Essential workers risk all during coronavirus. Please stay at home to thank them
If the coronavirus makes you feel anxious, imagine what it feels like to be a nurse or a doctor right now.
Medical workers risk their lives to protect public health during pandemics. As the COVID-19 virus spreads, we must all do our part to protect those working on the frontlines.
“We take our job seriously and we know that we can take care of these patients, said Robin Cole, an emergency room nurse at Kaiser Permanente South Sacramento Medical Center. “We just insist that we take care of these patients in a safe manner, with the proper [personal protective equipment], using the precautionary principle to make sure that we’re safe, we keep our family safe and we’re keeping the public safe.”
Last week, Cole joined nearly two dozen of her colleagues in a nationwide day of action organized by the National Nurses United union. They protested a decision by the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to downgrade the level of protection recommended for medical personnel.
The CDC now says regular surgical masks, rather than N95 masks, are sufficient to protect health workers treating patients infected with the coronavirus, according to The Sacramento Bee. Nurses consider the change a rollback in protections because the CDC had previously recommended N95 masks, which are in short supply.
Let’s be clear: Our doctors and nurses deserve the highest level of protection, and it is the role of government to make sure they get it. Why does the world’s most powerful nation lack such life-saving necessities?
The tension between the nurses and the government reflects the serious concerns of medical workers today. Medical workers have long risked their lives for public health, said UC Davis medical professor Michael Wilkes.
“Not long ago, 10 percent of each medical school class would develop tuberculosis,” wrote Wilkes in The Bee. “In the early 20th century, hundreds of doctors and nurses died from the 1918 flu epidemic while caring for sick people. The same was true for those caring for people infected with Ebola in 2014.”
The coronavirus has already claimed the lives of medical professionals in other countries. In Italy, a doctor named Roberto Stella, 67, died of respiratory failure due to coronavirus last week. In China, some 3000 doctors got infected, and at least 18 died, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Our nation’s medical health professionals shoulder big risks and responsibilities in the effort to slow the coronavirus. Doctors, nurses, home health care workers, ambulance drivers, first responders – we owe them our gratitude.
Medical professionals are the most visible heroes in this crisis. But the coronavirus has also revealed our deep interconnection to other workers who provide essential services in our lives.
Grocery workers, farmworkers, drivers, delivery workers, restaurant workers, truckers, police officers, firefighters, factory workers, state workers and military personnel continue to provide critical lifelines for each of us. This is not an exhaustive list of the people who help hold our society together, and please feel free to let us know who we left out.
Some, like police and firefighters, risk their lives for us every day. Others, like grocery clerks and drivers, probably never imagined themselves playing such a critical role. Yet we must not forget, once things eventually return to normal, the sacrifices they all made to keep us fed, cared for and safe.
So, when you get a chance, please take a moment to thank these citizens for the critical work they do.
They risk their own health to protect ours. We can help repay the favor by adjusting our behavior to slow the virus’ spread. Please take the coronavirus seriously and immediately adopt the practice of “social distancing” by staying home and avoiding public places as much as possible.
On Thursday, Sacramento County issued a formal order for residents to stay at home. Gov. Gavin Newsom followed later in the day with a statewide order for all Californians. Please do your part and act in the public good. It may help save the life of an essential worker – and it may save your own.
Editor’s note: This editorial has been updated to reflect new “stay at home” orders from Sacramento County and Gov. Gavin Newsom.
This story was originally published March 19, 2020 at 11:48 AM with the headline "Essential workers risk all during coronavirus. Please stay at home to thank them."