Mask update and local guidelines

[Tybee]

Got it, will not make any masks or post any more mask patterns.

[Tammy]

I’m a manager giving all the support I can muster, having worked 12-14 hours a day for the last 10 in a row, with 3 more to go before a day off. - salaried, so no overtime. Plus I’ve been on call 24/7 for the last 5 days with 2 more to go of that.

I beg to differ.

I am in the front lines and I have awesome support from all of those above me and I give awesome support to all of those reporting to me.

Be careful generalizing about those things with which you do not have familiarity.

What we have here is a situation that none of us have seen in our lifetimes, as the most recent similar situation was in 1918. For any decisions that we make, we have at least six considerations, often at odds with one another, and we do the best we can with the resources and the knowledge that we have at the moment. This is a highly fluid situation, and directives often change daily and hourly based on the newest science, balanced with using the limited resources at out disposal in the best way we can.

This is not at all unlike the front lines of a war. What would you think if soldiers refused to fight because they didn’t have guarantees of safety? It never entered my mind to not go to work and do my best, even though the risk is great. Even though we’re stretching all kinds of rules and using personal protective equipment longer than is generally recommended, I would never think that walking out is the answer. what else can we do? If we all just refuse to work because it’s not perfect, then all hell breaks loose and there is no society.

Please don’t judge that which you do not know.

[dado potato]

If I had to estimate how many masks I used in a normal day (like 11 hours), I'd say 20-25.

I heard second-hand that an ER nurse in a "major" hospital currently is expected to work with one mask per day.

I could MacGyver a couple dozen masks with dissembled Swiffer cloths, colorful cotton print fabric, adhesive tape, and pipe cleaners. But I gather from what Gardnr said, 24 masks would last just one day in the ER. At best, these would be amateur masks; maybe not adequate. So I will not act on the impulse to set up the sewing machine this time.

For what it is worth, I can remember the Song of Julian:
… Ring out, bells of Norwich,
And let the winter come and go.
All shall be well again, I know.
Love, like the yellow daffodil
Is coming through the snow.

[happystuff]

It never entered my mind to not go to work and do my best, even though the risk is great. Even though we’re stretching all kinds of rules and using personal protective equipment longer than is generally recommended, I would never think that walking out is the answer. what else can we do?

Thank you!

[JaneV2.0]

Vacuum cleaner bag material has been reported to be 95% effective against virus particles. It defies logic that someone can't come up with home-crafted masks health professionals can use until Trump quits spouting pro-corporate nonsense ("We're not a supply clerk."[sic]) and authorizes the Defense Production Act.

[bae]

I beg to differ.
...

Be careful generalizing about those things with which you do not have familiarity.

...

This is not at all unlike the front lines of a war. What would you think if soldiers refused to fight because they didn’t have guarantees of safety? It never entered my mind to not go to work and do my best, even though the risk is great.

...

Please don’t judge that which you do not know.

Indeed.

I would not ask a firefighter to run into a burning building wearing street clothes, then say "this is like war, suck it up" if he pointed out that it was unsafe, unlikely to produce a positive result, would likely require *more* expenditure of resources to rescue him when he goes down, and would take a limited and expensive resource (the firefighter) out of commission.

Instead, I would follow our rules and training, which are written in blood.

I'm on the front lines too, both as a medical responder, and as someone working in our local emergency operations center doing epidemiological and logistics modeling. I'm also, as the safety officer for our infectious disease response team, trained and equipped and practiced in dealing with Ebola patients and other such troublesome cases.

I think it is downright foolish to risk your medical staff in an event of this sort by asking that they heroically do the job without the tools needed. When those medical personnel go down, so does your health care system, and then things get really really bad, really really quickly. And then other people, who need not have died, die.

You have to take a step back, look at the overall systems picture, and start doing triage.

Question: do you do CPR now on COVID-19 patients? We have been instructed not to, which is a hard thing to swallow, even though the math is pretty compelling.

[Teacher Terry]

Volunteers are certainly not going to work without the right equipment. Italy didn’t resuscitate virus patients.

[JaneV2.0]

Indeed.

I would not ask a firefighter to run into a burning building wearing street clothes, then say "this is like war, suck it up" if he pointed out that it was unsafe, unlikely to produce a positive result, would likely require *more* expenditure of resources to rescue him when he goes down, and would take a limited and expensive resource (the firefighter) out of commission.

Instead, I would follow our rules and training, which are written in blood.

I'm on the front lines too, both as a medical responder, and as someone working in our local emergency operations center doing epidemiological and logistics modeling. I'm also, as the safety officer for our infectious disease response team, trained and equipped and practiced in dealing with Ebola patients and other such troublesome cases.

I think it is downright foolish to risk your medical staff in an event of this sort by asking that they heroically do the job without the tools needed. When those medical personnel go down, so does your health care system, and then things get really really bad, really really quickly. And then other people, who need not have died, die.

You have to take a step back, look at the overall systems picture, and start doing triage.

Question: do you do CPR now on COVID-19 patients? We have been instructed not to, which is a hard thing to swallow, even though the math is pretty compelling.

Since CPR has switched to compression-only, why isn't there equipment for that?

[bae]

Since CPR has switched to compression-only, why isn't there equipment for that?

High performance CPR done by trained people is not compression-only.

https://www.resuscitationacademy.org/

There *is* CPR-performing equipment, it's pretty cool, not in common use yet, and not all that handy in the field. I guess the more useful question to ask might be - why don't we have masks and gloves and such? A country that can't manage that isn't going to manage widespread fielding of the CPR robots...

[Gardnr]

Got it, will not make any masks or post any more mask patterns.

I'm so very sorry. I didn't intend to discourage you. I simply noticed their fabric requirement-I have no idea where that is even sold. Never heard of water repellant fabric other than Goretex as in surgical gowns and I've never seen it for sale.

I get mask requests multiple times per day. I am making them as quick as I can. Got a request today from a 10yo who wants to protect pregnant Mama. Darn right she moved right to the top of my list!