It's NOT Getting Better in the US - Coronavirus (COVID-19)

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. Today is Friday, my fifth day of work this week and my final day of work this week. I was just in 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. Now 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 of recent events today, I do feel compelled to say that I don't think the U.S. is quite ready or quite prepared to handle everything that's about to come in terms of the COVID-19 novel coronavirus. 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. 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. They are in an office that no one has access to and 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 I want to say this as kind of a public service announcement is, do not steal masks from healthcare workers or hospitals if you are visiting there or whatnot. Healthcare 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. And again, I'm not trying to scare 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, we have been further warned by the Italian physicians and Italian critical care physicians who basically have told us to get ready, and we haven't. I work at a very large academic tertiary hospital and we still don't have tests for the virus. So we still, to this day, 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, keep being safe, wash your hands, 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 going to happen to you if you get infected, yeah, 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 can transmit it to anybody along your path or anybody you come in contact with, a patient who is elderly, a patient who is immunocompromised, a patient who is immunosuppressed, or any of the above. And let's not forget, I mean, you may come in contact with a, you know, 30-year-old with cystic fibrosis or a 25-year-old who is on immunomodulator drugs for their Crohn's disease, and these patients can be immunosuppressed or can have really poor outcomes if they are exposed to this virus. A cystic fibrosis patient who is exposed to this virus can be put over the edge very quickly, and it is not a joke. So please wash your hands if you are exposed to the virus, do not go anywhere, quarantine yourself, follow the rules, follow the guidelines. You do not want to spread this virus to people who can be affected very poorly by it. I don't want to beat a 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. Again, I'm not trying to scare anybody, I'm just trying to inform people and make them a little more aware if they're not already. Leave a comment below if you have any questions, I will try to answer them. Make sure you smash that like and subscribe button, follow me on Instagram, turn on post notifications so you are notified when I post a new video, which is usually about once or twice every week. Otherwise, I'll see you all on the next video.