Items

• 
  2021-05-07

  Story of civic warrior 2 nd wave in india

  Daily diary of a covid doctor for last 2 months…. The message towards the end of 2nd wave of pandemic The last 2 months of 2nd wave of the pandemic have been the most hectic in all aspects emotionally, physically, personally. Finally got some time to pen down my experience towards the end of this 2 wave. Working in territory care hospital as an intensivist, managing own start-up Providing doctors on call for a home visit, tele and video consultation, free consultation for underprivileged people. Every day waking up after hardly 2 to 3 hours of sleep. I will would see 10 to 15 miss calls, Finish teleconsultation as much as possible and then do a home visit for few patients on the way to hospital, Home visit for covid patients has been a totally different experience, these were the patients under the most stressed condition not getting hospital beds, their family physician had stopped seeing them due to fear of self infection. with proper PPE protection treating patients at home successfully is so self satisfactory as a doctor which only COVID warriors like us can understand. Then reaching my COVID ICU where the sickest patients in the city are there, managing such a sharp surge in critical cases has been a Herculean task, time is key in critical care setup, the timely decision to give ventilator support or ECMO support saved few lives. thankfully I have the best doctors, nurses, paramedics, housekeeping, and management guys who make our work easy. Those grueling 8 hours In PPE without food water or toilet. And the most important was talking with the family of those sick patients, ask any 1 of our covid warriors every1 has hundreds of sad story of each family. This used to break us emotionally. Coming out of covid ICU, the number of missed calls for teleconsultation was pending. I would finish them while having lunch In the evening. During the peak of this my wife working as anesthesia Doctor at BHU got infected for 2 nd time, And lost 2 elder family member due to COVID, But the patient's family expectations from me kept me doing my work, and didn't visit my sick wife or attended the funeral of any of my relatives. Then in late-night had kept free teleconsultation slot for my native hometown Sindri, Dhanbad patients. And also underprivileged patients from pan India. After finishing calls, night again would start home visit for covid patients which would go till 2 to 3 am in the morning. Then finally to find a nap of few hours till the next day of battle. This is the story of lakhs of lakhs of covid warriors like me. But think about us now we are also getting burnt out, So request all people not to relax after 2 nd wave, get vaccinated use mask maintain social distancing even after govt unlocks, it's not over yet………... Dr Animesh Kumar Mishra Critical care medicine specialist Apollo Gleneagles Hospital. Founder of DCHS healthcare solutions. 9176138128
• 
  2021-05-01

  INDIA DYING

  This is a breakdown of facts and my opinions on the India Coronavirus situation.
• 
  2020-03-26

  A Long Way Home

  As an international student from China, one of my most impressive experiences about COVID-19 was the long journey when my friends and I returned home from Denver to Beijing. We knew this journey home is bound to be challenging since it happened at such a particular time. The first challenge we faced is to make preparation for the flight. Getting on a flight successfully is largely a matter of luck, as you never know if your flight will be canceled just before the departure date. Due to changing flight policies, our tickets were canceled three times. At that time, my friends and I felt deep powerlessness in the unstable situation. Fortunately, after the fourth flight adjustment, we successfully boarded the journey home. To prevent being infected by coronavirus at the crowded airport, we armed ourselves to the teeth. We wore medical gloves and masks, raincoats (because protective suits were sold out), and we even prepared ski goggles since the safety goggles were sold out too. During the 18 hours on the plane, we just ate a few bars of chocolate and drank some water. And that was the second challenge we faced. However, thanks to the company and encouragement of my two friends that made our time on the plane less stressful and depressed. When we arrived wearily in Guangzhou, we found out a new policy just published that requires returnees to be quarantined as soon as they got off the plane. Therefore, we had to cancel the ticket from Guangzhou to Beijing. As soon as we got off the plane we were taken to a local hotel where we are going to be quarantined for 14 days. During the quarantine, I went through an experience I never had before. Food is delivered to us every day by staff wearing protective suits. And we measured our body temperature at regular intervals every day. In order to overcome the loneliness during the 14 days, my friends and I created an online meeting room, which made us feel that we are eating and studying together. Finally, 16 days after leaving Denver, my friends and I returned to our hometown Beijing. For me, there is nothing happier than seeing my parents in person and eating food cooked by them! My friends and I grew up a lot after going through this experience. This long way home taught us the importance of adjusting mood and supporting each other in times of crisis.
• 
  2021-05-18

  On Illness From a Virus and Surgery During the COVID-19 Pandemic

  In this essay, I reflect on my personal experiences with illness and recovering from surgery during the COVID-19 pandemic.
• 
  2021-04

  Masked Faces Through Foliage

  Ever since the pandemic started, I’ve been spending a lot of time outdoors in parks and public gardens. While outdoors, I often take photographs. Recently I was looking through my photos and noticed that many of the ones taken in March and April 2021 showed masked faces through foliage. Somehow this seemed like a good way to remember Spring 2021.
• 
  2021

  Covid-19 in the background of life

  I have a lot of photos taken in this spot. Our animals and children are cute and tend to hang out on the sofa. I was scrolling back through my online albums and noticed something the background of my photos from the last year all have in common. The tote bag hanging off the closet door is for used masks as we come in. The little table across the stairs is our home PPE station. It wasn’t there a year ago. The baskets are filled with cloth masks of various sizes and styles (it took a lot of trial and error to find masks that fit both kids) and the drawer has a touchless thermometer, among other things. The top has wipes, hand sanitizer, and a UV phone sanitizer that was on back order for months before it arrived. We will always be able to identify the year these photos were taken thanks to a collection of stuff I couldn’t imagine having eighteen months ago. I wonder how long it will stay?
• 
  2021-03-16

  #JOTPYPhoto from Katy Kole de Peralta

  PPE vending machines at the PHX airport
• 2021-04-03

  Big business, bigger crowds.

  This is a tweet from Toronto Ontario which depicts an absolutely massive group of people crowding outside of an Ikea in North York. Just this week, Ontario has seen a massive spike in coronavirus cases, which has prompted the province into another shock lockdown. However, it is apparent that these restrictions are somehow not applicable to big business. Rather, this Tweet touches upon another important feature of the pandemic and the Canadian ‘lockdown.’ Smaller businesses have been forced to pay out of pocket for the adequate infrastructure to remain open during a pandemic, and in many cases have been forced to shut down when ordered to by the province. However, with each passing lockdown it becomes more apparent that these rules, restrictions, and realities do not apply to the larger corporations and super-stores such as Ikea and Wal-Mart. Larger companies can afford to take the fines, they can afford the infrastructure, PPE and much more – smaller businesses simply cannot operate in these conditions, and there has been insufficient aid to make sure that these smaller businesses, their owners and employees are properly protected. And while cases continue to rise, and smaller businesses are forced to close; it makes little sense to give a free pass to these large transnational multi-million dollar companies.
• 
  2021-01-17

  Bay Area firefighter paramedic deployed to SoCal hospital describes COVID-19 situation

  MARIN, Calif. (KGO) -- As COVID-19 cases surge, Bay Area firefighters are getting deployed to hospitals across the state. Bob Craft, a firefighter paramedic from the Central Marin Fire Department is working the nightshift. Two hours into his shift, he intubated a patient in the emergency department who arrived to the hospital with stroke like symptoms and prepped a COVID-19 patient for their flip onto their stomach for the rest of the night. "It's the gamut from really regular people coming to the emergency department to people on ventilators on the ICU who are on the COVID ward," said craft.
• 
  2021-03-14

  Oral Interview with a healthcare provider

  Layne Williams is a Physical Therapist Assistant who was working in a hospital during the pandemic. Her role shifted during the early months of the pandemic and she found herself doing any job that was needed to help with the increased numbers of patients coming into the hospital. She recalled the surreal feeling of walking into her first Covid positive patient’s room and how the mentality of healthcare providers shifted as more information came out about Covid. She also discussed the challenges of being a healthcare provider while living with her husband who is not in healthcare. Her job certainly exposed her to increased risks and those risks spilled over to impact her home life. However, her overall impression from the pandemic is that it showed what the healthcare field is capable of achieving when challenged.
• 
  2021-03-14

  Brenda Cohen Oral History

  In this oral history, I interview my mom, Brenda Lee Cohen on her pandemic experience with a particular focus on her work with the Calgary police service as a crime and intelligence analyst supervisor. In this interview, Brenda talks about her initial experience with the COVID-19 pandemic, she recalls the first day of the pandemic as she and her husband were stuck in America. This particular interview touched upon what her work environment was like during the pandemic and topics such as systemic racism, the police ‘culture’ and the revocation of a popular program for city employees known as the ‘golden handshake’ in the midst of the pandemic. Brenda also spoke briefly about her experience with misogyny within the workplace and how these ideas are so prevent within a space which mixes the civilian and police worlds. Finally, Brenda also spoke about what she is most thankful for in this pandemic, and ultimately reflects on her own inability to express her thoughts and emotions – and how one day when she is out of the police environment, things will be different. Interviewee Name: Brenda Cohen Interviewer Name: Padraic Cohen Date of Interview: 03/14/2021 Location: Cochrane, Alberta Canada. Transcribed by https://otter.ai Partially transcribed by Padraic Cohen
• 
  2021-02-14

  My Story: I Got COVID-19 Because of ICE

  I am sending a diary style writing where I share my experience during the pandemic. I focus on the issue of ICE during the pandemic. Before the lockdowns, my uncle was detained by ICE and was deported during the pandemic. My uncle has been living in the US for 25+ years and Mexico, my uncle's home country, has changed a lot since he last lived there. For that reason, I went to Mexico to take him home. This made me get COVID.
• 
  2020-08-05

  Social Justice and Public Health in 2020

  From the article: The COVID-19 pandemic, caused by the spread of the novel coronavirus, has created an unexpected and unprecedented lifestyle shift for many people across the globe. Several months into the pandemic, the public has been exposed to a number of issues they might not have previously considered or thought possible, from hospitals rapidly reaching capacity and the lack of personal protective equipment (PPE) to the mental and social challenges of physical distancing and being quarantined.
• 
  2021-02-08

  Recognize Their Courage and Sacrifices

  Evaluating the financial impact of the pandemic on the country, House representatives are asking the government to remember and acknowledge those working on the frontlines and their families. The Bloc Québécois demands the government "significantly and sustainably increase Canada health transfers before the end of 2020."
• 
  2021-02-02

  Inadequate Sick Leave Jeopardizes Canadian Health Workers and Patients

  Due to inadequate medical supplies, lack of vaccines, and inability to slow down the spread of the virus, the pandemic rages on. To make matters worse, over half of Canadian workers lack sufficient sick leaves, which contribute to more outbreaks and the dangers of contracting COVID-19.
• 2021-02-06

  Burnt Out Before Beginning

  January 2020 was going to be my year. I had gotten an internship in Pittsburgh, PA that only selected 200 kids out of the thousands of applicants. Not only did I get the internship, but I got it on the unit I wanted to be on, the Emergency Department. March of 2020 comes along. The pandemic has now hit the United States, and everyone panics. May of 2020 comes along. Still in quarantine and in lockdown. I had been out of my job for the past 2 months and was about to begin my internship. Although I was excited to get back to work, I never imagined that it would be as brutal as it was. Every morning at 6:30 am we would get screened at the door. Masks were given out, temperatures were taken, and the three health screening questions were asked. At first, no one came to the hospital. Everyone was still scared and didn’t want to come to the place that held confirmed COVID-19 positive patients. This lasted about a week. Then everyone began coming. Before we knew it we had more patients than staff and we didn’t have enough beds for everyone coming in. Patients would come in with a broken foot and next thing you knew they were COVID positive. Did we wear our mask properly around them? Did they cough on us? Did we maintain 6 feet apart? These were all the questions rambling through our heads once we had learned that a patient was positive after taking care of them all day under standard precautions. We didn’t have enough N-95 masks for everyone to wear, so you had one and that’s what you used all the time. The amount of PPE (personal protective equipment) was far less than we needed. The hospitals tried their best to get them, but sometimes we had to make do without it. At the time, not everyone could get swabbed. We didn’t have enough it’s for everyone so only those that had 3 major symptoms (fever, sore throat, body aches). This was before we knew the asymptomatic patients were so high in number. Every day we wore our masks for 13 plus hours. Every day we wore gloves and gowns for 13 plus hours. Every day we put our lives at risk to save everyone else for 13 plus hours. This is only a snippet of what healthcare members saw throughout this pandemic and are still seeing today. Within 4 months, I was burnt out from the pandemic. I graduate in May and I fear to see what the hospitals will be like then. In better words: wear your masks, get vaccinated if possible, and follow the guidelines. It may not harm some of you personally, but it is hurting your healthcare professionals every day that this pandemic lingers.
• 
  2020-05-11

  Canadian Shield makes face shields

  Canadian Shield is a company that makes face shields. They released this video showing the process.
• 
  2020-05-01

  Used PPE

  A photograph of the soiled PPE at St Paul's Hospital in Vancouver.
• 
  2020-03-19

  Alberta Distillery

  Post from Strathcona Spirits about specialized hand sanitizer.
• 
  2020-08-26

  Yukon Brewery

  A post from Yukon Brewing in August 2020 about their hand sanitizer.
• 
  2020-03-17

  Ontario Distillery

  This is a photograph from March 2020 showing the hand sanitizer made by Dillons Distillery.
• 2021-01

  An Old Gray Piece of Cloth

  Gabriel Rheaume’s Sensory history contribution to COVID-19 Archive I would like to submit my gray, cotton face mask to the COVID-19 Archive. It is perhaps not as the most important item, but certainly it is the most present item for me throughout this pandemic. At almost a full year into this adventure, everyone has a keen familiarity with and opinion of face masks. I got this one as a gift. It feels about the same as getting socks on Christmas, except more useful. I have used this thing every single day unless I forget it—which sends me into a chaotic panic. I am a teacher in a suburb of Nashville, TN. Our school district insists on teaching in person, despite having alarmingly high infection rates in our community. This mask is now part of my daily uniform, a non-negotiable. It serves as a role model for students. A sign that their health is of paramount concern to us. It is part of everything I do. I have dozens of paper replacements in my desk. Those aren’t as good. They straps hurt your ears. The cloth ones are better, more comfortable. I thought about getting one with my favorite band’s logo, but I am going to stick with this old reliable gray, cotton mask. The smell of this mask will haunt me the rest of my life. I wash it multiple times per week. It often smells like laundry detergent. That is a good thing. However, by the end of the day it often smells like whatever I had for lunch. The masks gets hot. It is blasted with my carbon dioxide for eight hours straight. It gets really bad when I have to lecture during the day. When you inhale sharply to talk, it sucks in the material. I’ve learned how to breathe differently when I have the mask on. Sometimes I just pinch the end and hold it with my fingers while I talk. I can rarely take it off. I panic if I forget to put it on when I leave my classroom to go anywhere. Who would have ever thought this little cloth mask would be so important? I often doubt that it is effective at preventing the spread or contraction of infection. I am certainly NOT an anti-masker. But it’s a piece of cloth. I guess that it’s better than nothing. This gray cotton face mask, sometimes imbued with the glorious smell of fresh linen in the breeze or Last night’s roast and mashed potatoes has become a source of loathing and resentment, but simultaneously an anti-viral security blanket (if only in my imagination). Yet, I can’t wait to get rid of this vile thing.
• 
  2021-01-15

  Out of the Woodwork: Innovation of Sanitation in 2020

  A self-account of the exploding market of hand sanitizer and the smell thereof
• 2021-01-12

  COVID-19 one year ago and now

  When Covid was new, no one really knew much about it. When it came out they were a lot of rumors talking about how dangerous the virus was. Also talking about how the virus was created. The biggest rumor was that a man in china decided that he would eat a bat and because of that he got covid from eating the bat, then he spread it to a lot of people, this is how it was said covid was spread all around the world. When is started I didn't really think about it that much, I felt like people were over exaggerating it (and I still do). I honestly wasn't sure if the virus was even real and it may have been a hoax. Now that we have had covid for about a year these are my thoughts about it. I am honestly not sure how the virus was created, people say it was still from china, other people say it was created in a lab by the government so it's hard to say what is truth and what is false. I understand that for people that have underlying conditions this virus can be deadly but I honestly think and flu or cold can be deadly in various levels. I do think it is good to wear a mask and to say social distance for peoples protections but I do feel like shutting down economy was something that wasn't needed as it has closed down many restaurants and stores, etc. Those are my thoughts about covid one year ago and my thoughts about covid now.
• 2021-01-12

  Knowledge of Covid-19

  From the beginning of this pandemic it has been said that bats were the cause of this virus. This is similar to other coronavirus sicknesses. With more and more research of Covid-19 I have learned more about the novel coronavirus. I learned more about the efficacy of different masks and how they protect against the airborne travel of the virus. My understanding of how the disease spreads grew during the course of the pandemic. The information about the cause remained the same.
• 2020-08-08

  Sensory Limitations While Job Seeking in a COVID Environment

  In March of 2020 I made the decision to leave Active Duty Army and pursue a new career in the civilian world. I submitted my resignation and began a six month process to transition out. It was immediately after this drastic step that the effects of COVID-19 on our daily lives began. My state (Maryland) shut down, and my mission essential job that I was in the process of leaving required me to pick up the extra work from at-risk employees. The applications to different government agencies that I had submitted were placed on hold due to the inability of those agencies to conduct in-person events. With less time available, my ability to apply for more jobs was also limited. After a delay of four months, and with only a few more to go before inevitable unemployment, agencies slowly began reinstating their hiring processes. It was at this time that the sensory impacts of a COVID-19 hiring market began to show. Most smaller agencies resorted to telephonic interviews or at the most, video conference calls. Those that did ask for an in-person interview were still heavily controlled with COVID-19 risk mitigation practices. Regardless of the medium enacted, the effects on the senses were the same. Visual senses not withstanding (the inability to see my interviewer was disconcerting, but at least I got to wear jeans), the tactile and auditory senses were also greatly impacted. In every interview conducted pre-COVID, the procedures consisted of shaking hands at the beginning of an interview (i.e. establishing trust through that time-worn gesture), sitting in close proximity to an interviewer with whom you are able to hear clearly, and who can hear you clearly, and in whom you can read facial expressions indicating when you may have said too much or not enough. The interview would then be over and you would seal that act through a final handshake and a smile. None of these basic tenants of interviews occur during a COVID-19 mitigated interview. In my first interview with a federal law enforcement agency, my interview panel and myself were required to wear masks, I was welcomed into the room without any of the standard greetings (handshakes and smiles) and seated behind a plexiglass barrier 8-10 feet from any of the interviewers. Not only did the interview lack the physical interaction that ceremonially marks the beginning and end of the interview, but due to masks, the conduct of the interview was also strained. Questions from interviewers were difficult to hear and understand due to the distance, glass, and masks, therefore requiring awkward repetitions which cast doubt on my competence and confidence. My responses were likewise muffled, which led to doubts as to whether my answers were fully understood by the interviewers. Both assaults on the auditory ability and tactile senses taken for granted in a pre-COVID world lead to an autocatalytic attack on my nerves. The lack of hearing and the absence of a reassuring touch eroded any confidence I may have had going into the interview that would have otherwise remained until I left. COVID-19 mitigation measures reduced what is normally a very personal interaction between human beings to a robotic and numbing experience lacking in all the sensory elements that enables the humanity of an interview. I conducted six more interviews in similar limited sensory manners, eventually evolving my expectations and re-learning a process before finally securing a position.
• 
  2021-01-11

  The Smell of the Pandemic, Face Coverings in 2020

  One of the longest lasting memories for me of the Pandemic will be the olfactory association I will forever have between the smell of musty, soiled fabric and this period of time. The combination of coffee, toothpaste, sweat and laundry detergent was a defining one for me this year. As a high school teacher and coach, my days were long and required extensive periods of lecture based discussion and non negotiable face coverings. While the requirement was understandable from a safety perspective, the result was a facemask that always either smelled like it needed washing or had just been washed. For that reason, these scents will always remind me of this period
• 
  2020-12-01

  Melrose Wakefield Hospital COVID precautions

  One of my coworkers tested positive for COVID-19, so all the employees got tested to ensure we were all being safe at work. I think the photos I captured at Melrose Wakefield Hospital tells a story about all the precautions to stay safe and healthy in an unprecedented time. These photos respond to the needs and considerations of an ethical archive because it shows what precautions are being taken both inside and outside a hospital. In The Ethical Archivist, the author wrote about the ethics of acquisition, which documents have permanent or evidentiary value. I think these pictures may be seemingly unimportant to most people, but to historians this is data that shows what types of mandates and precautions were put in place during a worldwide pandemic.
• 
  2020-03-19

  Text Messages between my Mother and I.

  This is a small conversation between my mom and I when she went back to work during the beginning of quarantine. She works as a medical secretary at a local doctor’s office and works closely with sharing phones, computers, and other spaces. It was not until recently that there was a COVID scare following Thanksgiving, but, she tested negative since they are from a different department. This item connects to the week focusing on historical thinking on and off the web as this was never something that I would have considered sharing beyond my close group of friends since it feel mundane now. I think that this is an “Item of interest to future historians that helps illustrate something particularly significant about the year 2020” as we see her in full gear. While the precautions no longer have the dress or hair mask, she still wears the medical-grade mask with her gloves and face shield each day. Seeing people in action will humanize the pandemic and make it seem like something that truly happened than just another historical moment with accounts like this.
• 2020-12-01

  Nova Scotia government has spent $580M so far responding to the pandemic

  This article details how much money the government of Nova Scotia allocated to different sectors of the Nova Scotian economy during the pandemic.
• 
  2020-03

  Putting On PPE

  A guide to properly putting on PPE
• 
  2020-03-16

  Switching Lanes: Autoparts manufacturers turn to making vital PPE

  A news article about the possibility of car parts manufacturers switching to making PPE in the early days of the pandemic
• 
  2020-12-13

  PPE Supply Store

  An online store selling PPE made in Canada
• 2020-12-28

  Canada's New Democratic Party will fight for 'massive investments' in northern housing

  New Democratic Party (NDP) Leader Jagmeet Singh says his party will push the federal government to make “massive investments” in affordable and environmentally friendly housing as part of its Covid-19 recovery plan.
• 
  2020-03-23

  Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions Demands for worker protections

  A document describing the official position of the CFNU on reasonable precautions that should be put into place to prevent nurses and other healthcare workers getting Covid-19
• 
  2020-11

  Checklist for Putting On & Removing PPE

  Checklist for healthcare workers when putting PPE on and taking it off. Important to remember that many healthcare workers did not have to don PPE before the pandemic and needed guidance.
• 
  2020-05-07

  Canadian Shield makes 1,000,000 shields

  The Canadian Shield, a company started in Waterloo Region, was founded during the pandemic to create face shield for essential workers. In May 2020, they had already created 1,000,000 shields for essential workers.
• 
  2020-03-25

  At least 2 Toronto hospitals begin rationing protective gear as COVID-19 crisis deepens

  Early news article about rationing PPE.
• 
  2020

  N95 Standards

  The Canadian Dental Association describes in detail what an N95 is and how to spot counterfeits. This is crucial as N95 must be strictly tested to ensure they are filtering properly.
• 
  2020-04-06

  Anxieties over COVID-19 and possible PPE shortages prompting some health care workers to draft wills

  Discussion with Dr. Michelle Cohen about the dangers of working in the hospitals during COVID and her concerns over PPE shortages.
• 
  2020-04-08

  Sunnybrook is re-processing N95 masks, should the need for use arise

  Sunnybrook Hospital began researching how to sterilize masks in April 2020 as the PPE shortages had become so severe. In the video, Dr. Jerome Leis explains the research.
• 
  2020-10-13

  Students Sell Cloth Masks

  A group of Canadian university students founded a mask making company in April 2020. In October 2020, they reached 25,000 masks sold. The masks are made in Canada.
• 
  2020-03-19

  Quebec Distillery

  Cirka Distilleries began producing hand sanitizer. In this post, they request contacts with companies that provide bottles and aloe.
• 
  2020-04-28

  PPE Supply April 2020

  This is an infographic from the Canadian Medical Association analyzing the supply of PPE in Canada. The graphic shows the supply stock and the affect the lack of supplies has on the mental health of healthcare workers.
• 
  2020-05-26

  Isolation Gown Photograph

  Hospital CEO Patrick Gaskin takes a photo in an isolation gown created by Barbarian Sportswear in Kitchener, Ontario. Barbarian Sportswear began manufacturing isolation gowns in response to the need for PPE.
• 
  2020-12-08

  Distillers scrambled to make hand sanitizer for free. Then the federal government moved on

  Article discussing hand sanitizer production during the COVID-19 pandemic
• 
  2020-07-03

  Coronavirus: Le Château begins manufacturing 500,000 hospital gowns

  This article talks about retailers making PPE and by doing so they are allowing workers to keep working
• 
  2020-12-10

  First Flight in 9 Months

  I took a flight today for the first time in 9 months home to Colorado. My protection was a mask and a face shield, but this person I saw had a full suit of protection on. The flight I was on turned out to be full, and almost every row had all three passengers filled. I was not expecting this, and it was incredibly anxiety provoking. Nevertheless, I made it home to my family and I will wait to see my grandma and friends until I get tested.
• 
  2020-12-07

  Healthcare Education in the Covid-19 Pandemic

  These are my students who are training at Northeastern University to become Emergency Medical Technicians (EMTs) The pandemic has created restrictions that have made training the healthcare providers of tomorrow more challenging than ever before. Students must be in full personal protective equipment including a facemask, faceshield, gown, and gloves. Between faceshield fogging, trouble breathing in the masks during more rigorous physical components to training, and many other obstacles to their learning, the students have shown inspiring levels of resilience. Their strength during these difficult times serves as a constant reminder to me of the ability of the human spirit to overcome any and all challenges, and inspires me to continue to try and find ways to mitigate the effects of the challenges due to the pandemic. Students deserve a proper education and experience, and it is up to educators to match their students efforts in overcoming the barriers that Covid-19 has constructed.
• 
  2020-12-03

  Interview with COVID-19 Respite Shelter EMT

  Interviewee: Aidan McNaughton Interviewer: Kelly Lindemann Date of Interview: 12/03/2020 List of acronyms: AM = Aidan McNaughton, IN = interviewer Background: Washington county in Oregon has established several COVID-19 quarantine centers in an attempt to limit the spread of the virus among the community. A number of local motels have been converted to such facilities. Aidan is an EMT at one such motel, and agreed to be interviewed about his experience. IN: For how long have you worked at the shelter? AM: I have worked at the shelter since about July, so for about 6 months. IN: What is your position there? AM: I am an EMT that is here on staff. There are two of us at all times, and I am medical personnel on site for supervision, intervention, and monitoring. We’re here to do medical intervention if necessary, and also to keep tabs on vitals and making sure that everyone is doing okay, as well as deciding when we need to call medical transport to a hospital or not. IN: That makes sense. So as far as your actual job, what does a normal day at the quarantine shelter look like? Does it vary, or is it fairly constant? AM: It varies, and there’s busier days and quieter days. My shift starts at 5 AM, and I relieve the prior EMT when my partner and I get there. There’s about an hour of overlap between our shifts to make sure that, in case someone is late, we don’t have to adjust the scheduling. We have to make sure that there are always two EMTs here. An then we don up in PPE. We have a very well-stocked PPE room with lots of gowns and gloves, masks, glasses and face shields, also boot and hair covers. Then, we’ll get caught up with the other EMTs on whether or not there’s anyone [patients] new, what medical problems anyone who’s here is having, what social problems they’re having, etc. The non-medical shelter staff who actually run the shelter bring breakfast [to patients] at around 7 AM, and around that time we go to do our first morning checks. We knock on the doors, in full PPE, of all the patients, ask them a few basic questions, you know, take their temperatures, ask if they have any symptoms, pain, trouble sleeping or things like that, and if we have suspicion that there’s something serious going on we can take a more complete vital set and work from there. IN: As far as your patients go, does their condition usually vary? Have you seen a spectrum of people’s symptoms? AM: There’s a huge spectrum. We have people anywhere form completely healthy with no symptoms, pain or anything and feel completely normal, and we have people who are [O2] satting in the high 80’s, high fevers, too weak to get out of bed, and we will often end up sending those people to the hospital depending… and there’s everything in between as well, people with coughs, sore throats,loss of taste and smell of course, difficulty breathing etc., but there’s a vary steep gradient. IN: And I imagine that your patient’s conditions change, so it’s important to be continually monitoring. AM: Yes, so if we see someone who’s more sick then we’ll probably increase monitoring. So rather than just checking twice a day, which is what’s normally done with breakfast and dinner, if someone actually seems quite sick then we check on them as often as we feel is needed. IN: So overall it seems like a pretty effective system for providing care to people who don’t necessarily need to be in the hospital, but wouldn’t be safe at home with the potential for transmission or their need for medical care. Do you think that as a facility, you are effective at helping to stop the spread of the virus? What things work well, and what could be improved? AM: As a concept, and even the way our facility runs, it is quite helpful. It seems like a very reasonable way to do it. You have a designated quarantine site for people - not even all of them are homeless- even, like, roommates or people who don’t have somewhere else to quarantine without infecting people, they can come here. A lot of them are homeless, but not all of them. It seems obvious - you need somewhere for people who have a contagious disease to go that isn’t public. They get hot meals and medical supervision, but rather than, say, a hospital bed and all the costs that are associated with that, here it just costs a few EMTs and shelter staff. IN: And as far as the cost to patients, I know you mentioned that you have houseless people staying in the facility, is it free to them or is there a cost involved? AM: I am almost certain that there is no cost for anyone here, I’m not actually positive on that -I could ask- but I’m pretty sure that we don’t charge anything. I think- I know we’re funded by the county. IN: That makes sense, its sort of a self-serving altruism that the county can provide this service to prevent the spread of COVID to the community. AM: We’re designated as a public respite shelter, we essentially keep people with COVID off the streets. IN: I’d like to go back to the topic of housing insecurity and your experience with houseless people during the pandemic. I don’t know how much direct contact you have with your patients as far as getting to know them on a personal level, but in what ways have you noticed the houseless community coping with the pandemic? Where do they go once they’re discharged? AM: Yeah, we are encouraged to limit contact, so I don’t have that much contact with them, but I do chat with them when we’re taking them out on breaks for fresh air, or if I’ll chat with them in the morning or evening or when I’m discharging them. I don’t know, it’s extremely rough to be homeless, and sometimes because we are a COVID respite shelter, we’ve had patients that we’ve had to kick out, basically, because turns out they only have pneumonia, not COVID. I’ve been yelled at by a homeless person -justifiably so, I feel - for kicking him out because he has pneumonia- is that not good enough? I think that should probably be good enough, we should probably be able to take care of everybody who is ill, but the state has certain priorities. I think it should take a much broader view of people’s medical needs. We have a whole wing [of the facility] that opened up during the fires when other shelters had to be evacuated. I know that as of COVID in general there’s been both more homeless people and reduced shelter capacity due to social distancing requirements, so there’s been a need for more shelter space. We devoted half of our shelter building, which is separated off, but there’s no transmission, it even has separate staff and we don’t go over there, and it’s now a non-COVID homeless shelter -I think specifically for women and children and families- and I think that’s great because for a long time we had this hundred room motel and we were only filling about 25%, but now we can fill half of it with houseless people. Some of the shelter staff here did a good job of noticing that, and we talked for awhile about what we should do with all the empty rooms, and they coordinated with a different shelter in the area that didn’t have enough space and accepted a bunch of people. We also even now have some RVs that we allow in the parking lot - not with me, but with the other shelter building, I’m not entirely sure how it works- but people can live in the parking lot under supervision. IN: So the shelter is providing a safe space for people to either isolate or just live without the potential to be harassed by law enforcement or forced to constantly relocate. Overall it sounds like the county is doing a decent job responding to COVID, but as is true across most of the country there’s a huge shortcoming in providing medical care to houseless people, but that’s a whole other issue entirely. As far as your personal experience working so closely with a virus that’s caused so much turmoil in the world, is the risk of transmission something that causes you stress on the job, or is it something that you’ve become used to? AM: I’m definitely become more used to it than I was when I started, but still, like, if I’m trying to take a blood pressure reading - we use manual blood pressure cuffs- of someone who is confirmed positive with COVID, and is coughing and coughing, I get a little nervous. Actually, some of the shelter staff did get COVID and we had a bit of a problem where the shelter staff were severely understaffed for awhile. They handled it and made sure they had enough staff, but one of the people I work with ended up working two 80 hour weeks in a row because everyone else was quarantining. It is serious, and it definitely does happen here, but I feel like we’re probably all gonna get it eventually anyway and I have all this PPE on - I’m feel like I’m as safe as I’ll ever be, so … c’est la vie. I would rather not get it, but all I can do is take precautions against it. IN: I also hope you don’t get it! Thank you so much for your time and willingness to share your experience and contribute to this ongoing archival process. Stay safe out there!