Thread by @SamirS_H

I got home this morning after an overnight shift in the pediatric emergency department.

I rarely share personal reflections based on my clinical work as a #pediatrician via @twitter, but I'm allowing myself this exception.

#omicron #COVID19Qc #N95sForAll

A thread 🧵 1/21...

2/ I started my winter holiday stretch of shifts by working on #Christmas evening and finished it by ringing in the #NewYear last night while taking care of sick & injured children with a phenomenal (but overworked & somewhat demoralized team) at the children's hospital.

3/ Let me re-iterate at the outset that I've always been opposed to @francoislegault @coalitionavenir's imposition of the #curfew because of its harmful impacts on many of the most marginalized people in society.
cbc.ca/news/canada/mo…

4/ The curfew is a draconian & authoritarian move by the @coalitionavenir gvmt who time and time again chooses its electoral interests over #publichealth.

Relying on police repression to manage a #pandemic is a flagrant failure of public health policy.
iwc-cti.ca/end-curfew-rep…

5/ I was surprised by how busy the overnight shift was.

Families came despite the #curfew. Many were scared and needed reassurance.

Reassurance families is an integral part of what we do as #HealthCareWorkers

6/ On the overnight shift, there's only one licensed MD who is expected to see all the kids coming through the #ER doors: from the adolescent with a twisted ankle to the baby in septic shock.

It's demanding, but it provides us with a better sense of what's happening "out there"

7/ Since the beginning of the #pandemic up until barely a month ago, it was kind of exceptional for us to see more than one child with #COVID19 during an entire day. When it happened, you definitely got word about it (including contact tracing) b/c it felt like a major breach.

8/ Yet, last night, I saw several kids with #COVID19 over the span of a few hours. Even if the child didn't have #COVID19 (yet!), one of the parents or caregivers did. It's basically normalized now. This is very telling about how wide-spread the #omicronvariant has likely become.

9/ The @coalitionavenir gvmt must be praying (despite its claims to being secular!) that #omicron is less virulent than previous strains. But, until we know that for certain, #HealthCareWorkers must be protected, including by being universally offered the option to use #N95 masks

10/ The science was there from as early as March 2020 to suggest that #SARSCoV2 spread not only by droplet transmission but also by #aerosol.
wired.com/story/they-say…

11/ If it wasn't accepted by elected officials for purely political reasons when consensus was developing around it months later, so be it.

But it is a travesty that @ArrudaHoracio's #publichealth team in #Quebec didn't recognize aerosol spread early on.
who.int/news-room/ques…

12/ Meanwhile, as @rkhamsi has explained multiple times, it is particularly harrowing that @ArrudaHoracio still seems to deny the benefit of #N95 masks (versus surgical masks) on the preposterous claim that no studies yet prove their superiority.

https://twitter.com/rkhamsi/status/1477308949821022213

13/ No one's ever conducted a study proving that parachutes prevent deaths for people ejected from a plane, but no one would deny themselves of a parachute if ever in that situation...

14/ I've been wearing an #N95 mask for every single clinical encounter pretty much since #omicron made its entry to #Quebec.

I have a bruise on my nose to prove it (#HealthCareWorkers unfortunately know what I'm talking about).

15/ At some point and despite my best efforts, I may get contaminated by #SARSCoV2 like many of my colleagues have in recent weeks. However, that doesn't mean that we shouldn't be wearing #N95 masks.

16/ Major #healthcare #unions @FSSSCSN @FIQSante have been demanding #N95sForAll for months
montrealgazette.com/news/local-new…

17/ Since last week, @CNESST has called for the expanded the use of #N95 masks for #HealthCareWorkers in #Quebec
montrealgazette.com/news/local-new…

18/ Until this wave starts showing signs of calming, #healthcare providers need every chance we can get to limit our risk of getting infected, esp when the #healthcare system is already on the brink of collapsing - a consequence of successive #neoliberal gvmts in this province.

19/ Lastly, I'd like to send a special shout-out to all my #pediatric emergency colleagues (nurses, MDs, orderlies, unit coordinators, janitors) both at the @HopitalChildren & at @urgencehsj who work so hard to ensure that children can receive emergency medical care 24/7/365.

20/ And, to my colleagues on the frontlines of healthcare in the "adult world", I suspect that the next few weeks are going to be rougher on you than they will be on us in the "pediatric world"...

21/ We should always prepare for the worst, but hope for the best.

Despite the predictable, avoidable and demoralizing situation we now find ourselves in (here & across the world), I hope that we get through this.

Together. In #Solidarity.

#LeaveNoOneBehind

I should have mentioned at the top of this thread that it was originally written while sleep-deprived post-overnight shift, and then posted on twitter in French.

Pour les francophones, voici la v.o. de cette enfilade twitter, en français:

https://twitter.com/SamirS_H/status/1477360784934064130