We’ve known it was coming, that it was only a matter of time before the coronavirus crisis wave hit American hospitals. But as the vast majority of us are holed up at home, we don’t have any way of knowing what that wave looks like on the front line unless someone tells us.

Yesterday, the Director of Global Health in Emergency Medicine at New York-Presbyterian/Columbia University Medical Center, Dr. Craig Spencer, offered us a glimpse of what healthcare workers are currently facing in New York.

Dr. Spencer is no stranger to infectious disease outbreaks. He himself contracted Ebola while helping treat people in West Africa and survived it. He’s seen and experienced a lot, and he has already explained why extreme social distancing is so important right now, but his first-hand account of what doctors and nurses are experiencing is a sobering reminder of why we can’t let up.

He wrote:

“Many of you asked what it was like in the ER right now. I want to share a bit with you. Please RT:

A Day in the Life of an ER Doc – A Brief Dispatch from the #COVID19 Frontline:

Wake up at 6:30am. Priority is making a big pot of coffee for the whole day, because the place by the hospital is closed. The Starbucks too. It’s all closed.

On the walk, it feels like Sunday. No one is out. Might be the freezing rain. Or it’s early. Regardless, that’s good.

Walk in for your 8am shift: Immediately struck by how the calm of the early morning city streets is immediately transformed. The bright fluorescent lights of the ER reflect off everyone’s protective goggles. There is a cacophony of coughing. You stop. Mask up. Walk in.

You take signout from the previous team, but nearly every patient is the same, young & old:

They are really worried about one patient. Very short of breath, on the maximum amount of oxygen we can give, but still breathing fast.

You immediately assess this patient. It’s clear what this is, and what needs to happen. You have a long and honest discussion with the patient and family over the phone. It’s best to put her on life support now, before things get much worse. You’re getting set up for that, but…

You’re notified of another really sick patient coming in. You rush over. They’re also extremely sick, vomiting. They need to be put on life support as well. You bring them back. Two patients, in rooms right next to each other, both getting a breathing tube. It’s not even 10am yet

For the rest of your shift, nearly every hour, you get paged:

All day…

Sometime in the afternoon you recognize you haven’t drank any water. You’re afraid to take off the mask. It’s the only thing that protects you. Surely you can last a little longer – in West Africa during Ebola, you spent hours in a hot suit without water. One more patient…

By late afternoon, you need to eat. Restaurant across the street is closed. Right, everything is closed. But thankfully the hospital cafeteria is open. You grab something, wash your hands (twice), cautiously take off your mask, & eat as fast as you can. Go back. Mask up. Walk in.

Nearly everyone you see today is the same. We assume everyone is #COVIDー19. We wear gowns, goggles, and masks at every encounter. All day. It’s the only way to be safe. Where did all the heart attacks and appendicitis patients go? It’s all COVID.

When your shift ends, you sign out to the oncoming team. It’s all #COVIDー19. Over the past week, we’ve all learned the signs – low oxygen, lymphopenia, elevated D-dimer.

You share concerns of friends throughout the city without PPE. Hospitals running out of ventilators.

Before you leave, you wipe EVERYTHING down. Your phone. Your badge. Your wallet. Your coffee mug. All of it. Drown it in bleach. Everything in a bag. Take no chances.

Sure you got it all??? Wipe it down again. Can’t be too careful.

You walk out and take off your mask. You feel naked and exposed. It’s still raining, but you want to walk home. Feels safer than the subway or bus, plus you need to decompress.

The streets are empty. This feels nothing like what is happening inside. Maybe people don’t know???

You get home. You strip in the hallway (it’s ok, your neighbors know what you do). Everything in a bag. Your wife tries to keep your toddler away, but she hasn’t seen you in days, so it’s really hard. Run to the shower. Rinse it all away. Never happier. Time for family.

You reflect on the fact that it’s really hard to understand how bad this is – and how bad it’s going to be – if all you see are empty streets.

Hospitals are nearing capacity. We are running out of ventilators. Ambulance sirens don’t stop.

Everyone we see today was infected a week ago, or more. The numbers will undoubtedly skyrocket overnight, as they have every night the past few days. More will come to the ER. More will be stat notifications. More will be put on a ventilator.

We were too late to stop this virus. Full stop. But we can slow it’s spread. The virus can’t infect those it never meets. Stay inside. Social distancing is the only thing that will save us now. I don’t care as much about the economic impact as I do about our ability to save lives.

You might hear people saying it isn’t real. It is.

And every day I’ll come to work for you.”

Thank you, Dr. Spencer, and all of the doctors, nurses, and other medical personnel who are giving their all and putting their lives on the line to save others. You are true American heroes.

When the coronavirus finally subsides and life gets back to normal, we will all praise the heroes — medical workers, grocery store clerks, that guy who gave you a dab of hand sanitizer — and we will shame the hoarders.

The image that bests sums up this strange and terrible era will be the people with gigantic Costco carts filled with sky-high stacks of toilet paper. Their eyes filled with fear that one day they will have to resort to cleansing themselves with Kleenex or, worse, a Starbucks napkin.

The Holly Hoarders struck hardest at Costco, so now the retail giant is striking back by forcing them to live with their selfish decisions. Costco now refuses to allow its customers to return any of the hoarders’ favorite purchases: toilet paper, paper towels, water, rice, Lysol, and sanitizing wipes.

Buyer’s remorse is a dish best served cold. Costco is serving it in bulk.

Costco cares about its customers so it has a 100%-satisfaction guarantee and usually accepts returns on just about everything but alcohol and tobacco products. But these are unusual times.

Costco has drawn a line and refuses to grant 100% satisfaction to the folks who thought they could take all of the bum wipe for themselves.

As if America didn’t love Costco enough, they’re heaping extra praise on the company on Twitter.

Some folks suggested that the hoarders can atone for their greed by donating their ill-gotten loot to a local shelter or food bank.

Now that the hoarders are being punished, we need to know what inspired their heinous deeds so it never happens again.

Why in the hell did people hoard toilet paper of all things? Water, food, and hand sanitizer make sense, they can mean the difference between life or death. But toilet paper? Not so much.

Andrea Greenman, the president of the Contemporary Freudian Society, says it goes back to control and, of course, a child’s anal phase.

“Controlling cleanliness around B.M.s is the earliest way the child asserts control,” Greenman told The New Yorker.

“The fact that now we are all presumably losing control creates a regressive push to a very early time,” she added. “So, I guess that translates in the unconscious to ‘If I have a lifelong supply of toilet paper, I’ll never be out of control, never be a helpless, dirty child again.’ “

Costco could maximize profits while helping these hoarders with their fears of regressing into being dirty children by offering them Freudian psychoanalysis. It could set up a chaise lounge right next to the guys who sell air conditioners and solar panels.

Italy is the second hardest-hit country by coronavirus pandemic and has experiences the single largest loss of life so far with 63,927 confirmed cases and over 6,000 deaths.

Italian leaders have implemented an aggressive lockdown throughout the entire country to curb the spread of the virus. However, some oblivious Italians are violating the lockdown by taking walks through the empty streets or hanging out by the seaside.

Their leaders aren’t mincing any words when it comes to calling out lockdown violators. “This isn’t a movie,” one mayor says.”You are not Will Smith in ‘I Am Legend.’ Go home.”

In the video below, the mayors of Bari, Messina, Lucera, Gualdo Tadino, the governor of Campania, and the mayor of Reggio Calabria mock lockdown violators, confront them in public and, yes, even threaten them with flamethrowers.

In his 67 years as the play-by-play announcer for the Brooklyn / Los Angeles Dodgers, Vin Scully, 92, was known for his poetic turn-of-phrase in the broadcaster booth. He has a special knack for weaving in historical anecdotes and folksy wisdom in between balls and strikes.

Scully is not only revered for being the greatest baseball announcer ever, but he’s also grandfatherly figure to the countless people who’ve grown up listening to his soothing voice that’s synonymous with summer days.

To help soothe his soul and that of his readers, Los Angeles Times sports columnist Bill Plaschke called Scully to get his perspective on the coronavirus.

“He reminds us that this country has endured and triumphed over great troubles,” Plaschke wrote. “He knows from personal experience. Born in 1927 and growing up during the Great Depression, he has been part of that journey.”

Scully picked up the phone.

Scully compared the moment we’re living in to others he’s experienced over his long life.

“From depths of depression we fought our way through World War II, and if we can do that, we can certainly fight through this. I remember how happy and relieved and thrilled everybody was,” Scully said.

“It’s the life of the world, the ups and downs, this is a down, we’re going to have to realistically accept it at what it is and we’ll get out of it, that’s all there is to it, we will definitely get out of it,” he continued.

The eternal optimist, he prefers to focus on the positive side of things.

“A lot of people will look at it, it might bring them closer to their faith, they might pray a little harder, a little longer, there might be other good things to come out of it,” he said.

“And certainly, I think people are especially jumping at the opportunity to help each other, I believe that’s true, so that’s kind of heartwarming, with all of it, it brings out some goodness in people, and that’s terrific, that’s terrific,” he added.

But he still misses being close with his family during these hard times. “It’s a very difficult time to go without hugs,” he said.

But Scully looks forward to the future when all of this is behind us and the boys of summer can once again throw on their caps and run onto the field at Dodger Stadium.

“That will be so wonderful,” he says, “that will be a rainbow after the storm, that, yeah, things are going to get better.”

Although he’s been retired for the past three seasons, there’s no doubt Scully will be there for opening day, letting everyone know that “It’s time for Dodgers baseball,” once again.

With the sports world to a screeching halt (along with the rest of the world) due to the coronavirus pandemic, athletes, coaches, and other sports professionals have found themselves totally out of their normal routine.

Sports commentators are included in that lot. It’s a little hard to commentate on a sport when there are no sports happening.

But that hasn’t stopped rugby commentator Nick Heath from doing his job in a creative, unpaid, but highly entertaining way anyway. Heath has started posting videos to social media of his color commentary on everyday life—much to the delight of everyone.

His #LifeCommentary posts include a video of two dogs—whom he refers to as “Vanilla” and “Chocolate”—racing around a park.

“The Interminable Wait” highlights people running the “supermarket gauntlet challenge” and waiting for the trolley as “the warm-up event for the international airport boarding gate heats taking place all over the world.”

Clearly, some of the people he’s filmed are not practicing proper social distancing measures, but don’t let their fueling of humanity’s demise stop you from enjoying Heath’s commentating.

Who knew that a handful of moms pushing their kids in a stroller could be so thrilling?

Heath just has a way of making the most mundane everyday actions sound exciting and entertaining, such as this “Find a Bargain Steeplechase.”

Even just watching people crossing the street becomes an exciting event. Who’s going to get across first?

People are loving Heath’s color commentary on life as they sit in their homes deprived of live sports commentary, as evidenced by his Twitter following growing by more than 50,000 in just a couple of days.

“It was just going and having a bit of fun and keeping my followers on social media entertained,” Heath, 41, told USA TODAY Sports. “But it obviously has blown up a bit since.”

Thank goodness for people like Nick Heath, who have the ability to make the most of a sincerely crappy situation and use their unique talents to keep people’s spirits up in creative ways. We need these people now more than ever.

The coronavirus pandemic is drastically changing the economy minute by minute. Businesses such as restaurants, bars, and brick-and-mortar retail stores have been hit hard and, in some states, are totally shut down.

However, other businesses such as grocery stores, online retailers, and food delivery services are thriving in the new normal.

The good news is that displaced workers from one part of the economy have opportunities for jobs in another sector. Papa John’s and Dominoes are looking to hire thousands of delivery drivers due to the high demand for pizza.

Amazon is announced it’ll hire an additional 100,000 employees to help keep up with the surge in online shopping.

Walmart has seen a huge surge in business as people stock up during the pandemic.

“It is quite frankly, unprecedented, the type of sustained pressure that we’re seeing,” Dan Bartlett, Walmart’s executive VP of corporate affairs, told CNBC. “It is like Black Friday day after day after day in some respects.”

The surge in business has inspired the notoriously thrifty employer to hand out bonus checks to its hourly employees for their hard work during a dangerous time. On Thursday, it announced it will provide more than $550 million in cash bonuses to its hourly employees.

Full-time hourly associates will receive $300 and part-time will receive $150. The bonuses will be paid out starting April 2.

“It’s almost like a mini stimulus package for Walmart associates,” Bartlett said.

Walmart is the largest employer in the United States with 1.3 million employees, so the bonuses will have a positive economic effect on the country as a whole.

“Walmart associates have gone above and beyond the call of duty in serving our customers during these unprecedented times,” President and Chief Executive Officer Doug McMillon said.

Walmart is looking to hire 150,000 new associates to work in stores, clubs, distribution centers and fulfillment centers through the end of May to meet the demand caused by the pandemic.

The retailer has also announced that it will raise the entry wage at its e-commerce warehouses by $2, which adds up to between $15 to $19 an hour.

The company has fast-tracked its hiring process to “dramatically expedite” hiring for key roles, such as cashiers and stockers, shortening the application process from two weeks to just 24 hours.

Walmart’s decision to raise wages and provide bonuses for employees is a great gesture during these uncertain times. However, it should be mentioned that while Walmart is providing a “stimulus” right now, it’s also been historically guilty of putting a drag on the economy by paying low wages.

“When Walmart comes to town, it is going to reallocate sales [from existing grocers], and its impact is going to be a function of the difference between what is currently being paid in wages at the existing stores and what Walmart pays,” Christopher Fowler, a researcher for Puget Sound Sage, told Business News Daily.

“These impacts stem from the low wages Walmart pays to its hourly associates compared to the wages earned by comparable employees of existing retail grocery stores,” the researchers said.

“The difference in wages, which we estimate to be at least $3 per hour, has the capacity to impact not only the workers themselves but also the people from whom they purchase goods and services,” the researchers continued.

They say a crisis brings out the best and the worst in people. It also reveals the best and the worst in our leaders.

A city commission meeting in Lake Worth Beach, Florida has gone viral after Commissioner Omari Hardy took his fellow city officials to task for their seeming indifference to their constituents during the coronavirus crisis.

Hardy confronted Mayor Pam Triolo and City Manager Michael Bornstein, who he said refused to call an emergency meeting last week, per Hardy’s repeated requests, to discuss issues coming about from the coronavirus crisis. And he let his frustrations show.

“You’re calling me disrespectful because I’ve interrupted people, but this gentleman has turned off people’s lights in the middle of a global health pandemic,” Hardy said, referring to Bornstein.

When Triolo tried to call a recess, Hardy wasn’t having it. “A banana republic is what you’re turning this place into with your so-called leadership,” Hardy said.

“We cut people’s utilities this week and made them pay—with what could have been their last check—to turn their lights off in a global health pandemic! But you don’t care about that. You didn’t want to meet.”

Triolo walked out, saying “Out of order. You’re done.”

Coronavirus Florida: Lake Worth Beach city commission meeting turns ugly

youtu.be

Hardy is being hailed a hero by people who have watched the video and see him as a staunch supporter of the citizenry he serves. He wrote a post on Facebook about how overwhelmed he was by people’s responses to the video.

“It was not about me. It was about the people in our city who are struggling, whose futures are uncertain, whose finances are unstable, who may be wondering if they will be able to work and earn a paycheck during this pandemic, and who came home on Tuesday or Wednesday to find the lights off, or the water off, at a time when water and lights couldn’t be more important. It was about them. It is still about them.”

“I was heated, yes. I was loud, yes,” he wrote. “But I was trying to get across an important point: that elected officials work for the PEOPLE. The PEOPLE put us on that dais. The PEOPLE put us in those chairs. The PEOPLE put those titles before our names. Everything we do is for the PEOPLE, and when the PEOPLE need us, it’s our job to step up for them. I was frustrated with three of my colleagues because they had forgotten who we work for.”

Thank you, Commissioner Hardy, for showing us what a true public servant looks like.

View Entire Post ›

The Zoom birthday chat is about to get lit.

View Entire Post ›

“It is the ghastly reality of what we deal with and where some of us have ended up already,” the New York City nurse said.

View Entire Post ›