Viewpoints: Stop Failing Health Care Professionals During Pandemic, Supply Them With Essential Equipment; Stay Home Lessons From 1918 Pandemic

Stat: Give Doctors What They Need To Fight Covid-19 
My husband has been an emergency physician for 30 years. During that time, I have seen him frustrated because of social problems he can’t solve or depressed from the bureaucracy that medicine has become. I have watched him wander through sleep-deprived days, burnt and crispy from shift work. But I have never seen him truly worried about going to work until the first Covid-19 case was diagnosed in Rhode Island, where we live and work. Jay has been on the front lines of the Covid-19 pandemic. He has worked multiple shifts since it began. Curiously, neither he nor any of his front-line colleagues who show no symptoms have been tested for Covid-19, even though a team of Japanese researchers recently reported that approximately 30% of people infected with the novel coronavirus show no symptoms of Covid-19. Let that number sink in. It means that many of the patients my husband and other health care workers are in contact with who seem “fine” could be vectors for the coronavirus. (Jennifer Hushion, 3/21)

Los Angeles Times: Want To Save ER Doctors Like Me From Coronavirus? Stay Home
On March 14, the American College of Emergency Physicians announced that two emergency room doctors were in critical condition with COVID-19. One of the physicians, based in Washington state, is only in his 40s. The other doctor, in his 70s, was in charge of emergency preparedness for his hospital in New Jersey. On Thursday, it was reported that two emergency medicine doctors at a hospital in Oak Park, Ill., had tested positive for the coronavirus and were quarantined at home. One of the doctors may have had contact with patients and colleagues before the infection was detected. As an emergency medicine physician myself, I was dismayed and saddened by this news. Emergency room doctors are on the front lines of this pandemic, and we all know that our job comes with inherent risks. We accept those risks, and we carry on providing necessary, life-saving care in the face of this public health emergency. (Gregory Jasani, 3/23)

Stat: Advice For Health Workers Fighting The Covid-19 Pandemic 
In the summer of 2014, as I was preparing to fly to West Africa as an emergency responder to the largest Ebola outbreak in history, I sat in my room consumed with fear. I felt like a kid again, standing on the high dive for the very first time, about to plunge into the pool far below. And while that fear dissipated somewhat over the coming weeks as I worked with Liberian and international colleagues to launch a new Ebola treatment center in Bong County, Liberia, it never went away entirely. My experiences in Liberia taught me that courage is not the absence of fear — it is doing what you know you must even when you are terrified. (Adam Levine, 3/21)

Stat: The White Scarf On The Door: A Life-Saving Lesson From The 1918 Flu 
In 1918, a white scarf tied to the door of my grandmother’s family’s apartment on the North Side of Chicago alerted the community to a virus residing within. My grandmother, then age 3, was one of 500 million people worldwide — one-third of the planet’s population— who was infected with what came to be known as the Spanish influenza. It killed an estimated 50 million people. She was quarantined in her room, unable to communicate with the outside world. Her parents and older sister stayed in their apartment, heeding city-wide warnings to avoid exposing others in their community to the disease. (Kara N. Goldman, 3/23)

The New York Times: How America Can Avoid Italy’s Ventilator Crisis
Without swift action, parts of the United States will run out of ventilators in the coming weeks. Early signals from New York and Seattle are alarming: both cities are already reporting intensive care unit bed shortages and looming ventilator shortages, weeks before the estimated peak of the projected coronavirus caseload. On March 15, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told CNN that there are only 12,700 ventilators in the national strategic stockpile. (Daniel M. Horn, 3/22)

The Wall Street Journal: These Drugs Are Helping Our Coronavirus Patients
A flash of potential good news from the front lines of the coronavirus pandemic: A treatment is showing promise. Doctors in France, South Korea and the U.S. are using an antimalarial drug known as hydroxychloroquine with success. We are physicians treating patients with Covid-19, and the therapy appears to be making a difference. It isn’t a silver bullet, but if deployed quickly and strategically the drug could potentially help bend the pandemic’s “hockey stick” curve. (Jeff Colyer and Daniel Hinthorn, 3/22)

Bloomberg: Coronavirus Uncertainty Plagues The Experts, Too
What scientists know about Covid-19 is changing fast. And people — from the public to politicians to the press — are confusing the possible with the probable. It’s causing a lot of undue guilt and fear. In times like these, we turn to experts — but what are we supposed to think when the experts themselves are so uncertain? We’re faced with a torrent of new data, much of which is noise, but the pace of genuine scientific understanding can only go so fast. Journals have loosened their standard for papers on Covid-19 to help scientists share information. But not every new finding is going to hold up. (Faye Flam, 3/21)

The Wall Street Journal: The Great Toilet Paper Scare 
The President, the Governors, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and medical experts have given us little good news these last few weeks. But thanks to the magic of free enterprise, there is one fear we can alleviate: the idea that America is running out of toilet paper. The scare is leading to some unusual behavior. And more than typical hoarding. In Florida—where else?—police arrested a man after a security guard for an Orlando Marriott found him with 66 rolls of the hotel’s toilet paper in his car. Nebraska’s Department of Transportation said it would close down unattended rest stops along I-80 because drivers were pilfering rolls. In North Carolina deputies trailed a stolen 18-wheeler to a warehouse where they learned it was being used to transport 18,000 pounds of toilet paper and other bathroom paper products. Meanwhile in London, members of the Eltham Terrace Club played a game of power using rolls instead of cash because of the increasing value. (3/22)

Los Angeles Times: Coronavirus: How Is My Family Handling Home Schooling? Lots Of Tears
I started the week determined to become the perfect home-schooling parent. What could possibly go wrong? My great-niece, who lives with me, would work on her laptop. I would work on mine. We would break for lunch, then resume our work until 3 or so.In preparation, because I am on top of this thing, I rearranged the living room to make it look more like a classroom. Down came a favorite painting. Up went a big, white dry-erase board. Here, on this blank slate, I would create the perfect home-school schedule. (Robin Abcarian, 3/22)

Boston Globe: Grocery Stores Grow Ever More Critical Amid Coronavirus 
Few things will be as critical to our well-being in the weeks ahead as the food supply chain that sustains us all — from the corner grocery to the mega-supermarket to food delivery services. Hospital workers will care for the sickest among us, but it is those grocery store workers who will care for and feed the rest of us. (3/20)

Boston Globe: I’m Pregnant During The Coronavirus Pandemic, And I’m Terrified 
When the coronavirus finally landed in Massachusetts, it landed hard, and changed everything. Our lives were upended in the blink of an eye. From the first case confirmed in the state on Feb. 1, it was only five weeks before we were being asked to practice social distancing to help “flatten the curve.” But six months pregnant, I needed to know: Would my baby be safe? Would I be safe? When will this be over? And what then? (Anica Butler, 3/20)