Your Experience in Caring for People Diagnosed With COVID

[Newgurl17]

Hey everyone, 

Again, hope you are all doing well. 

My question today is what has your experience been with caring for people who were diagnosed with COVID? Today, a co-worker sent me a video through facebook of all these different doctors from around the world, saying that basically, COVID 19 is not real and that they would not vaccinate anyone for COVID. 

Currently, my facility is experiencing an outbreak, and the amount of people who have been infected is overwhelmingly large. In past outbreaks, whether it be GI or respiratory, there have never been more than 20 people contagious at once. So far, a few people have passed away and a few have recovered. 

[toomuchbaloney]

4 minutes ago, CommunityRNBSN said:

I work in an FQHC in an inner-city area.  We are running several Covid testing sites around the city (hundreds of tests daily).  While I am no longer out swabbing noses, it often falls to me to call and inform the positive patients (several dozen a day) and report them to DPH.

The majority have no symptoms.  Another sizeable chunk have mild cough, fever, achiness, diarrhea.  We have had only a very few-- since March-- admitted to hospitals.  As far as I'm aware, we have had zero deaths, out of the thousands of tests we have run.  Our numbers, of course, reflect the ambulatory population of our city.

I am most certainly not a Covid denier, nor an anti-masker, nor anti-vaccine, or any of that nonsense.  This pandemic is real and I totally ache for the ICU providers who are seeing the worst of it.  BUT.  I have family members who teach elementary school, who post online that they are "lambs to the slaughter" because they're being required to teach, and I'm just like... No you aren't.  I mean, when I talk to someone who has anxiety about Covid, obviously I'm very empathetic and I understand that anxiety does not follow rules of rationality.  But in my mind, I am looking at the numbers that I actually see on the ground and it is just very different from what some people imagine.

What is your positivity rate? In what general area of the country are you?

[CommunityRNBSN, BSN, RN]

3 minutes ago, toomuchbaloney said:

What is your positivity rate? In what general area of the country are you?

I'm in New England.  Back in the Summer, we were down at like 1% and were quite proud of ourselves. But at the moment it's out of control and today it is 6%.  Recently, within the past week, it was at almost 9%.  That's the state-reported number, but they have been approximately in line with our clinic's numbers.

[spotangel, DNP, RN, NP]

I am in NYC and our numbers are climbing. The first wave of "deployment" of Clinic staff to the hospital has started. Our hospitals have designated Covid units and daily we get an update on the increasing numbers admitted into the various hospitals within our system. I worked in the hospital during the last pandemic and the patients were extremely sick, scared,some confused, some trying to make a break out of their rooms and agitated, no family allowed, terrible unsafe staffing and minimal PPEs. We are getting symptomatic patients in our clinics that are testing positive but do not require hospitalization yet. Employees are testing positive and we are trying to be socially distant with each other especially during lunch break in the clinic. I avoid the break room at all times! It is all real and since there is so much misinformation, I keep my eyes open to what is happening in the community where I work and where I live! Our frontline staff are getting vaccinated with the Pfizer vaccine.We are bracing for the next wave of the pandemic, a bit more prepared this time around. Keep safe you all! I tend to ignore these  so called "real videos' from "doctors and nurses" who don't have a clue of what is happening but certainly have their own agenda and propaganda! When it hits home, they suddenly become believers and now want the real nurse and provider not their video counterpart! 

[DataJack BSN-RN, BSN, RN]

I've worked most of 2020 as a staff RN in an urban community hospital intensive care unit. The census was so full that in order to have a clean ICU we had PACU nurses take crash courses in critical care just so we can have a clean unit for people to go to. I would also float to COVID-19 units where patients had mild to moderate to severe symptoms. So, I typically saw a range of severity from dry cough to intubation (sometimes would even witness this progression on the same patient struggling for weeks on optiflow O2). I've seen people in their 20s-30s die from COVID-19 and no apparent medical history. I think I've had 11 drips/IV bags at the most infusing into one patient.

I've also seen an elderly couple extubated and survive after almost 3 months in the hospital. Their story made it on the news.

I once had a mother who had caught it from the son who had participated in a protest. The mother died after a month and the son had to live with that guilt. For a while each nurse's goal was to keep their patient a live until the next shift. It seemed like we had progressively gotten better at treating the disease until mid-August when it started to feel like March again. 

I always try to keep in mind that we see the worst cases in ICU. But I do get annoyed at people who are seemingly oblivious to it all (by choice) and who outright deny the severity of this disease. Even if the vast majority of people only have mild symptoms, why even be flippant about the spread of Covid? Incidence is directly proportional to mortality. 

[OUxPhys, BSN, RN]

When I worked the covid floor when this first started just about all of them were stable with mild symptoms (fever, cough). Then the nursing homes started transferring pt's and they were heavy but also stable. I no longer work the covid floor but know people who do. It sounds like most have mild cases with a few sprinkled in with more moderate symptoms. Acuity is everywhere from independent to total, oriented to disoriented/psych. Worse cases go to the unit.

We've had outbreaks on the floors and in places like radiology. As a result the hospital has surveillance testing done. So far to my knowledge most have tested negative. 

After turkey day we had a surge and it has finally leveled off just in time for Christmas, which I assume will lead to another surge that will last until mid January. To prepare we did open another floor dedicated to covid which brings it to two for the hospital and the MICU acting as the covid unit. All non-essential procedures have been put on hold.

[Newgurl17, CNA, LPN]

What was it like for those of you working in close contact with covid positive peoole? Our outbreak started a little after mid Novmeber and finally ended after mid January. In total, almost all the residents had tested positive and about 13 people had passed away. From what I've heard, staffing levels were horrific on the unit. I can only imagine how stressful it must have been for the staff, families, and the people who had to find people to work on the unit.... Has anyone experienced a large number of deaths in such a short period of time? How did you cope at work?