Read on Twitter
Rural areas can be hot spots too .... and with smaller teams we are vulnerable to loss of even a single HCW. Imagine a community where the same 10 doctors are covering 24/7 ER, covid ward (yup rural has those), non-covid inpts, all the local LTC (say there’s 3, 2 in outbreak) 1/ https://twitter.com/lisaesther6/status/1355357232398004242
They give the anaesthetics, run the OB program, assist the single surgeon. Oh, almost forgot they are all FPs so they are also doing all the primary Care. Plus Chief of Staff and all the committees scrambling to make protocols. respond to changes.
When you a rural covid hot spot you too are doing all that and seeing sick covid pts every single day. And re-organizing how your team does all that work to try and minimize the risk that you take a Covid one care environment to another.
Now one of you gets sick & because they are married to another one of you who goes on isolation, you are doing all of that with 20% loss of your medical staff. Now imagine your medical staff is 4 docs (because in some small places it is). Same scenario but you lose 50% FIFTY
This is why rural communities are so vulnerable and why the frontline providers (i’m using docs as the example but it is equally true of nurses, EMS, all of us) need to considered priority for protection before they become the next rural hot spot
Respectfully signed, a part time physician in a rural hot spot who is extraordinarily grateful for her first shot and happy to wait for her second. Who stands in awe of her full-time colleagues in the community and what they’ve done to keep it going over the last three months
