The Critical Shortage of Protective Equipment

This morning a friend who works in a community hospital in Cleveland posted about the critical shortage of protective equipment here. We have 38 COVID-19 cases in our county and seven in Cleveland alone.

We are down to one regular face mask per day with N95’s [respirators that can block inhalation of viral droplets] limited to aerosolizing procedures — intubation etc. This applies to all the people working inside the hospitals: environmental services, transporters, engineers, food service, nursing assistants, respiratory therapists, radiology, phlebotomy, nurses, physicians, medics, PAs, NPs, and security. This is a house of cards. Meaning if one of us goes down, the rest of us could fall. As people who work in hospitals contract COVID-19, someone already in that cohort of people is going to have to do the work of the person who is ill. See how precarious this is?

Our ability to fight the virus depends on the capacity of our health system. That means first and foremost healthy professionals who can take care of the sick. One of the causes of the collapse of health care in northern Italy when COVID-19 cases spiked there was the widespread infection of health care personnel. It is critical that government act immediately and specifically to increase the provision of personal protective equipment for health workers.