The View From Ground Zero in the Coronavirus War

When you’re at the eye of a hurricane, the swirl looks different. That’s certainly true in my experience working on the COVID-19 preparations in Washington for a community health care organization. The following thoughts are my own, not those of anyone I work with or for.

Around me, and the country, I see everything from panic to denial. Both are understandable; they’re an outgrowth of fear. That fear-as-bravado probably hit its crescendo in a social media post from a man who wrote he was more worried about his hangover than the virus.

What’s impressed me most is the resourcefulness and calm of the people I work with who day and night are fighting to stay one step ahead of the virus. Their dedication to keeping people safe is something I wish everyone could see.

The range of challenges and questions faced daily is staggering.

·        How do you keep your eye care and dental providers safe when they’re working within inches of patients’ faces and mouths?

·        How do you ensure negative air pressure in medical exams rooms where patients are seen, to protect the rest of the clinic?

·        How do you protect your doctors, nurses, medical assistants, and front-line staff so they can stay healthy enough to continue working?

·        Where can we get more N95 medical masks and protective equipment for our providers?

We struggle with dozens of questions like these daily. People get resourceful, find answers, then jump to the next challenge. The sense of purpose shown by people who work in health care is awe inspiring. Those I see working on this are relentless, resilient and purpose driven.

The good news is that this is going to get better. The bad news is that it’s going to get worse before then, as the free fall on Wall Street foreshadows.

No one knows how many people are going to get sick, and how many of them will die. The scientific models are still being built and there remain too many unknowns to create reliable assumptions within the models.

As of this morning, more than 107,500 cases of the virus have been confirmed globally, with more than 475 cases across the U.S. This does not include the numerous undiagnosed cases. Sixteen of 19 U.S. fatalities have been in Washington state.  The numbers, of course, change hourly.

In Washington the number of confirmed cases has been doubling roughly every two days. If that rate slows markedly with new containment and mitigation strategies, and the known number of cases doubles every week instead of every few days (even though it will spike when testing becomes more available), the extrapolated number of U.S. cases would be about 1 million after three months. And then they would ramp dramatically. Only two months later, it’s hit most of the country. Much like the seasonal flu.

Will that happen? I don’t know. The World Health Organization doesn’t know. Alexa doesn’t know. But you probably will be exposed. So will the guy more worried about his hangover.

Under normal circumstances, Americans take almost 100 million airline flights every month. Those numbers are falling as travel fears rise, but there’s no population as socially and geographically mobile as this country’s. The next Seattle could be Chicago, Denver, Atlanta, or any other major travel hub.

I struggle to envision a travel lock down in this country as other parts of the world have done. Can you imagine closing down Seattle, San Francisco, or New York? That the streets look as empty as those in parts of China in recent weeks, and people simply not allowed to travel in or out?  Perhaps that’s what it will take.

According to WorldOMeter’s coronavirus update, 86 percent of currently infected people have mild symptoms. And among all of the closed cases worldwide, 94 percent have recovered. I still worry about those who don’t recover, and their families.

Using very squishy numbers, the coronavirus is reported to be about 20 times more fatal than the flu. I don’t put stock in those numbers, given how they’re calculated. But last year 62,000 Americans died from the flu. It’s easy to see a scenario where many more than that die from the coronavirus. I hope the measures taken in the coming weeks keep fatalities well below that number. And that what we learn from this virus will pay off in future years with other viruses and the flu.

Again, none of this is my organization’s viewpoint, or any one else's. It’s my personal reflection from Ground Zero. In the weeks and months ahead, life is going to change radically, everywhere. A culture that prides itself on its individual freedoms in going to get some shock therapy if federal and state governments get as serious about halting the spread as countries like Vietnam and China have.

We’re going to need a lot more federal leadership than we’ve seen, and language like it’s “beautiful” or “contained” isn’t helpful. Nor are claims that a vaccine could be available in three or four months, or that anyone who has needed testing has already been able to get it. This is a time for reality, courage, and candor. Like the kind I see from the people I am grateful to work with on the front lines.