COVID-19: We Need to Train Volunteers Right Now
In the last two weeks, the COVID-19 outbreak has quickly escalated from a few isolated cases into a global pandemic that is shutting down cities across the United States. Two weeks from now, exponential growth of the virus is likely sicken hundreds of thousands of people and cause severe impacts to the essential functions of our country. Though our situation is grim, most Americans are still healthy right now, but many are at home without work.
Across our history, Americans have faced emergencies that we were unprepared for and citizens have come together and volunteered to help provide life saving services. As small colonial towns became our first cities, we were unprepared for the new risk that fires posed to dense streets of wooden structures. Led by Benjamin Franklin in Philadelphia, volunteer citizens banned together in 1736 to organize bucket brigades and form the Union Fire Company to quickly fires from spreading out of control.
Now we need a modern bucket brigade of volunteers to help us respond to COVID-19. Hospital staff, EMS, fire departments, police departments, public works, and many other critical services operate at their maximum capacity on a normal day. The first wave of COVID-19 victims is already straining these services. When health care workers and first responders begin to get sick in the coming weeks, there will not be adequate existing staffing to backfill these essential positions.
Right now is the only time to train as many volunteers as possible from the general public to assist in this dire emergency. While many healthcare and emergency service tasks require extensive training, other aspects of these jobs can be completed by regular citizens with minimal additional training.
Here are a few examples of ways average Americans could potentially volunteer to help:
Drive EMS Units
Ambulances are normally staffed by two EMT-basic or EMT-paramedic providers who alternate between caring for the patient and driving the unit. The staffing of an EMS department can be doubled instantly by having a civilian driver assigned to the unit with one emergency medical provider. Most EMS units are a large pickup or utility van with a custom box. Anyone who drives a full sized SUV, van, or pick-up can be easily familiarized with driving an EMS unit.
Minnesota is leading the way on this and has already issued emergency provisions to suspend the requirements for driving and staffing an ambulance.
Non-Emergency Care at Hospitals
To lessen the burden for providing basic care to existing patients without COVID-19, hospital staff can be assisted by volunteers without extensive training and certifications. Unlicensed Assistance Personnel such as MAs (Medical Assistants) and CNAs (Cerified Nurses’ Aides) work at most hospitals and clinics, and do not need a license to help care of patients. Civilian volunteers at a hospital could reduce the burden on skilled providers by performing tasks like:
- Observing, documenting and reporting clinical and treatment information, including patients’ behavioral changes
- Assisting with motion exercises and other rehabilitative measures
- Taking and recording blood pressure, temperature, pulse, respiration, and body weight
- Assisting with ambulation and mobilization of patients
- Collecting specimens for required medical tests,
- Providing emotional and support services to patients, their families and other caregivers
- Assisting with personal hygiene: bathing, oral hygiene, nail care, and grooming
- Assisting with dressing, repositioning, feeding, and toileting
Answering 9–1–1 Calls
Emergency call centers are very busy even without a pandemic generating additional EMS calls. If a portion of the staffing at a 9–1–1 center is ill from COVID-19, there are not going to be enough people to answer calls quickly. People are still having heart attacks, car accidents, and all other types of emergencies, and these calls must be answered and prioritized as well. 9-1-1 call takers and dispatchers are highly trained for serious emergencies, but civilian volunteers could assist them with lower priority calls. For example, if someone calls 9–1–1 for a minor injury or illness, this call can be quickly transferred to a volunteer who can take as much time as they need to enter the information in the dispatch system. This will free up the experienced full-time 9–1–1 center staff for the more serious emergencies.
Manpower for Fire Apparatus
Firefighters provide the majority of their services for emergencies that are not fires. Most of these calls require a crew of 3 or 4 firefighters because they involve lifting, dragging, or carrying people and heavy equipment. If fire departments face staffing shortages from ill providers, rather than reducing the number of apparatus available, a mix of full-time firefighters and able-bodied civilian volunteers can staff fire engines. Even if the mixed crew is dispatched to a building fire or serious vehicle accident, while the full-time firefighters provide skilled technical services, civilian volunteers can help with unskilled labor like carrying ladders/equipment, dragging hoses outside of the building, carrying a patient on a backboard, and directing traffic.
Public Works
A pandemic will become significantly worse if trash is not collected and public areas are not cleaned. If full-time public works staff are ill, these duties can be completed by volunteers. Someone who drives a large delivery truck or dump truck could easily be trained to operate a garbage or recycling truck. Trash collection and cleaning aren’t glamorous, but people who are stuck at home might be willing to help out.
Extra Cleaning at Health Care and Open Facilities
While most businesses, schools, and offices are closed, these buildings do not need to be cleaned by their janitorial staff. To slow the spread of the outbreak, any location that remains open needs constant cleaning and disinfecting of all surfaces and fixtures. Rather than being at home, experienced janitorial staff could be assigned to health care facilities, public buildings, grocery stores, pharmacies, and other public spaces that remain open. As buildings and businesses reopen, there will be a surge of requests for deep cleaning prior to re-occupancy.
Public Transportation
Employees working for the providers of essential services and citizens going to doctors, pharmacies, and grocery stores may depend on public transportation to get there. While schools are closed, thousands of trained school bus drivers can step in to help keep city bus systems running in the event of staffing shortages. To allow more time for buses to be cleaned, school buses could be rotated into public transit fleets.
Social Work
Senior citizens, homeless, at-risk youths, people with disabilities, and people with mental illness will face new challenges with social isolation, service closures, sold out grocery stores, and reduced public transportation. Volunteers could assist these groups by conducting socially distanced welfare checks, help them connect with available services, drop off food/supplies, providing transportation, and establishing a compassionate social connection.
Bottom Line
It’s going to take all of us working together to overcome the daunting challenges the next weeks and months will bring. Emergency services and hospitals will be overloaded and demands will exceed their capacity. If state and local officials acknowledge right now that staffing shortfalls will occur, we still have time to mobilize our citizens’ volunteer spirit and get everyday people trained and ready to assist.
David Riedman is Ph.D. student in Sociology at the University of Hawai’i and an expert in critical infrastructure protection, homeland security policy, and emergency management. He is a co-founder of the Center for Homeland Defense and Security’s Advanced Thinking and Experimentation (HSx) Program at the Naval Postgraduate School.
