Just like coronavirus, COVID-19 deniers are probably going to be around for the long haul.
Misinformation about COVID-19 literally kills. As the pandemic roars ahead, conspiracy theories thrive online. A handful of so-called “COVID truthers” even tried to enter a busy Utah hospital while others clogged phone lines because they didn’t believe legitimate reports of an overfull intensive care unit.
Healthcare workers are exhausted by the bogus claims. Recently, a flurry of doctors, nurses, respiratory therapists, and other healthcare workers have shared heartbreaking posts on social media to illustrate the devastation wrought by COVID-19 as they stare down endless days of over-packed hospitals.
Their online pleas come as the COVID-19 death toll hit a six-month high on Tuesday and the U.S. reached the bleak milestone of over 250,000 Americans dead from the virus since the start of the pandemic. Some states are responding to another coronavirus wave by reinstating restrictions designed to save lives, while others are easing rules or implementing mask mandates for the first time.
Meanwhile, many healthcare workers are past their breaking points or have quit.
Kari Jerge, a critical care surgeon, is currently working part-time in the COVID-19 intensive care unit at Banner University Medical Center in Phoenix.
Jerge says the patients she’s cared for in the last week or two are the sickest patients she’s encountered in her eight years of practicing medicine.
“…they get so sick so fast, despite all the machines and all the medicines you put them on, a lot of them are slipping through our fingers,” says Jerge.
The burnout worries Jerge, who fears many doctors and nurses will leave the medical field when the pandemic is over.
“What I’m afraid of, is at the end of this, there’s going to be a whole bunch of nurses and doctors who have emptied their cups and have nothing left to pour,” she says. “As long as I can hold onto the warmth, empathy, and compassion that I give to my patients, as long I don’t shut down, I’ll still be able to be in medicine at the end of this.”
If you’re tired of arguing with friends, family, and strangers on the internet about the consequences of COVID-19, share the tweets below with them. It may not change their minds but, hopefully it will provide some perspective and evoke at least a smidgeon of empathy. The harsh realities inside America’s healthcare centers are only mounting.
Just to put this in context, a rare and potentially deadly disease process that has nothing to do with COVID. This serious illness should be treatable. And it may not be because hospitals are full.
My ICU is full tonight. If you called to check, I’d bet your local one is too. https://t.co/jBtF8k45A5
— Kari Jerge, MD, FACS (she/her) (@kari_jerge) November 17, 2020
One of my last rooms to go into the patient was awake and alert. He was being transferred to a lower level of care in the next hour or so. The news was on, El Paso in the national headlines again for needing more freezer truck morgues. The patient makes small talk. 3/
— Ashley Bartholomew, BSN, RN (@TheBlondeRN) November 16, 2020
I’m at a loss for words. Here I am basically wrapped in tarp, here he is in a Covid ICU. How can you deny the validity of covid? How is this possible? Misinformation is literally killing people in mass, I think to myself. 5/
— Ashley Bartholomew, BSN, RN (@TheBlondeRN) November 16, 2020
⚠️MOTHER OF GOD—El Paso nurse’s horrifying story of hospital situation. There is a COVID room nicknamed “the pit” where no doctors enter, patients only get 3 CPR cycles—patients are sent there to just wait, code & die. None has survived “the pit”. #COVID19 pic.twitter.com/vvih3rVzPL
— Eric Feigl-Ding (@DrEricDing) November 14, 2020
I have a night off from the hospital. As I’m on my couch with my dog I can’t help but think of the Covid patients the last few days. The ones that stick out are those who still don’t believe the virus is real. The ones who scream at you for a magic medicine and that Joe Biden is
— Jodi Doering (@JodiDoering) November 15, 2020
I can’t stop thinking about it. These people really think this isn’t going to happen to them. And then they stop yelling at you when they get intubated. It’s like a fucking horror movie that never ends. There’s no credits that roll. You just go back and do it all over again.
— Jodi Doering (@JodiDoering) November 15, 2020
Being a healthcare worker in this pandemic is like drowning. You’re trying so hard to float, to swim up, but you’re sinking & your silent screams fall on deaf ears. Your horror is missed by those still having fun around you.
Throw us a life preserver. #WearAMask #StayHome
— Kelly Cawcutt MD MS FACP (@KellyCawcuttMD) November 14, 2020
Our hospitals are completely full here. We are treating our waiting room as another part of the ED. One of our providers found a saddle PE in a patient sitting in a waiting room chair.
This is horribly dangerous
— Josh Mugele (He/Him) (@jmugele) November 17, 2020
We had an intubation this morning with no available critical care beds. There is no more give in the system. I am more terrified at this point than I ever have been since Covid started.
— Dude RN (@BsnDude) November 18, 2020
I spent a lot of time overseas doing medical work in underserved places- war zones, disasters, refugee camps. I’m haunted by the preventable deaths. When we ran out of blood. When kids died of vaccine-preventable diseases. I never EVER imagined I’d feel that way in the USA.
— DocAnon, MD, MSc (@iDocAnonXX) November 17, 2020
Here’s the thing.
We are all going to run out of beds – but also docs, nurses, respiratory techs, radiology techs, PAs, NPs, lab techs, etc.
There simply isn’t enough capacity in the system.
— Megan Ranney MD MPH 🗽 (@meganranney) November 11, 2020
“We cannot begin to describe the feeling of leaving a hospital ward full of patients gasping for breath, only to be told that we are making it up.” https://t.co/nMKof9RhXq
— Lakshman Swamy (@laxswamy) November 19, 2020
We don’t need your 7 pm applause. We don’t need your donated pizza. We even don’t need your gratitude.
We need you to wear a mask & keep your distance so you stop killing each other & you literally & figuratively stop killing us. It’s all we ask.
PLEASE.
— NurseKelsey (@nursekelsey) November 12, 2020
Jerge isn’t hopeful for a quick end to the onslaught of critically-ill patients with COVID-19.
“This feels like quicksand, we’re about to get hit with a tidal [wave] that’s even worse and it’s already so bad,” she says.