THREAD Here's something I know to be true (because I'm married to one): Doctors don't routinely talk to reporters. So when they do, you should listen: https://www.mprnews.org/story/2020/11/06/minn-doctors-already-feeling-effects-of-covid19-surge

Yesterday, I spoke with 6 ER, ICU and hospital docs about what they are describing as a serious and dangerous shift in the last week in their ability to care for patients as COVID cases skyrocket. So instead of telling you what they said, I'll just let them speak for themselves:

“She was very sick. She needed an emergent procedure down in the [Twin] Cities or anywhere...We called everywhere. I called 10 different hospitals.” - ER doc in rural Minnesota.

ER docs "are the ones that start to see our patients who, when they get admitted, are supposed to be going upstairs within 30 to 45 minutes. … [But they] are now sitting downstairs in the ER for hours." - ER doc in the South Metro

“People are still getting heart attacks, they still get pneumonia. It’s not just COVID, it’s everything. But it’s COVID that’s putting us at this tipping point.” - hospitalist in the metro.

On staffing beds even if we have them: “If we can’t staff beds, and we don’t have resources. we’re going to start rationing care really quickly.” She said that’s when mortality rates will start to rise. - hospitalist in the metro.

“The big fear is that we’re going to get to the situation that New York and Italy were in in the spring, and it’s a total disaster. We’re worried. We’re all really worried.” - ER doc in rural Minnesota.

“That wave is coming up upon us...I hope that we can come together as a community to realize that we can go back to where we were before the pandemic. It doesn’t have to get that bad.” - Dr. Rachel Gordon, taking care of COVID patients since March at St. Luke's Hospital, Duluth.