one of my nurse friends was on FB *****ing about lack of

Posted on: March 29, 2020 at 09:38:46 CT

PPE gear and saying they were running out etc and generally sounding the hysteria alarm over Covid.

I asked her to explain how this large hospital; which is in a suburban county with a total of 5 positive cases of Covid 19; is being overwhelmed with the virus and being run out of PPE gear.

I explained that I understood that not everyone who goes to the hospital is from the county but that's there's also other nearby hospitals to take some of that load.

She said that they had a total of 13 people in their covid ward. But she explained that only 1 of the 13 had an official positive diagnosis. She described that person as "the sweetest little old lady".

Once again, I asked her how the hospital is being overwhelmed with 13 patients. I asked her if it was just b/c they have to wear the PPE geat at all times now or b/c people who ended up being negative were flooding the ER and using up resources etc.

She basically tried to tell me that "people" were hoarding masks just like they were hoarding toilet paper.

That sounds rather implausible to me or incredibly short-sighted planning by the hospital to have such a limited supply of PPE that this small increase in patients ran them dry.

I'm not suggesting that the nurses/docs shouldn't be protected or that they don't need more PPE gear but being "overwhelmed" with covid patients is not the source of at least this hospital's issues.