COVID-19 • Last Week, Next Week

March 16, 2020

This last week has clarified things for just about everyone.  COVID-19 has forced us onto new ground.  Our lives have changed, our society has changed, much of ‘normal’ has changed.

And if you are over 60, or if you count on someone over 60, or you love someone over 60 – you’re likely some kind of scared today.

I am sorry.  Living with fear, this fear, stinks.  It’s a beast we cannot see, we have little control over and takes lives does. Sound like something out of a horror movie – and no wonder past generation likened these illnesses to all kinds of spirits and supernatural beings.  It has that feel.

But science shits on the supernatural.  Information on the enemy is pouring in and the global community is learning very quickly.  We are absolutely not helpless.

But we have been slow and selfish.  The POTUS/Fox News cohort has done damage to the response and has slowed a large portion of our society to make changes fast enough.  Sadly, they will suffer for their slow response.  In a year or so, statistics will be developed on both the response of individual states and the response of individuals to their media diet related to COVID-19.  That will be very interesting as the virus seems to have no party affiliation and seems to be ignoring ignorance.

Statistically speaking, if China had acted 1 week earlier, they would have had a 60+% decline in cases and may have kept this thing from such rapid global spread.  And if China had acted one week later …. over 60% increase in cases, a total loss of control of the virus in their country and millions of deaths.

1 week makes all the difference.  We’ve used ours.

This coming week will have a lot of drama built into it; most of it unnecessary.  The numbers are going to spike dramatically, but that will reflect both a change in how we count and testing (finally) coming on line at scale.

But for most of us, it changes nothing.  We know the virus is in our community and spreading at will.  We know what we have to do to break that cycle and how important the next couple weeks are going to be for our success.

Cape Cod is not in a good position for COVID-19.  We have one of the oldest populations in the USA and world.  We have hundreds of single family homes, group homes and nursing homes that hold for thousands of elderly, infirm and unwell people.

I beg and pray to all of you right now:

If we do not work well together, caring for everyone as if your life depended on it, Cape Cod Health Care will be overwhelmed.  There is absolutely no way that Cape Cod Health Care could cope with that flood of patients.  Of course they will do the best they can, but care will, by necessity, be curtailed to those who have the greatest probability of survival.  We must not let that happen.

And to everyone working for Cape Cod Health Care: many of you have worked through a lot of trying times; blizzards and insane flu seasons, etc.  It is very likely you will do things and see things done that you have never experienced before.  It is going to be very weird.

The World Health Organization is begging you to learn quickly and on the fly.  Look at what other countries and hospitals have done for guidance and apply it to your facility.  Everyone is going to make ‘mistakes’ but use your head and not your heart.  DO NOT BLAME.  You have no time for that.  Figure out what went wrong, find a new path, and move on.

Trust.  You are going to have to trust your leadership.  I know all the ‘battles’ of union and doctors and nurses and aids and housekeepers and all the little squabbles we have in our wacky family of health care.  These are conflicts that happen everywhere but over time they can erode trust I leadership.

We have no time for that.  Leadership will also make mistakes.  You are going to have to cut them some slack; and to some of you, that’s going to be tough.

This is a war footing.  Leadership must have the authority to do the out-of-the-box thinking and apply that to the effort.  They will ask staff to do things they have never done.

Use your head.  Stay in your lane of knowledge.  Speak up to authority when you know something is more right or more wrong; they cannot know everything.

Admit when you are exhausted, point out others who are burnt; do not be a solitary hero.  Going it alone or exhausted only creates more chaos.  This must be a collective effort.

Finally; many of you will experience something truly spectacular and wonderful through all of this.  Your deep love of community, of each other, of your craft, of caring – this will bind you to your peers in a way perhaps you have never experienced. ‘Brothers and Sisters in Arms’.  

I have found those times the most satisfying, fulfilling experiences of my life.

You will be changed by this.  Make it awesome.