These are the Facts based on nearly 4 weeks of this Pandemic. I have been on the front lines. Read Carefully and heed my warning.
1) If you suffer from Asthma, Lung CA, COPD, and/or other chronic lung disorders, your chances of surviving COVID-19 are slim to none. This virus attacks the lungs hard, if your lungs are already weakened, your already on the losing end of the battle with the virus.
2) If your a chronic smoker, vape, or smoke marijuana, you too, are on the losing ending of this battle.
3) Patients with no past medical history can also get very sick or even die from this virus, I have seen it happen. Why this is is not completely understood at this time, but it could be linked to lifestyle choices if you look at #2 Fact.
4) If your Obese, you likely have a weakened immune system. You also likely suffer from HTN, DM II, CAD, and other chronic health disorders which weaken your immune system. You will likely develop a severe illness from this virus and potentially be put on a ventilator.
5) Many patients who survive and are discharged require oxygen at home. Yes, you will likely need oxygen support when you leave the hospital. For how long? It's not known, but I have seen patients who need an additional 1-2 weeks of O2 support after discharge.
6) Many patients are dying from the virus. Morgues are filled to capacity in the hospital. If your loved one is dead, they are likely in a refrigerated truck.
7) This virus will NOT vanish during the Summer months. If you look at countries with warmer climates like Brazil, Ecuador, Turkey, and Egypt, these countries have large outbreaks. Warm weather can possibly slow down the virus but it won't go away.
9. Many COVID+ patients I have dealt with are getting progressively worse. Very few improve. And many have been in the hospital for more than 2 weeks already.
10) Your healthcare Co-workers will get sick and die from this virus. Many at my facility have gotten sick from this virus and are now patients themselves.
My friends, the danger is very real. This virus shows no mercy. I personally do not think it's worth putting your life in danger for money. A job is replaceable, your life isn't. Think carefully of what you will do next. Will you quit? If you do, I don't blame you. There is little we know about this virus and not enough protection. You are the author of your destiny.
No disrespect, but I think there's some self-selection bias in play here. The sickest Coronavirus sufferers are the ones who are going to be the hospitalized patients. For every patient in the hospital with Coronavirus, there's probably about ten times as many at home recuperating, in various stages of illness.
I have been retasked at my job. Now I make outreach calls to Covid+ patients. My job is to follow up with not only those patients that tested positive, where never admitted and are recuperating at home. I've also got patients after being discharged from the hospital.
I've got them as young as 20, and as old as 77. Some with comorbids, some none at all. Seen them be discharged post aggressive MICU intubation/vented for a few days then they get stepped down then home.
(chuckles) Have one patient with every comorbid you can think of- a virtual poster child of now not to live a full happy life who is home. They aren't back to smoking or drink just yet but I have faith.
I also know a few that never made it home.
I know the OP is looking at this through "inpatient eyes", which is different from those of us working "outpatient", but I assure you Covid-19 is not a universal death sentence, and yes occasionally it does seem to show mercy.
Okay then, quit. You're right, nursing isn't the military. Nobody is forcing you to care for patients afflicted by Coronavirus or any other pathological condition. Nobody is going to court-martial you for desertion or even strip you of your nursing license if you don't want to do it. There's no "dishonorable discharge" here.
For the record, doctors, nurses, techs, and other healthcare staff have cared for patients worldwide with a whole host of communicable diseases, ranging from the common cold and the flu up to Marburg and Ebola. They did it voluntarily and based on the belief that they wanted to get these sick sufferers back to health, despite the personal risk.
If your mom or dad had (heaven forbid) Coronavirus and were hospitalized for it, I presume you'd want doctors and nurses who cared for your parent's recovery there and gave them the care and medical attention as they needed, rather than treating them like some sort of feral diseased animal best avoided (or a reason to quit work altogether).
You can stop the guilt trip already! The OP is merely giving us a glimpse of the front lines in ICU. It is a warning to the rest of us. The OP is giving us important info from the ICU so we can make an informed choice about our own personal risk of working with Corona.
I thank the OP for sharing with us what is happening in the ICU.
Yes it is possible to get the virus and be asymptomatic or only have mild symptoms, but it already has been documented that people with underlying health problems and the elderly have a higher risk of death! Although at the same time some younger people are dying as well.
There is nothing wrong for the OP to share their first hand experiences. I welcome it and ask for more on the front lines to speak up. Also it is public knowledge that HCW's are not being provided adequate PPE, are being put in unsafe situations, simple mask, not TB mask, not PAPR and many esp NYC are being expected to use the same mask for a week or more. Totally unsafe!
I can't imagine police, firefighters or even the military being sent out without adequate protection, but it's perfectly OK to do this to HCW's. The hospitals and the CDC have colluded to lower the safety bar and put us at risk! There is nothing wrong with choosing to walk away when one is put in an unsafe, potentially deadly situation. It is not our fault adequate PPE isn't being provided, but we are expected to put our neck out due to the greed and mismanagement of the corporate hospital system and shoddy govt ie FEMA and CDC! This shouldn't be happening! And hundreds of HCW have already gotten sick and some have died. Sadly until HCW's are provided adequate PPE ie PAPRS, more will die! I think this is a crime on the parts of the hospitals and the govt! Their actions are criminal and I hope their are lawsuits after this is over. Unfortunately it will not make the victims whole!
1) If you suffer from Asthma, Lung CA, COPD, and/or other chronic lung disorders, your chances of surviving COVID-19 are slim to none. This virus attacks the lungs hard, if your lungs are already weakened, your already onthe losing end of the battle with the virus.
This is a terribly discouraging thing to read as an asthmatic mom of young children. I need to remind myself that statistically it's untrue, and there's a 92-95% chance of surviving, possibly higher since we don't really know accurate numbers because of asymptomatic or even un-tested COVID+. I think it's helpful to share insights into experiences with this condition since it's so new, but sweeping statements indicating that an entire group of people will die because of their chronic condition is frightening. The facts are still ugly, but trying to remind myself to stick with the facts...
The OP is merely giving us a glimpse of the front lines in ICU. It is a warning to the rest of us.
1) Most of us don't work in the ICU.
2) The OP was being overly dramatic about Coronavirus in general. It is not a fifty-fifty chance at a death sentence if you take care of someone with Coronavirus, ICU or no ICU.
Thank you for sharing this information. I think you just tried to warn people with preexisting conditions.
I left my job without finishing up 2 week notice. I couldn't stand the cavalier attitude of my coworkers. Nurses from COVID unit are using the same nursing station, no social distancing, hardly anybody wearing masks, stuff from COVID unit laying around.
Hopefully, this virus is not going to be the end of the world and not everybody with health issues are going to be hit hard. For many people the risk is real.
I detest that people are being harsh, skeptical and quite frankly rude. One comment said she should "quit then". We took an oath and most nurses believe in that. We are here to take care people. We take it seriously. She was merely giving her perspective. It's not dramatic or unrealistic. There are far too many people not taking it seriously. Thousands have died in a very short time. What more proof do you need? Wake up. Now is not the time for anger or being unkind. This is a universal wake up call for everyone. You are not impervious. Be well. Stay well. And please be kind.
Specializes in Neurosciences, stepdown, acute rehab, LTC.
This just doesn’t match up with the statistics, and as someone said, if we tested more people the mortality rate would be lower as the people who aren’t being tested are asymptomatic or have few symptoms. While many in the ICU may die, most in the general public will not die. This type misinformation is likely to cause a lot of panic.
The OP seems to have exaggerated justttt a bit. I work on M/S floor which was turned into a Covid r/o floor for a short period before becoming one of the many Covid floors in my hospital. I work in one of the "hot spot" hospitals in NY. I've seen very sick patients with comorbidities recover & others who haven't. I've seen patients intubated, extubated, & are recovering well. I've also had coworkers who tested positive who are recovering well/recovered and returned to work.
You can stop the guilt trip already! The OP is merely giving us a glimpse of the front lines in ICU. It is a warning to the rest of us. The OP is giving us important info from the ICU so we can make an informed choice about our own personal risk of working with Corona.
I thank the OP for sharing with us what is happening in the ICU.
I can't imagine police, firefighters or even the military being sent out without adequate protection, but it's perfectly OK to do this to HCW's. The hospitals and the CDC have colluded to lower the safety bar and put us at risk! There is nothing wrong with choosing to walk away when one is put in an unsafe, potentially deadly situation. It is not our fault adequate PPE isn't being provided, but we are expected to put our neck out due to the greed and mismanagement of the corporate hospital system and shoddy govt ie FEMA and CDC! This shouldn't be happening! And hundreds of HCW have already gotten sick and some have died. Sadly until HCW's are provided adequate PPE ie PAPRS, more will die! I think this is a crime on the parts of the hospitals and the govt! Their actions are criminal and I hope their are lawsuits after this is over. Unfortunately it will not make the victims whole!
One nurses glimpse of the front lines, is actually just one nurses assessment/opinion. They may be, are, to close to the action to see the big picture.
I didn't learn anything I didn't already know. If you have comorbidities you have a bigger chance of dying. Healthy people with no comorbidities can die. Many, (how many, I hate math but I know the percentages of deaths per population make the numbers high). This virus won't go away. HCW will get sick and die. I think we already knew all this "important information".
I do like the posters style of writing. "My friends, the danger is very real.....You are the author of your destiny." Very impressive, they should write a book.
I can "imagine", I know, the "military is sent out without adequate protection". Being married to a front line, saw action in Vietnam, Marine I hear ad nauseam how bad some of the equipment was. During inspections they had to be wearing it or be reprimanded, only to discard it as soon as inspection was over. And he makes the same comments watching current war news or talking to newly returned troops from the front lines.
For whatever its worth, like the OP, I work in an ICU that has recently been largely overrun with covid patients. But I don't entirely agree with some of the OP's assertions.
Ill explain what I'm seeing (good and bad) to counterbalance.
For starters, yes, the people who get really sick with covid19 (I.e.the ones who wind up needing ICU beds) are indeed SUPER sick. They crash and burn fast. They often need tons of support once vented. They seem to have a high mortality rate. And while the treatments we're using are hopefully nudging our survival rate upwards, no treatments I've seen )and we've tried many) seem to be a silver bullet that has substantial efficacy against the severe form of the illness.
I've seen lots of older patients. I've seen no shortage of younger patients, some in their 20s. I can't say for sure how much comorbidities might play a major role in severe illness among younger patients. So far, obesity seems to me like a common factor, but that might just be a distortion caused by a small sample that I'm personally seeing.
I also cant speak to disposition after surviving severe illness. That worries me.
On the other hand, the OP made it sound as though anyone with any risk factors who gets the illness is basically done for. Thats just not true. There are a lot of cases that are far less severe even among at risk populations. Aside from keeping up with the best available statistics and info I can find about covid, I know this anecdotally from knowing a number of individuals who have tested positive for covid but who had less severe courses of illness.
I have had at least 3 coworkers ill with covid. One was in his/her late 50s, unknown medical history, and had extremely mild symptoms, close to asymptomatic. One was either late 20s or early 30s, quite heavyset. Symptoms more like a severe flu, but no worse. Another was in 20s, very mild symptoms.
Meanwhile my sibling in NYC and his/her roommates and roommates significant others have had the illness. Of them, the only one with more severe symptoms was my sibling (30s, good health prior) who developed pna but not respiratory failure.
Roommate's significant other is still acutely ill but only mildly. Sibling is past the acute phase but has lingering weight loss (was already skinny, so this isn't a good thing), activity intolerance. Everyone else is well and working and fully recovered.
Also of note, many of our patients seem to have family who are also sick, but less severely so.
My takeaway is that it seems the reports of wildly varying illness severity are true.
From a close reading of the best available data, it seems that covid has relatively minimal effects on children at large (that may not be true for infants - many of the severe cases from case reports seem to involve children under the age of 1 with some comorbidity). Again anecdotally, a friend who works in a PICU has told me over text that they do not seem to be getting hit hard with sick kids from this, despite working in the same region. While we in the adult ICU are scrambling to get enough ventilators, my PICU friend has told me that they havent had to intubate a single child yet for the disease.
Of course, none of this is to say that covid19 isn't genuinely dangerous. If anything, I'm something of a pessimist with respect to how this will play out (ask me my thoughts on the currently circulating models and projections for hospital resource usage or overall mortality). I'm just pointing out that you can't really evaluate the risk to any indovidual just by looking at the patients who need ICU care.
-LOL we didn't join the military. Nurses didn't sign up to die in a battlefield. We went to college, to get our degree and a job just like the rest of society. We didn't become nurses to go into a war zone. This isn't the military
Those who are in the military also are getting paid and getting benefits for life.
I agree with what you said. And even if you recover from the coronavirus, you will never be 100% again, as research has shown. There are lingering effects...
CharleeFoxtrot, BSN, RN
840 Posts
I have been retasked at my job. Now I make outreach calls to Covid+ patients. My job is to follow up with not only those patients that tested positive, where never admitted and are recuperating at home. I've also got patients after being discharged from the hospital.
I've got them as young as 20, and as old as 77. Some with comorbids, some none at all. Seen them be discharged post aggressive MICU intubation/vented for a few days then they get stepped down then home.
(chuckles) Have one patient with every comorbid you can think of- a virtual poster child of now not to live a full happy life who is home. They aren't back to smoking or drink just yet but I have faith.
I also know a few that never made it home.
I know the OP is looking at this through "inpatient eyes", which is different from those of us working "outpatient", but I assure you Covid-19 is not a universal death sentence, and yes occasionally it does seem to show mercy.