In their defense, the staff in these hospitals, I imagine (and my imagination for this can be pretty good), are seeing things on an hourly basis they are only used to seeing a couple times a month. Remember the usual business of hospitals is babies and gall bladders, her and there someone dying of colon cancer or lung cancer but all of it happening like “life as usual”.
What these people are dealing with now is “their worst moments” coming at them one after the next, non stop. There will be emotional fall out, judgement years down the road impacted, this is going to change them profoundly. For them nothing is ever going to be the same again.
Excellent points, all.
Re: For them [medical workers] nothing is ever going to be the same again.
Actually, what they saw during peak seasonal influenza weeks during late January and early February looked exactly like what they are seeing now.
According to the CDC, the death toll for seasonal influenza this year is between 24,000 and 62,000.
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/preliminary-in-season-estimates.htm
A pretty good description of things in a hospital. I work in one. In the ER. Because of that I’ve been exposed to Covid four times in the last two weeks. I tested positive but ‘’asymptomatic’’ which means I don’t have symptoms. But none the less I’ve had to be monitored by having my temperature taken twice a day for the last two weeks, thank God it’s been 98/6 or 97.5.
I’ve also been in quarantine for the last week and will be for another week. yeah, last time I was in the ER it was... hopping to say the least.