The Coronavirus (COVID-19) in USA

I've been quiet for a little too long now and I feel like there's something we need to talk about. All right, so I just got back home and today is Friday, my fifth day of work this week, and my final day work. This week I was just in the clinic all morning but I don't want to talk about that, I do want to talk about something. I've been putting off for a while now and I am NOT an expert in infectious disease or epidemiology. By any stretch of the imagination that is not my forte but I am a physician. As a recent event today, I do feel compelled to say that I don't think the US is quite ready or quite prepared to handle everything that's about to come, in terms of the Cova 19, not a virus. I don't mean to scare anybody I just don't think we truly have a grasp on what is yet to happen. A lot of things have unfolded today, tons of clinics are closing, schools are closing, outpatient facilities are closing, non-emergent procedural areas are closing and we are rescheduling outpatient procedures or non-emergent procedures for up to 90 days. 

Now, we have officially locked away all of our personal protective equipment or PPE there in the office and that no one has access to. We are only allowed a certain amount of masks and protective equipment at a certain given time and that is because people will steal them in the hospital and you don't want to say this kind of public service. The announcement does not steal maps from health care workers or hospitals if you are visiting there or whatnot health care workers need, these masks to take care of not only the novel coronavirus patients but also other sick patients as well and if we don't have this equipment we can't do our job and take care of patients in a safe manner. You know again, I'm not trying to steer anybody but I just don't think we are well prepared and I think we are going to be reactive instead of proactive like we should have been. We have been warned by the Chinese and we have been further warned by the Italian physicians. Italian critical care physicians who basically have told us to get ready and we have it I worked at a very large academic tertiary hospital and we still don't have tests for the virus, so we still do this day and don't know exactly how many people are walking around with this virus or how many people have been exposed. We have no idea so I think once our tests become available in my state, I think the numbers of coronavirus patients will

skyrocket exponentially to all the health care workers out there.

Being safe and from coronavirus disinfection, wash your hands and wear masks and PPE whenever you can or whenever you're around isolated patients, this is not a joke anymore it is a serious matter and for those who think that you're young and nothing's gonna happen to you and if you get affected, probably true statistics say that the young people will probably have just a minor illness and move on however that's being a little bit irresponsible because when you are young and infected and carrying a very contagious disease or contagious virus you that you can transmit it to anybody along, your path or anybody you come in contact with a patient who is elderly a patient and who is immunocompromised a patient and who is immunosuppressed or any of the above. Let's not forget, I mean you may come in contact with you know thirty-year-old with cystic fibrosis or a 25-year-old who is on immunomodulatory drugs for their Crohn's disease and these patients can be immunosuppressed or can have really poor outcomes and if they are exposed to this virus a cystic fibrosis patient who has exposed, this virus can be put over the edge very quickly and it is not a joke. So please wash your hands and if you are exposed to the virus do not go anywhere, quarantine yourself, follow the rules, follow the guidelines if you do not want this coronavirus to decontaminate, or spread to people who can be affected very poorly by it. 

I don't want to be the dead horse because so many people have talked about this before, but I feel like I should do my part as a physician and give this kind of public service announcement idea. I'm not trying to scare anybody, I'm just trying to form people and make them a little more

aware so they do not already leave