Here we are six months into the COVID-19 pandemic. Massachusetts had collectively accomplished the immense work of masterfully managing a deadly surge and bringing cases down to inconsequential. When the virus started surging down South, it was easy to say, “Oh well, they just haven’t …
Yes, it’s a Sunday evening post, because I started writing this three days ago and the data is all time-sensitive and I already had to update all the graphs several times so darnit this post is going up tonight! No matter what data source you …
I’ve seen some Tweets poking fun at people who refer to the COVID-19 pandemic, the economic downturn, the protests against police brutality, the inexcusable lack of U.S. leadership, and, well, everything as just “everything going on right now”. It’s even got a hashtag. It’s its …
I very much support the nationwide protests against racism, because racism is very much a public health problem. Michelle Williams, Dean of the Harvard School of Public Health, explains: “That reality is apparent not just in the police brutality that disproportionately claims the lives of …
Here in Massachusetts, the numbers are sloooowly improving. Per the MA Department of Public Health COVID-19 dashboard, here is where we are as of Sunday May 17: Here at my hospital, our COVID-19 admissions have come down to a reasonable simmer, with 246 inpatients, 75 …
I got the email from my boss on Tuesday: “You are receiving this message because you have been scheduled to staff an inpatient COVID-19 surge team…” What followed was a really long, dense list of critically important logistical/ workflow/ orientation information, replete with links to …
This is a play-by-play of my day at work, during the pandemic. My alarm goes off at 5 a.m. I always get up extra-early for work, mostly because the T is variably reliable, and running late for clinic gives me palpitations. Better to avoid being …
In the space of just a few weeks, multiple private COVID-19 subgroups have formed on Facebook, including a massive healthcare worker group with 250,000 members, a doctor-mom-only group with 30,000 members, a physician group of 20,000 members, and more. Colleagues from all over the world …
Today in my work email there was a priority message from the Massachusetts Department of Health: “As of March 13, Massachusetts has begun to see some initial evidence of community spread of COVID-19 and the Department of Public Health (DPH) has made recommendations consistent with …
Coronavirus is an unprecedented organism, and we’re learning about it in real time. We hope that we learn, anyway, from the lived experience of other communities around the world. I’m thankful to work at an incredible teaching hospital*, where experts have come together as high-functioning …