So I have read several different articles and posts claiming that Covid-19 is somehow a conspiracy. I am not getting political or getting into any kind of government response to covid or anything. What I can tell you is the infection is very real and it is very serious. I am working at the main public ran hospital in the Bronx. This hospital serves a very dense population that is made up of a majority of African and Latin Americans. A large portion of this population has comorbidities of diabetes, hypertension, alcoholism and like the rest of america obesity. Like most of you know New York has a large public transit system (breading ground for infection) that most people have to rely on. These things help spread the virus like wildfire here and hit a population that is very vulnerable to it. In my three weeks here I have watched around 20 people die. Each of them with a verified positive covid-19 test. I have taken care of another 30 people that will eventually die or be physically and/or mentally challenged the rest of their lives directly because of the effects of Covid-19 on their bodies. People that die because they go septic or into organ failure, heart failure, respiratory failure, all of these things are because of Covid, they would still be alive if they did not get infected. It is true that almost all of the patients have other underlining medical conditions, but that doesn't mean they weren't living productive happy lives before they got sick.
I was had a conversation with my charge nurse and I was telling her it is hard to imagine the chaos and carnage that we are living in here in New York without seeing it. Her response was, she cant imagine or believe that it's not like this everywhere. The amount of tragedy we've seen and how sick these patients get, it's hard to believe how so many people think it's not real or that it's been over exaggerated.
Even though the chaos is getting under control the tragedy is still daily. As they close down all the makeshift ICU's, they are transferring all ICU covid patients to my floor. So we continue to treat and run at capacity. It just has a more organized feel to it than when I first got here. A night doesn't go by where we aren't losing a few patients. We have sent a couple people to nursing homes which is considered a win, but the patients are drastically less self reliant now than prior to getting sick.
People get discharged home healthy from other floors and there are tons of people that have been infected that didn't have symptoms or even know they had it. Which is great!! However, I think when people think vulnerable they think weak or already sick. That is not the case. You can be vulnerable to this without knowing until it's too late.
I am not trying to induce fear or be a doomsday person, I am just in awe that so many people don't think this infection is real or serious. I promise you it has potential to wipe out a lot of people we care about and it definitely has potential to put strain on healthcare systems like nothing I have ever seen before.
Lincoln Medical Center