits due to COVID-19, even they may have to hire an attorney and try to prove how they were infected in order to sue for their benefits.
It also sure encourages people with mild exposure not to get tested.
Yeah. “Don’t ask, don’t tell” is the ideal way to handle infections during a pandemic. Not! What a friggin shit-show our country has turned into.
At my employer, showing up sick or feverish is a get-sent-home offense. And expect to get a stern talking to from the Boss. It helps that everybody has full-bore company-paid health care, adequate company-paid sick leave and the company is smart enough to understand that once they get workplace spread going, it’ll snowball into a shutdown they can’t afford.
Prevention people! It only takes an ounce.
Sadly that seems too hard for many (most?) of us. Both “us” as citizens and “us” as governments.
My employer rolled out a new “reason to take time off”, for quarantine or treatment of covid, that doesn’t count against your regular sick leave and other time off. That was before they sent everyone home. We are now 99.5% wfh.
Yeah, the goal is that sick employees not infect other employees.