COVID lessons learned, and preparing for what’s next Prevention and what works
The world remains engaged in the battle against COVID-19. After almost five months of experience with COVID-19 at Tower Health, we would like to outline where we are in the pandemic and how to prepare for what the remainder of the year might bring.
As healthcare professionals, here are some insights into what we’ve learned about the virus and how we continue to prepare for the months ahead:
Wearing a mask, maintaining distance and hand hygiene are effective in preventing infection. Wearing a mask reduces the volume of droplets each of us puts into the air when we breathe, cough or sneeze. Maintaining distance ensures any droplets we produce fall to the ground quickly. Hand hygiene using soap and water (or hand sanitizer) breaks down the virus on our hands.
A vaccine is still months away, even with some of the promising headlines about early clinical trials. When a vaccine is developed, it will take months to produce and distribute. Distribution of early doses will need to be prioritized to the most vulnerable and most at-risk, as well as essential workers.
Until a vaccine is developed and produced on a worldwide scale, we must continue to practice prevention: wearing masks, practicing physical distancing, avoiding unnecessary travel or gatherings and washing our hands regularly. Doing so demonstrates our concern for colleagues, family and friends.
Treatment
There is much we do not know about the disease, but we have learned that some treatments can relieve suffering, shorten hospitalization or improve survival.
The anti-viral drug remdesivir and the steroid dexamethasone have shown promise. Tower Health has taken part in research using plasma donated by recovered COVID-19 patients that contains antibodies to the virus. This so-called convalescent plasma shows promise in speeding recovery.
There are no magic bullets, but we are much more knowledgeable than we were five months ago. We are getting better in understanding the disease and its different impacts on patients.
Preparing for the months ahead
Based on the history of other pandemics and observing the experience of different states and nations, there is a strong possibility the disease will return in our region at greater levels in the fall.
In the coming weeks, many schools may reopen (at least partially), the weather will turn cooler, and people will spend more time inside. Our normal flu season will also return.
We must, and are, preparing for the worst, even as we hope for the best. For healthcare organizations, this includes obtaining advance supplies of masks, gloves, gowns, face shields and other needed materials. It also means continuing to encourage everyone to wear masks and practice appropriate social distancing and hand hygiene.
While we simply do not know the magnitude of what lies ahead, our experience since March has prepared us for a resurgence. COVID-19 cases are no longer new. Tower Health has policies and procedures that can be reimplemented quickly to address a sudden or prolonged influx of patients.
Few of us have experienced a prolonged crisis like this in our lifetimes. We will be living with the coronavirus for an extended period, and no one can accurately predict when things might return to normal.
We hope that our communities will join with us to do what is necessary to protect and serve one another, today and in the future. The team at Tower Health will continue to rise to meet this challenge.
As persons who have chosen to work in healthcare, this is at the core of what we do and who we are.