Are we destined to fail in our battle against COVID-19?

As a physician, I have been doing tele-health visits with our COVID-19 patients for the last several weeks in the city of Bridgeport. The list that started with three patients grew to 65 at its peak. In my naivety, I initially impugned the general public that did not follow strict social distancing. Why else would the cases keep increasing if everyone was following the prescription of social distancing hailed by medical and political leaders of our country?

But while conversing and caring for my COVID-19 patients, I unraveled layer after layer of problems deeply seeded in the United States’ social strata. And I wonder, are we destined to fail in our battle against the SARS-CoV2 virus?

One Saturday morning, a 45-year-old lady who works at a nursing home called me for fever and cough. My heart sank when I heard that she had been feeling unwell for at least a week, yet had continued to go to work.

In my initial wave of anger, I blamed her; how could she continue to go to work? But soon I realized that she didn’t have sick leave and risked being laid off if she took time off. She shared how they worked without masks in the outbreak’s initial weeks.

In light of above information, she wouldn’t be solely responsible for spreading the contagion to elderly folks at the nursing home. It is the United States’ system that has to take responsibility. We are relying on people to report symptoms as a means to control the COVID-19 beast, people who themselves are weakened and defeated to make their ends meet. People who are conflicted between their survival needs and bigger societal responsibilities.

I recently cared for a lady in her 90s with COVID-19 infection, who has transitioned to hospice care. I discovered that her son was admitted in the Intensive Care Unit fighting a life-and-death battle. But the pain of this family didn’t stop here; her granddaughter, who stays with them, is carrying the unimaginable burden as she brought this infection home while working as a patient care technician in a hospital.

Was it her workplace’s responsibility to provide the granddaughter a separate accommodation?

Lately, I have also heard emphatically about increasing the number of tests done per day to be a miraculous measure to control COVID-19 and how it will help reopen the United States.

A few weeks ago, I called a lady in her early 50s diagnosed with COVID-19, I reviewed home isolation guidelines. She shared that she lives in a small apartment with her husband and 80-yearold mother-in-law who has colon cancer and cannot safely isolate. She pleaded for us to arrange a room for her, sadly I had no resources to offer.

Sadly, I have at least one and sometimes more such cases every day. The community where our primary care center is located is similar to many communities in America. There are many households with multi-generational family members, sharing a compact living space. As a physician, prescribing medicine for an ailment comes naturally to me, but if the prescription is “self-isolation,” which pharmacy should my patients go to get it?

So I ask myself the question: Are we destined to fail in this battle against SARS-CoV2 virus even as the cases decline in our state of Connecticut? Yes, this battle that we are fighting with just weapons of social isolation and increasing availability of tests is destined to fail unless we add other arms in our armamentarium.

We need the arms of providing paid sick leave, job security, providing accommodation for frontline workers. Until we have the ability to quarantine people who have the disease, and until we have a way to keep our elderly and vulnerable folks safe, the second wave of the infection will be huge.

Thus far the cost of this pandemic is unimaginable, but the half-hearted actions we have taken so far will only amplify human suffering beyond any measure as we all wait for the second wave of pandemic to hit us, guaranteeing a defeat in our battle against COVID-19 infection.

We are relying on people to report symptoms as a means to control the COVID-19 beast, people who themselves are weakened and defeated to make their ends meet.