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ALSO INSIDE: Deaths from coronavirus surpass 100,000 in the U.S.,
Violet Manuel hastily aban- doned her uncle’s funeral and grabbed two empty con- tainers when she heard a boy running down the dirt road shouting, “Water, water, water!”
The 72-year-old joined dozens of people seeking their daily ration in Zimbabwe’s densely populated town of Chitungwiza.
“Social distancing here?” Manuel asked tartly. She sighed with relief after getting her allotment of 40 liters (10.5 gallons) but worried about the coronavirus.
“I got the water, b ut chances are that I also got the disease,” she told The Associated Press. And yet her plans for the water did not include hand-washing but “more important” tasks such as cleaning dishes and flushing the toilet.
Such choices underscore the challenges of preventing the spread of the coronavirus in slums, camps and other crowded settlements around the world where clean water is scarce and survival is a daily struggle.
Some 3 billion people, from indigenous communities in Brazil to war-shattered villages in northern Yemen, have nowhere to wash their hands with soap and clean water at home, according to the charity group WaterAid. It fears that global funding is being rushed toward vaccines and treatments without “any real commitment to prevention.”
Definitively linking COVID19 cases to water access isn’t easy without deeper investigation, said Gregory Bulit with UNICEF’s water and sanitation team, “but what we know is, without water, the risk is increased.”
In the Arab region alone, about 74 million people don’t have access to a basic hand-washing facility, the United Nations says.
Nearly a decade of civil war has damaged much of Syria’s water infrastructure, and millions must resort to alternative measures. In the last rebel-held territory of Idlib, where the most recent military operations displaced nearly 1 million people, resources are badly strained.
Yasser Aboud, a father of three in Idlib, said he has doubled the amount of water he buys to keep his family clean amid virus fears. He and his wife lost their jobs and must cut spending on clothes and food to afford it.
In Yemen, five years of war left over 3 million peo- ple displaced with no secure source of water, and there are growing fears that prim- itive sources such as wells are contaminated.
And in Manaus, Brazil, 300 families in one poor indigenous community have water only three days a week from a dirty well.
“Water is like gold around here,” said Neinha Reis, a 27-year-old mother of two. To wash their hands, they depend on donations of hand sanitizer. Reis and most of the other residents have fallen ill with symptoms similar to those of COVID-19 in the past month.
Across Africa, where virus cases are closing in on 100,000, more than half of the continent’s 1.3 billion people must leave their homes to get water, according to the Afrobarometer research group.
Where it is made available via trucks or wells, the long lines of people could become “potentially dangerous breeding grounds for the virus,” said Maxwell Samaila, program manager with the aid group Mercy Corps in Nigeria.
In rural parts of sub-Saharan Africa, where most have to travel up to three hours for water, “you have 200 people touching the (well) handle one after the other,” said Bram Riems, an adviser on water, sanitation and hygiene with Action Against Hunger.
At an open area surrounded by filthy apartment blocks in Zimbabwe’s capital, Harare, women in orange T-shirts ticked off names of people fetching water from a row of communal taps that Doctors Without Borders provided in poor suburbs. Many services in the country have collapsed, along with its economy.
Name: Josie Dickey
Hometown (where you live now): West Milton
Job title: Staff and Transport Nurse in neonatal intensive care unit
Where do you work: Dayton Children’s for 22 years
Describe what your day is like/what you do: As a staff nurse, I have a two-patient assignment consisting of infants as small as 1 pound. They might be on a ventilator or needing no oxygen at all. I do assessments every two to four hours, including vital signs, medications and feedings. Often the parents aren’t there (as I work night shift), so when I’m available to and the infant’s condition allows, I can even give some snuggles.
Most of my shifts though, I am the NICU transport nurse. In that position I don’t have an assignment in the unit because we have to be available to leave the hospital within 15 minutes of getting a call from an outlying hospital. The team consists of a transport nurse, a respiratory therapist and a driver/paramedic. We are called when an outlying hospital is expecting a premature infant and they need us at the delivery, or an infant is born sick and needs more help that they can provide. We stabilize the infant and transport them back to Dayton Children’s. We routinely transport infants from the entire region (up to two hours away) as well as Miami Valley and Kettering Hospitals if the infant needs surgery or needs to see a specialist.
What inspired you to get into health care? I always thought that I wanted to be a nurse, but I knew the NICU was where I wanted to work when I was in the sixth grade. I visited my pastor and his wife in the Toledo NICU when they had twins, and I was amazed at what I saw there.
What’s a memorable experience you’ve had in health care? Anytime we are able to see a family get to go home after being here months on end is such a wonderful feeling. You truly get to be a part of the family during that time. There are still babies I remember from when I started 22 years ago, and they are graduating college now and starting their own families. It’s wonderful to know I had a small part in making that happen. The families are wonderful about keeping us updated and sending us pictures as the babies we have taken care of hit milestones and continue to succeed in life.
What do you want readers to know about your job right now: We have been fortunate to not be severely affected by COVID-19 in the NICU. We have had no positive patients in the NICU, but our daily routines have definitely been different with having to wear more personal protective equipment, and it’s a struggle for the parents having to restrict who can be allowed to visit. Until this week, only one parent could be at the bedside at a time. Through it all though, I can’t imagine working anywhere else. I love getting to know the families, as well as taking care of the babies and COVID is not going to change the care we give them.