I feel the concern healthcare providers, especially those helping kids are feeling right now. I feel it both as a previous ER physician and a father of two little kids. I can feel the fear of health care providers right now.
I’ve also worked in healthcare in other countries where I had to triage for inadequate care; I’ve had children die on me, because their health system failed them. It’s not something you ever fully recover from, and it’s something we must do everything in our power to avoid here.
That means taking prevention of current infections seriously. Now. It means getting our kids, but all of us up-to-date & protected by vaccines (COVID+Flu). It means masking up at school, work, and out in the community, anywhere we can spread. It means staying home when sick!
These are immediate necessities. But longer term we need to truly embrace living w/ COVID & other respiratory viruses again. That doesn't mean back to 2019, it means big steps forward to prevent infections in society. It means a Marshall Plan for the pandemic.
What does that look like? It means major upgrades to ventilation to stop respiratory virus transmission. Where inadequate, other infection control strategies such as air filtration/UV. It means #PaidSickLeave so people can stay home when sick and interrupt chains of transmission.
It means investing in health system resilience so that we can weather the winter and future waves of COVID, or other viruses. And it means sustainable enhanced funding to public health, something which was advised and never wholly actioned after SARS-CoV-1 in 2003.
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