All new to me

[DonH]

I understand your fear Ginger but take a deep breath (even though it’s not a test of Coronavirus as some Facebook posts suggest). How is today any different than a year ago? You very likely had far more flu patients in your hospital and the very same fears apply there. You could have infected or been infected by them. In fact you had a better chance of that a few months to a year ago as I’m reading figures pointing at:

“Just over a year ago, long before the term coronavirus had entered our collective vocabularies, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that in just a few short weeks of the 2018-19 winter season, the flu had sickened between 6 million and 7 million Americans. About half of those had gone to the doctor for help. Somewhere between 69,000 and 84,000 had been hospitalized.”

That’s just one example. For whatever reason this hysteria is feeding on itself and if our healthcare workers freak out we are screwed. The Washington Times has a great article on this called “please stop the Coronavirus hysteria now” please Google it and read it. I think it will put things in perspective. This wave of hysteria is so out of proportion to actual reality its maddening. By all means taking precautions, etc makes total sense. I’m not saying we should do nothing we just need to get this in perspective. You were not in healthcare when HIV first hit. I was just starting and it was amazing the fear. This has turned into the same thing - even though if you test positive for Coronavirus you very likely will do just fine just as 95% of patients at bare minimum will.

I’ll leave you with this. Everyone points to China since they are on the back side if it all. They have just short of 81,000 cases. Their population is about 1,400,000,000 (that’s 1.4 billion) people. My math says that’s 0.0000571 people infected. However I and others believe the actual number infected could be more like 10 times that because many have little or no symptoms, are never tested and never get counted. So 10 times the number could be closer which reduces the death ratio by 10 times as well.

0.0000571 of China infected. Perspective. Keep perspective. We are going to all be just fine after Coronavirus is gone. It’s the reaction to it that may do the most harm and already has. Don’t get sucked in. Read that article. Don’t fall to the fear of the unknown. Do what you can and live your life. Your patients need you to keep a level head.