Hospitals are only efficient if they have the nurses and staff to manage them. With the surge of COVID-19 cases, health care workers are seeing hundreds of patients a day with the novel virus. And many of them are running out of PPC equipment like gowns and masks to protect themselves from the virus. 

A Novel, Contagious Virus

Infectious disease expert, Nahid Bhadelia, said: “No matter what, a virus [like SARS-CoV-2] was going to test the resilience of even the most well-equipped health systems.” The coronavirus is a very insidious virus even though it does not appear to mutate. 

The coronavirus is more dangerous than the seasonal flu as health experts are finding out. The virus may have some similar symptoms to the flu, however, it is much stronger and easier to spread. It belongs to an entirely different family of viruses and spreads from one host to another for several days before causing symptoms. 

Early Testing Could Have Helped

If earlier testing was performed, it would have prepared doctors and nurses in how to triage patients and hospitals. This testing could have helped governors to understand the severity of the outbreak. Hospitals could have stockpiled masks, gowns, and ventilators which they are quickly running out of. 

The lack of early testing is the main reason why the United States is having massive amounts of spread, with cases surpassing China and Italy. If the country could have accurately tracked the spread of the virus, hospitals could have executed their pandemic plans by ordering extra medical supplies, dedicating treatment rooms, and designating specific facilities for the treatment of the virus. 

However, focusing on this does not change the past. In this time of turmoil and extreme emotional duress in hospitals, doctors, nurses, and other health care staff are supporting each other to get through the massive influx of sick patients. Many are waiting to receive the new masks, gowns, gloves, and ventilators that the federal government is working on delivering. 

A Healthcare System At Full Capacity

Our health care system was already overwhelmed before the coronavirus by a particularly severe flu season. So, the emergence of another dangerous respiratory-based virus is causing health care professions to become sick themselves. The shortage of masks and gowns across the country is leading many workers to create their own masks at home or even stop at Home Depot before their shift. 

Patients who are coming in sick may not be able to receive a ventilator, putting nurses in dreadful positions of having to decide who receives the ventilator. This has been said to occur in countries like Italy. Beds will soon follow, as the number of patients will only increase with the apex of the virus only weeks away. 

America’s health care system is already operating at full capacity prior to the virus. The health care system operates on the assumption that unaffected states will help affected ones in an emergency. However, this thought process only works during natural disasters such as hurricanes, but not for a pandemic that has spread to all 50 states. 

With states bidding each other for masks and ventilators, the way to get through this is by working together. Concerned hospitals have bought out large quantities of medical supplies, in the same way, that panicked Americans have bought out toilet paper.