Spoke to a HCW after a Friday night working in ED.
Me: how was your shift?
HCW: remember those images out of Italy in 2020? We are heading in that direction. Covid patients everywhere and we can't keep up. Really shit & people were queueing up for nightclubs as I drove home.
Me: I'm still working hard to avoid catching Covid.
Friend: I was too, but once I caught it a load was lifted and I lost all that stress and anxiety about getting infected. You'll see, it's almost like a relief and it wasn't that bad.
(Me to self: WTF just happened?)
Vic hospitals are adjusting to increased cases. Covid response is escalating. But HCWs are now asking, why do they have to be redeployed, cancel leave, work extra shifts, risk their lives & carry the can when the government refuses to implement any strategy to reduce the burden?
Teacher comment: I've got Covid, again. Geezus, I don't want to get long covid. (In tears now.) They're all going to hate me, there's no-one to look after my kids (students).
We're destroying a generation of workers.
You would think after 2+years I would be used to all this.
But at height of pandemic I still can't accept that major decisions on public health are being made on commercial/business/political basis and not by health/science experts.
And why does the public readily accept this?
At what point of this pandemic do we stop making public health decisions based on purported 'community sentiment' or business demands and start making them based on science?
LOOK AT THIS GRAPH👇
If you thought it was bad in Jan2022, buckle-up. If you don't understand the implications, ask a HCW.
Wanting to reduce or remove isolation?
Still debating mask mandates?
Stopping PCR access?
We tried individual responsibility & it's failing badly.
Friend: we've got Covid again.
Me: but you all just got over it.
Friend: I know. Boy
#2
brought it home from school again only 2weeks after we all got over it. How do we stop this?
NB: family of 5. Parents and kids all off for >7 days, rinse and repeat.
Maybe we need to stop calling them 'waves' and just call it a 'health crisis', or a 'mass infection' or maybe, I don't know, a 'PANDEMIC'?
Look at the graph. The troughs are now higher than the first 3 peaks! 👇
There is no respite for HCWs. This is unsustainable for HCWs.
That collective sigh of relief that you are hearing because cases & hospitalisations are going down is from bureaucrats and politicians. It is NOT from HCWs who have been smashed for 2.5 years and seeing no relief or end in sight.
#CovidIsNotOver
Sitting in dentist's waiting room. Another patient walks in and sees me wearing N95 and immediately apologises to the receptionist (not masked) and asks if she is supposed to be wearing a mask.
"Oh, no, that's fine, you don't need one of those anymore." And everyone looks at me.
I am struggling to comprehend the near universal acceptance to let Delta circulate & to concede to 'live with Covid'.
Is it because the starting point was 'like the flu' rather than 'like TB' or 'like measles' or even like 'SARS-1'? Is that why people think this will be OK?
Most people are excited by the prospect of opening up and releasing Covid restrictions.
Not HCWs. They feel sick with dread and genuine fear of what this will mean for them, their colleagues and their families as they face surging Covid cases in already overloaded hospitals.
As each Covid wave recedes we consistently see public health measures reduced. But when the next wave hits as they always do, we don't see those public health measures reintroduced. The net result will be removal of all public health protections. How do they think this will end?
Picked up wife after shift in ED CT.
She looked physically smashed.
Q:How was your day?
A:They're trying to kill us. So many staff off sick or waiting for PCR results. It was chaos. They have us running scanners on our own the rest of the week.
This is unsustainable for HCWs.
Just 3 weeks after lowering mask & respirator requirements a big Melbourne hospital reverses their decision because of rapidly escalating staff Covid infections over the last 2 weeks, including small clusters at work.
#CovidIsNotOver
#COVIDisAirborne
#CleanAirForum
Hearing from battle-weary veteran HCWs about being in tears sharing emotional grief, of supporting their colleagues day after day, fear of infecting vulnerable loved ones, of overtime & missing meals & breaks & toileting bc the workload is overwhelming.
We are breaking our HCWs.
Apparently we no longer need to monitor the rate of Covid hospitalisations to determine what public health measures should be applied to protect the health system and HCWs.
We now check in to see what businesses want.
Sadly joining the long list of people reporting many friends and relatives currently positive, waiting for PCR result or simply coughing a lung up and in denial.
And yet nearly all mitigations now being removed as part of some VIC+NSW pact to 'live with Covid'.
#CovidIsNotOver
Wife shopping at Spotlight.
Long queue at counter.
Young staff comes to help but says: "I'm sick so I shouldn't be serving" *cough, cough* (no mask)
Senior staff (also no mask): "Just use hand sanitiser, it'll be fine"
Wife (in N95) is next in line, puts back goods & leaves.
HCW comment (35 yrs experience): if I have to do another shift like that one I'm done, I'm retiring early. I was working with one of the young staff today (3yrs experience) & she's as burnt out in 3 years as I am after 35. She's looking at what else she can do (to make a living).
I am trying to work out, have we reached a point in the pandemic where:
- people just believe it's all over
- people just don't know
- people just don't want to know
- people just don't care?
#CovidIsntOver
Vic CHO update 8 June 2022:
"Masks are strongly recommended in shared indoor settings if you can’t physically distance or are with those more vulnerable to COVID-19. Improve ventilation by opening doors and windows, using fans or purifiers and gathering outside where possible."
Remember how bad Delta was in 2021?
Current AUS hospitalisations are just below the PEAK of Delta wave & have been ever since Omicron & likely about to trend up.
Yet hospitals & govts want to abandon mask mandates for HCWs.
Context is everything.
#CovidIsNotOver
#COVIDisAirborne
Wife wearing N95 at GP.
GP (no mask)-why masking still?
Wife-Covid.
GP-it's out there now; you won't get immunity to diseases if not exposed to them; look at all the RSV in school kids when they let them back to school.
People take their lead from doctors-GPs as well as CHOs.
Do the health experts who are giving the advice that's leading to the continual reduction in public health mitigations know something or have a planned pathway out of this pandemic that they are not sharing with us?
I really want to know.
Remember having to wash your hands for 20secs?
Remember the campaign to get people to wash their hands?
I'm a big fan of clean hands but imagine if we put that much effort into better ventilation, air filtration, better masks & now add vaccination.
#COVIDisAirborne
& always was.
Ending iso requirements is a total betrayal & complete abandonment of people with disability or co-morbidities, the elderly, the very young (no vax), immune suppressed & all health, disability and aged care workers.
#CovidIsNotOver
but acting like it is will cost lives & health.
It feels like we spent all of 2020 convincing authorities to accept & protect against airborne Covid transmission.
Now it feels like we are spending all of 2022 watching that hard work get flushed away.
#COVIDisAirborne
#CovidIsNotOver
It is really hard to retain faith in humanity, when humanity is throwing the vulnerable, the disabled, the immunocompromised, the elderly, the very young and frankly everyone in between, under the Covid bus.
31,000 workers calling in sick with LongCovid every day. Add on all those with acute Covid or flu or caring for family with any of these. We have a workforce crisis borne out of a public health crisis. We can't possibly address one without working on the other.
#CovidIsNotOver
We're seeing huge numbers of allied health professionals quitting. Reports of same for other health professions. Reasons are many but largely related to Covid-burnout/workload, lack of respect, sickness and/or family care.
Apparently twitter is the only place to find out what's happening with Covid in other parts of the world or even in your own backyard.
Who knew.
Thank you to the many scientists, drs, health professionals, data nerds and all other relevant experts for sharing your knowledge.🙏
Can someone in Sydney please tell the police that masks with exhaust valves are inappropriate. And also unless they are changing those gloves between interactions they are just bug traps. Seriously who is teaching & managing infection control for these emergency services in NSW?
VIC hospital numbers up 40% in last week.
NSW approach 2,000 in hosp. That's 4 x Nepean or Concord Hospitals full of just Covid patients.
QLD has 719 = 2 x Mater Hospitals full of Covid.
Peak not due for 2-4 weeks. Hospitals already bursting at the seams.
What's the plan again?👇
Out walking the dogs in rain Saturday night. Party going on in the local football club. Jam-packed with singing, dancing partygoers.
I can imagine the ED at the same time, jam-packed with sick & injured & no beds to put them in.
The dichotomy of business as usual v health impacts
Teacher friend (new grad):
No one is taking it seriously. The filters are always turned off when I enter a room, always.
The teachers were discussing kids in masks & saying "we need to see their faces" "the time of the mask is over".
Kids tell me their sister/brother has covid.
Can we stop the use of the term "Covid absenteeism"?
Absenteeism is "the practice of regularly staying away from work or school without good reason."
Covid is a very good reason to stay away from work or school.
RAT = $15-$20+ (single use)
N95 = $5-$6 (potential multi-use with care)
RAT = tells you if +ve (too late)
N95 = helps protect you from getting +ve (preferred)
Why are we focussing on RATs and not N95s for taking personal responsibility?
Why, why, why would you obsess about hand washing but ignore a request to wear a mask for everyone entering a hospital? The people responsible for this policy oversaw 1,000s of HCWs & many, many more patients get infected & hundreds die (just in Vic).
#CovidIsAirborne
Pre Covid my dentist & assistant always wore a surgical mask while working on patients.
But it seems that when the community stopped wearing masks, so did they.
Now they wear an N95 at my request & I thank them for that, but nothing the rest of the time.
What happened there?
Message from sick young friend 4 weeks after 4th Covid infection:
"I'm so sick. This is way worse than Covid was. I asked the doctor at the ED if it was because of Covid and he said no. He sent me home with some antibiotics but now I'm coughing up blood. How long will this last?"
Current AUS wave started with as many C19 hospitalisations as peak of Delta wave. Even if this wave is not as big as BA waves, we have a health system & workforce that has been repeatedly smashed & we expect Business As Usual?
This is not 'new normal'.
It is 'new nightmare'.
Comments from a HCW after an evening shift in ED:
Everything is falling apart.
Mistakes are happening.
They're breaking people.
There's not enough staff to do all the work.
I've had enough, I have to leave.
(And the new wave is only just kicking off!)
Questions for those removing quarantine requirements for HCWs who are close contacts:
Do you have any idea how devastating it is for HCWs to know or even think they have infected a patient or colleague?
Do you know how much HCWs fear bringing Covid home to family?
Do you care?
HCWs are part of the community. They get infected like everyone else, at work, from schools or at the cafe or shops. If we don’t address the unmitigated spread of Covid in the community we will never regain or retain enough HCWs to maintain the level of care that we really need.
Covid is over in AUS right?
Except that we are still around the level of hospitalisations that peaked with Delta-remember how bad that was? And we have barely got below the current hospital levels since Dec 2021 when Omicron started. And nothing to suggest this pattern will end👇
There is so much about the Covid response that disappoints but now add that they are moving to weekly Covid reporting. This sends a misleading message that things are moving on when clearly they are not. Another step in the normalising of a health crisis that is still happening.
Hospital madly prepping for accreditation.
Senior manager removing all posters held by blu-tack & replacing with velcro tabs.
Apparently blu-tack behind posters is an infection risk.
Same hospital downgraded standard of mask requirements last week.
Entering a new Covid wave in Vic without Pandemic Orders->no PH mitigations, waning vax, no 5th dose, v limited access to antivirals, burnt out health workforce. HCW furloughing has increased by 57% last 2 weeks. One hospital had 118 staff off with Covid in 1 day.
#CovidIsNotOver
To be very clear: this is a HEALTH CRISIS.
Vic hospitals escalate to Stage 3 (of 4) to try & cope.
Mask, no mask. Vax, no vax. Do what you like but don't expect regular health/hospital care if you need it. HCWs are doing their very best & more but there's only so much they can do
It's fine really. Politicians can keep reducing public health mitigations.
Just don't expect HCWs to keep carrying the can, facing increased risk of being infected & infecting family, moral injury, crushing workload, no leave, extra shifts, no breaks & burn out. With no respite.
Pretty much resigned to being the only person wearing a mask (N95) every time I go to Aldi, Bunnings, service station or collect take away from local restaurants.
Looks range from indifference to accusatory speculation that I must be infectious, why else would I still be masking.
In case you missed it, Vic gov have updated their advice on improving ventilation to reduce Covid risks.🙏
"Ventilation means bringing fresh outdoor air into an indoor space. Ventilation is important because COVID-19 is airborne."
#COVIDisAirborne
Vic presser ends. Jeroen signs off after a mammoth session including Premier, CHO, Police Commissioner and Covid Commander facing unrestrained, unrelenting media scrutiny.
Reporter can be heard saying: "Wow, I think that's a record."
Communication is so important.
Tell me again hospitals across AUS why you're abandoning masks and respirators now?
Show me your risk assessment?
And your CovidSafe plan?
Did you consult your HSRs?
What's your HAI count?
How many staff furloughed?
Many unfilled vacancies?
How's your wait lists?
#CovidIsNotOver
Wow! About face by
@PeterMacCC
- returning to N95s for all clinical work and surg masks in all public spaces.
Congratulations for seeing sense but how do you possibly explain abandoning masks just over 2 weeks ago? And how many staff and patients got infected as a consequence?
If Nat Cabinet wants to treat Covid like any other respiratory virus they need to stump up resources to fortify public health system. HCWs cannot be expected to continue functioning in a state of perpetual exception if govts are not willing to manage health crisis as exceptional.
Premiers keep peeling away layers of public health protections exposing us all to greater risk especially when the next wave kicks off. Yet they wonder why they're struggling to attract & retain HCWs who continually have to bear the brunt of their bad decisions.
#CovidIsNotOver
While I encourage and applaud hospitals moving back to N95s in all clinical spaces as the Covid wave ramps up, it is always too late and reactionary.
Recklessly infecting patients & staff until they realise they can't fill shifts due to Covid infecting their staff.
Unacceptable.
I was standing at reception desk at physios wearing an N95. Sign says masks optional but physio will wear one if you prefer (thank you, yes). Small rehab gym adjacent. Client exits gym maskless and looks at my N95 and immediately reaches for the hand sanitiser.
PH messaging fail.
Forget the +ve Covid case numbers.
It's much harder to hide/fudge/ignore hospital cases.
For those claiming alarmism, talk to HCWs in ED or wards.
This isn't a drill. It's ugly & nasty & people are suffering & about to get worse.
Step-up: mask-up (N95), vax-up, ventilate+HEPA.👇
This is what Japan's hospitalisations look like👇
The pattern is unmistakeable, unrelenting and devastating.
This demonstrates up-to-date, responsible recording and reporting of Covid data.
See next tweet for AUS.
1/2
Comment from HCW: the leave roster is booked up until September 2023. That means I can't take any leave for 12 months. People are burning out. If they can't take time off they will just leave.
-> Short staffed. Under resourced. Over worked. Critical workforce at breaking point.
"Since 22 June there has been a 99% increase in Victorians in hospital with COVID-19, a 60 per cent increase in ICU admissions due to C-19 and a 47% increase in workforce furlough. In the first week of July, there was a cumulative absence of more than 10,000 staff."- Vic govt
Vic has moved to Stage 3 Health System Response. This allows hospitals to apply exceptional workforce models to keep the health system functioning.
It is outrageous that Covid impact is so great as to threaten our health system ability to function yet there are no PH mitigations.
It gotten to the point it's hard to know if public health decision makers are ignorant or negligent or both.
There is an abundance of evidence linking Covid with so many long term disabling health outcomes and so much information on how to mitigate spread yet they fail to act.
Dog walk my 8 mo pup.
Pass man w small dog on lead.
Man:Does he want to say hello?
Me:Yes he's very sociable.
Dogs sniff each other tails wagging.
Man:Better not get too close she has kennel cough.
Me:Speechless walk away.
On what planet would you do this other than Planet Covid?
Covid special paid leave of 7 days will continue. Thanks to Vic gov for this important support for HCWs. And thanks to Vic health unions for fighting to retain this support.
Fool me once.....but nine time?
At this point it clearly must be a political decision to allow Covid to continue surging, mutating, maiming and killing. How else can you explain the ongoing lack of response?
#CovidIsntOver
Lived experience outweighs everything. I would never wish serious illness or disability on anyone, but until you have experienced it first hand you likely dont appreciate implications. We should be listening more to those suffering the most as a consequence of failed PH measures.
Person serving at Spotlight: Wow, it must be hot wearing a mask today (v. hot summer day).
Customer (in N95): It's better than catching Covid.
Staff (no mask): Yeah I've had it 4 times & it sucks.
Customer: I work in health & I've worn one 8 hrs a day for 4 years & not had Covid.
Trying to explain to someone not in health the psych impact of 18 months not seeing your workmates face, the depersonalisation, busting bladder bc too much work & PPE, fear of illness/death & taking it home to family. We don't want platitudes. Not convinced anyone is hearing us.
HCW
#1
: colleague shows up sick & coughing wearing a surg mask & said he felt just like last Covid he had but 2 x neg RATs & he is out of sick leave so he came to work.
HCW
#1
told him to put on N95 & report to manager expecting him to be sent for PCR & home.
No-sent to work in ED
At some point govts made a conscious decision to accept a significant number of Covid deaths & disablement as a consequence of dropping mitigations. Each wave reminds them yet instead of changing course they double-down & kill & disable more.
Do not accept their normalisation.
It is time to hold the line.
It is v.clear governments are not going to address the unmitigated spread of C19->causing death & long term disability.
Keep masking (N95) despite the ever mounting pressure not to.
Give a nod to others you see in a mask.
Solidarity makes us stronger.
Simple public service announcement given the main stream media and governments are largely ignoring it.
AUS is deep into our 8th wave, building on top of a crushing baseline of ongoing hospitalisations and deaths.👇
Vic HCW Covid isolation period to be cut from 7 to 5 days from 1 Oct.
Tell me how having HCWs return after just 5 days makes any sense?
Remember HAIs in Vic have >10% mortality.
Update: just 1 week after being praised for requiring all staff to wear N95s, Royal Melbourne Hospital
@TheRMH
has abandoned N95s & returned to surgical masks in all but specific zones(eg Covid, respiratory & immunocompromised wards). Very disappointing backflip.
#CovidIsAirborne
Just a reminder.
We are facing a worsening healthcare workforce crisis in the midst of an ongoing pandemic with a growing population dependence on that very healthcare system.
Don't ignore Covid now & expect the same access & standard of healthcare you're used to, in the future.
Just to be clear, it is not okay to come to work sick and try to 'soldier on'.
You are not being admirable, stoic or supportive of your colleagues.
You are threatening to infect them and make them and their family sick as well.
And if you are a HCW you might cause far worse.
The take home message in Vic is that yes, it is well accepted & acknowledged that Covid is airborne, yes there are problems with patients and HCWs getting infected in hospitals, but no, we are not going to do anything about it. That would take time and money.
Thank you Brett Sutton
@VictorianCHO
as a voice of calm and reason. Talking about ventilation, talking about long covid, talking about protecting children. We need to hear more of this.
Definitely in the top 5 of things you don't want to see while driving in peak hour traffic.👇
NB: Pic taken once parked. No spiders were harmed in the making of this tweet. And yes, in AUS.
While most of AUS enjoys a long weekend (except HCWs & other important service industries), our Covid deaths just slipped past 9,000 without fanfare or a blip on the radar.
I don't recall agreeing to tear up our social contract & accepting that everyone must fend for themselves.
If you were a HCW in AUS looking at this graph & seeing Covid public health mitigations being systematically removed & watching the rest of society going back to business as usual, it would be hard to stay motivated & optimistic about a future in healthcare.
#CovidIsNotOver
👇
Said merry xmas over the fence to my 90+ yo neighbour.
Knowing I'm a HCW his first comment was: "Did you see the crowds at the cricket? They were packed in!"
With his 90 yo wife, they don't live with Covid but live in fear of Covid.
Sadly, copied from a friend's post:
"I have done everything I could to avoid covid for the past two years because I didn’t want to get my nanna sick. I had no idea that a healthy, fit, 37 year old with no underlying health conditions other than mild asthma could be so impacted."
The thing that's hit me most in the pandemic is not the ignoring of science by health & political leaders, it's been the abandonment of the sick, vulnerable, elderly & disabled in our society like they no longer matter. Was society always so unempathetic & I just couldn't see it?
Remember when Trump said: "Stop all the testing and it will go away"? And we were all outraged?
Well that's exactly what AUS govts are now doing.
We are well into 9th wave of pandemic and states are hiding/blocking all the important data from us. And telling us to risk assess!
Me to HCW: How was your shift? (Sat night in ED xray)
HCW: It was hell on earth. There were trolleys lining all the corridors. The support nurse rang in sick & there was no replacement. We opened the backup CT & both were still going when I left. Strokes, trauma, all really sick.
AUS well into Wave 9 of pandemic. Vic hospitalisations rising👇.
This will be first wave faced with no PH mitigations, no new vaccine, random levels of masking in healthcare, no public awareness or information, severely stressed health system, HCW shortages, no supports.
A friend is trying to find suitable aged care home for elderly mother. Hasn't found one without a current Covid outbreak, despite visiting/contacting many.
Welcome to "living with Covid". How can we expect people to go into care, knowing this exceptional risk is waiting for them?
Says it all:"The COVID-19 pandemic continues to put unprecedented pressure on the health system across Victoria and the nation. While our businesses, tourism and cities are all open and thriving again, our health system continues to feel the impact of COVID-19 with another surge"
This is beyond negligence👇
This is knowingly exposing Covid negative patients to infectious patients with the high likelihood of infecting them & condemning them to potentially greater illness, disablement or even death, given the mortality for HAIs can be >10% (Vic data).
I don’t want to be overly critical of you, overworked staff at Westmead.
But when we come to visit our friends in shared rehab wards and they are sharing with Covid positive unmasked people, no hepafilters & your staff aren’t masked, I honestly have to say what the actual fuck.
Amongst the many disappointments of the Covid era, right up there is willingness of HCWs to discard even basic masks at the first chance.
After fighting so hard in 2020 to get respirators & fit checking for all Vic HCWs, I am flabbergasted at the blatant disregard for IPC & WHS.
This pandemic is not ending anytime soon.👇
Our situation is not improving despite everything we now know & have.
In AUS we are deep in wave 6!
Each trough is getting higher meaning our health system never gets a break & our HCWs have been battling unwaveringly now for 2.5 years.