Coronavirus, or COVID-19, is making its way around the world. Some countries, like China and Iran, seem to be on the downward side of the hill while countries like Italy, France, and Germany are sitting squarely in the middle.
For places like the United Kingdom and the United States, there seems to still be time, in theory, to “flatten the curve” of the virus’ spread so that the healthcare system doesn’t get overwhelmed.
One doctor in Italy, where that time has passed, is telling the rest of the world that the time to take the recommended precautions – all of them – is now.
2/ This is the English translation of a post of another ICU physician in Bergamo, Dr. Daniele Macchini. Read until the end “After much thought about whether and what to write about what is happening to us, I felt that silence was not responsible.
— Silvia Stringhini (@silviast9) March 9, 2020
3/ I will therefore try to convey to people far from our reality what we are living in Bergamo in these days of Covid-19 pandemic. I understand the need not to create panic, but when the message of the dangerousness of what is happening does not reach people I shudder.
— Silvia Stringhini (@silviast9) March 9, 2020
Dr. Daniele Macchini works at the Humanitas Gavazzeni hospital in Bergamo, Italy, which is basically on the front lines of one of the worst coronavirus outbreaks in the world. Deaths from the virus are reaching triple digits (daily)in Italy, and as the rest of the world prepares for it to arrive with a vengeance, here’s what Dr. Macchini wants us to know.
4/ I myself watched with some amazement the reorganization of the entire hospital in the past week, when our current enemy was still in the shadows: the wards slowly “emptied”, elective activitieswere interrupted, intensive care were freed up to create as many beds as possible.
— Silvia Stringhini (@silviast9) March 9, 2020
5/ All this rapid transformation brought an atmosphere of silence and surreal emptiness to the corridors of the hospital that we did not yet understand, waiting for a war that was yet to begin and that many (including me) were not so sure would ever come with such ferocity.
— Silvia Stringhini (@silviast9) March 9, 2020
6/ I still remember my night call a week ago when I was waiting for the results of a swab. When I think about it, my anxiety over one possible case seems almost ridiculous and unjustified, now that I’ve seen what’s happening. Well, the situation now is dramatic to say the least.
— Silvia Stringhini (@silviast9) March 9, 2020
The crux of his warning doesn’t have to do with a virus so deadly most people need to avoid it for their own health, but a virus that’s so good at infecting people that patients are overwhelming the hospitals.
7/ The war has literally exploded and battles are uninterrupted day and night. But now that need for beds has arrived in all its drama. One after the other the departments that had been emptied fill up at an impressive pace.
— Silvia Stringhini (@silviast9) March 9, 2020
8/ The boards with the names of the patients, of different colours depending on the operating unit, are now all red and instead of surgery you see the diagnosis, which is always the damned same: bilateral interstitial pneumonia.
— Silvia Stringhini (@silviast9) March 9, 2020
He went on to describe some heartbreaking scenes from the hospital where he works, and that he really, really wants people to stop dismissing COVID-19 as “just the flu,” and here why.
9/ Now, explain to me which flu virus causes such a rapid drama. [post continues comparing covid19 to flu, link below]. And while there are still people who boast of not being afraid by ignoring directions, protesting because their normal routine is”temporarily” put in crisis,
— Silvia Stringhini (@silviast9) March 9, 2020
10/ the epidemiological disaster is taking place. And there are no more surgeons, urologists, orthopedists, we are only doctors who suddenly become part of a single team to face this tsunami that has overwhelmed us.
— Silvia Stringhini (@silviast9) March 9, 2020
11/ Cases are multiplying, we arrive at a rate of 15-20 admissions per day all for the same reason. The results of the swabs now come one after the other: positive, positive, positive. Suddenly the E.R. is collapsing.
— Silvia Stringhini (@silviast9) March 9, 2020
As for the symptoms, well, for those who get hardest by the virus, they’re not going to be something they can recover from without medical intervention. We have to hope those interventions are available when the time comes.
12/ Reasons for the access always the same: fever and breathing difficulties, fever and cough, respiratory failure. Radiology reports always the same: bilateral interstitial pneumonia, bilateral interstitial pneumonia, bilateral interstitial pneumonia. All to be hospitalized.
— Silvia Stringhini (@silviast9) March 9, 2020
13/ Someone already to be intubated and go to intensive care. For others it’s too late… Every ventilator becomes like gold: those in operating theatres that have now suspended their non-urgent activity become intensive care places that did not exist before.
— Silvia Stringhini (@silviast9) March 9, 2020
The doctors and nurses have no time off, no social lives, and are looking death in the face every day as they wait for their own inevitable positive test. They don’t go home for the same reason.
14/ The staff is exhausted. I saw the tiredness on faces that didn’t know what it was despite the already exhausting workloads they had. I saw a solidarity of all of us, who never failed to go to our internist colleagues to ask “what can I do for you now?”
— Silvia Stringhini (@silviast9) March 9, 2020
15/ Doctors who move beds and transfer patients, who administer therapies instead of nurses. Nurses with tears in their eyes because we can’t save everyone, and the vital parameters of several patients at the same time reveal an already marked destiny.
— Silvia Stringhini (@silviast9) March 9, 2020
16/ There are no more shifts, no more hours. Social life is suspended for us. We no longer see our families for fear of infecting them. Some of us have already become infected despite the protocols.
— Silvia Stringhini (@silviast9) March 9, 2020
17/ Some of our colleagues who are infected also have infected relatives and some of their relatives are already struggling between life and death. So be patient, you can’t go to the theatre, museums or the gym. Try to have pity on the myriad of old people you could exterminate.
— Silvia Stringhini (@silviast9) March 9, 2020
In the end, he doesn’t want to panic or frighten anyway, he just wants to give us real reasons to listen to what the WHO, CDC, and governments around the country are saying.
18/ We just try to make ourselves useful. You should do the same: we influence the life and death of a few dozen people. You with yours, many more. Please share this message. We must spread the word to prevent what is happening here from happening all over Italy.”
— Silvia Stringhini (@silviast9) March 9, 2020
20/ I finish by saying that I really don’t understand this war on panic. The only reason I see is mask shortages, but there’s no mask on sale anymore. We don’t have a lot of studies, but is it panic really worse than neglect and carelessness during an epidemic of this sort?
— Silvia Stringhini (@silviast9) March 9, 2020
(NOTE: There wasn’t a #19 in this thread, just in case you were wondering if we missed it)
So yes… is it time to hunker down? Stay home? Interact with as few people as possible? Probably. Because we can protect not only the vulnerable, but the healthcare workers who are bracing for the worst.
We can do this, guys. We have Netflix and grocery delivery and spring is almost here.
Hold on.
