“I survived Ebola, I fear Covid-19”- Doctors’ pandemic nightmare – The Wall Street Journal
On the night that UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson became the first world leader to be admitted into an Intensive Care Unit in St Thomas Hospital in London, viewers in the United Kingdom were given a rare glimpse of what life is like for doctors working at the frontline of the Covid-19 epidemic when cameras were allowed into the hospital's ICU. Tired doctors wearing, gowns, masks and plastic shields in front of their faces were milling around where patients were lined up close to each other. Most were lying on their fronts, sedated as mechanical ventilators kept their breathing going. It took five or six doctors just to turn one patient around. They looked harrowed, tired to the bone, worried about those into their care. And at that stage, they were given the unenviable task of trying to keep Britain's No. 1 citizen, Boris Johnson alive as he struggled against the virus and was developing breathing problems. In some countries, doctors are gagged and not allowed to give their own account of what is going on in the wards where doctors are trying to stem the onslaught of the coronavirus; but many others have taken to social media to share their experiences. One of them is Craig Spencer, a New York doctor who survived the Ebola virus in 2014, who says he fears Covid-19. Spencer shared an audio clip of what he is experiencing and how it compared to the Ebola crisis on Twitter. The Wall Street Journal details more of what a day in the life of doctors in an ICU or Emergency Room looks like. It is not an easy read, but for South Africa that is nowhere near the crisis that is unfolding in the United States and Europe; it serves as a warning to heed lockdown restrictions before it gets this serious. As Dr Spencer says on his Twitter page; " We will BBQ in the park. We will have birthday parties on the river. Just not right now. Please. Stay Home. Save Lives. Still." – Linda van Tilburg
The coronavirus crisis in doctors' own words: 'A flood of death that I cannot manage'
By Joe Palazzolo and Anthony DeRosa
(The Wall Street Journal) – As doctors, nurses and other health-care professionals face an unrelenting flow of patients through their hospitals, they've taken to social media to share their experiences. The raw emotions and visceral descriptions of what they are enduring comes through in countless posts on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and other platforms.
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