🤦🏻♂️What it’s like to get tested for COVID-19 2 months into US response: TLDR; medical staff arguing in front of my child, unclear protocol and alarming statistics shared by local pediatricians This thread is the whole story. Friday night my son comes home from school with Cough...
and Fever. Saturday morning started by calling Pediatric COVID-19 hotline, this is the instructions on our primary care homepage. After multiple attempts it was clear the hotline was not operational. ...
Our primary care pediatrician, the best, tells us to ask for a test and call the nurse line. We call @ScrippsHealth nurse hotline, three times and get rerouted to the hotline that immediately hangs up on us. We call the Saturday clinic and get rerouted to the hotline...
At this point it’s clear nobody knows what to do... on March 14. So we hack the appt system and get a same day minute clinic appt at the facility and show up at 9:15am. We are promptly given a COVID questionnaire and checked-in. We are transferred upstairs and check-in again...
This receptionist asks for symptoms and immediately looks concerned... what follows is a dialogue between two receptionists and a nurse: “What should we do? Did they answer the questionnaire? Yes. -Did they travel? -No. (nurse) why are we asking that? It’s known to be in...
the community. -Well I just got this questionnaire yesterday, and we’re already not asking that? -well it’s just a risk assessment. -Shouldn’t they be sent to the tent? -The tents aren’t up yet. -Let’s just get him seen. “Ok Elliott you can come back now!” Once inside the room...
We are screened by two RN/MA who aren’t wearing masks. The doctor comes in shortly and says “you should be wearing masks!” To the RN. She leaves to find one. The doc takes a look at Elliott, gives him a flu test (negative) and then escalates to the COVID pediatric unit...
While we wait we here another argument outside our room. I hear loud snippets- “They shouldn’t be here, why weren’t they routed downstairs to the tents in La Jolla?” “We have three patients who show... we are gonna need to be more careful.” “Where are the masks?” We wait...
30 minutes for the next doctor. She is amazing. She is in a full hazmat-looking suit and administers the test. She apologizes for the confusion and explains that protocols are being changed daily and only the day before did they have ok to test for community transmission...
She suspects that “I’ve been seeing kids with these symptoms since Presidents weekend. Almost 5 weeks where we couldn’t diagnose flu or any infection. It’s gone up dramatically in the last week as kids pass it at school and we are now just able to test kids like Elliott...
Who have a fever and never traveled. But to be fair there are even more kids I see who don’t show fever and just have this very harsh cough. We can’t be sure, but I suspect kids have been passing it around for weeks. You should know in 48 hours if Elliott has it. So we wait...
The house has never felt smaller, the country has never felt weaker, and I applaud all of the healthcare workers for trying to figure this out. Thank you for your incredible bravery and composure in a time where our civic institutions are failing you. #COVIDー19 #Quarantine
