I am sorry for all the crazy things that have happened. There were many variables, and as illustrated by the variations in pandemics over time above, anything from a few thousand to millions (as in the Spanish flu or bubonic plague) could die. I think that we can understand that people on both sides meant well. It could have been the Spanish flu–that was awful (see the diagram above). I would hate to have a medical director who opted to sacrifice potentially millions in favor of the economy or being popular… Life is more important than liberty, especially in the short term.
One of the things that I still struggle with is that some, even with Covid, could not visit their sick and dying relatives with Covid in the ICU. My sister was an ICU nurse who, in PPE, used her own phone to help couples communicate by video. It broke her heart.
That changed with time, and couples were allowed to be together and mourn.
Our health system was much different from some others in terms of communication. Medical facilities do not want Covid–with shutting down money making activities like elective heart surgery and hip replacements, many health systems not only lost a lot of revenue, but had to lay valuable team members off. Our system (Spectrum Health, now Corewell) took voluntary pay cuts across the board, to keep staff going. The leadership communicated with us by daily group email with statistics, including the number testing positive, the rationale behind shutting down elective work and clinics, and when and where to mask, etc. The staff infectious disease and pulmonologists all worked together, and an immunologist offered to personally answer emailed and chat boarded questions (which were good ones. Our group allowed those who had had Covid to work, and did not rely only on those who were vaccinated, although encouraging it, to improve immunity). We knew that masks were not for control, but to keep our own transmission down–no one wanted to lose their job by cutting back on income (for a selfish reason), but of course, much more important was the frail oncology and other immune compromised patients who were at much higher risk.
During the 2021 fall spike, when emergency rooms were full to overflowing, and even stroke and heart patients could not get a bed, primary care providers volunteered to help with inpatient work while the infectious disease and pulmonologists ran the ICU (my partner did; I did not have to do that).
Our satisfaction rate was much better, as our leadership communicated and listened.
I do hope that we can learn more about how to deal with future pandemics–as they will come. Some may be much, much worse, depending on the mode of transmission and novelty of the type of antigen. However, none are the same, and it is quite likely we will make mistakes. I appreciate that we can laugh about some things, and hope we can do better.
Community spread is still a problem. Pregnant women who get Covid have a high risk of bad outcomes from clots, and have to take blood thinner shots, for example. Someone from our church was very ill and delivered early; her son still at 2 1/2 years of age has feeding problems and needs a percutaneous feeding tube because of poor weight gain.
I agree we do need feedback. People suffered. I think they did the best they could. As we have better understanding of communication, we need humor and understanding, with ability to learn. It has been said that freedom is the ability to serve others. If we can communicate the vision, then we can all get behind the problem better.
Thanks.
