Since I have a blog and a website, I thought I would jot down some of my thoughts and feelings about the ongoing pandemic here. This post will have absolutely nothing to do with the Foreign Service. It will just be some of my thoughts about the last 2 years of the pandemic, and what it has felt like to be a healthcare provider over that period of time. I really just want a time capsule of my thoughts at a point in time to look back to later, hopefully when this is behind us to some degree. WARNING: If you are someone that is anti-vaccine, don’t read this unless you want to get triggered

In my current job as a hospitalist, I have spent the better part of the last two years admitting, diagnosing, treating, discharging, and in many cases, watching people with COVID-19 die. The entire experience has been incredibly exhausting and frustrating, particularly the last few months.

When the first COVID-19 cases started being reported and we basically went into lockdown in March 2020, many of us in healthcare expected cases to explode like they were in New York and Los Angeles. Working in a medium size city in New Mexico, my hospital went into shutdown mode, bracing for the worst. Then nothing happened. It would be several weeks later until New Mexico had its first confirmed case of COVID-19, and from there it was an incredibly slow trickle. Usually college students or healthy folks that travelled abroad, usually to Italy. The hospital went from busy to empty, nurses and staffers were furloughed, and for several months, the pandemic felt very far away. It wouldn’t be until the fall/winter of 2020 that my region really saw an explosion of cases.

During that peak, taking care of COVID patients was horrible. It was usually older folks, many times spouses and family members together would just come in dog sick, and often would never leave the hospital. I can count on one hand how many folks that were critically ill and ventilated that ended up surviving to leave the hospital. Although it was sometimes frustrating caring for folks that clearly thought COVID wasn’t real or serious, end up dying, people like that were rare, and spread to these patients was often via asymptomatic family members. The general feeling at the time was healthcare workers are worthy of praise, and we were heralded as community heroes.

Fast forward a few months later, and through some miracle a vaccine is produced in less than a year, and it truly feels like we have a light at the end of the tunnel. By May/June 2021, just about anyone that wants a vaccine can get one, and we finally see cases drop.

Unfortunately, despite this miracle, a segment of our population not only chooses not to get the vaccine, but many prominent media members start to vilify them and spread false information. This continues to happen. New variants emerge, and just when we thought we could relax, it feels like we are back to square one. It was around this time that it felt like we as healthcare workers went from being heroes, to enemies of the people, for promoting vaccines, masks, and wanting to keep people alive. It was also around this time that it became abundantly clear that the only people being admitted to the hospital with serious infections just so happened to be unvaccinated.

In fall of 2021, although there was lots of vaccine resistance, there were also a lot of patients that I treated that were vaccine apathetic or lazy. The demographic during this round of COVID-19 spike was much younger than the spike in 2020, and many patients in their 30’s, 40’s, and 50’s lost their lives due to sheer laziness. I can’t count how many people begged me for a vaccine when it was too late, and it honestly was infuriating.

The Delta variant paved the way for the Omicron variant at the end of 2021, and at this point it became clear that COVID is likely never going to end, and we are going to have to learn to live with endemic COVID like any other viral illness. Fortunately, vaccinated individuals seem to shrug of an infection like any viral illness we all get a couple of times a year, and quickly get over it.

Fast forward to now, 1/16/22, in the heart of the Omicron surge, and my practice has become one of surprise when someone actually doesn’t have COVID-19. I feel like even in my social circle it’s rarer for one of us to not have had COVID-19, and the same goes for my coworkers (as far as I know I still have not had COVID-19). Folks coming to the hospital for completely unrelated issues end up being positive. The one constant remains though: If you are vaccinated, your symptoms are mild, and you go home.

The only folks I continue to admit for COVID-19 as their sole reason for admission at this point, continue to be unvaccinated. A vaccinated cancer patient might trickle in, but even then, they go home after a brief hospitalization. The severe symptomatic COVID patient of 2022 is a different breed. They’re unvaccinated and they’re confrontational and hostile about it. They demand untested treatments like Ivermectin and vitamin infusions. They refuse tested treatments like systemic steroids or anti-virals. They’re usually younger and not elderly. Their social media is a festival of shared anti-vaccine meme’s about people being sheep that have been recycled thousands of times over and over again (talk about being a sheep).

I can’t begin to tell you how hard it is to be sympathetic to these people. The mind bending logic of refusing a vaccine and well researched treatments, but then still wanting to come to the hospital the first time you start noticing things turning south is just bonkers to me. Like why show up if you’re such a tough guy and the whole thing is fake or just a little cold? Is the sample size of billions of vaccinated people somehow not good enough compared to the one BS article you read on the internet that wasn’t peer reviewed?

What makes things harder, is really sick COVID patients are resource heavy and end up staying in the hospital for a very long time. What this has meant, is our ICU’s that are meant to be recovering patients from open heart surgeries or admitting sick patients with issues like perforated bowels, end up just caring for unvaccinated COVID patients. My facility in particular has had to send out patients that have needed open heart surgeries to other facilities due to staffing needs in our ICU, and we have also had to refuse really sick patients from more rural hospitals, simply because we don’t have enough room or staff. This is the real danger of COVID-19, the halo effect it has on other folks with medical issues totally unrelated to COVID.

Fortunately, as I write this, it truly feels like we are on the event horizon of entering the endemic phase of COVID-19. Vaccines really do work, and even if you get COVID-19 with a vaccine on board, you experience very mild symptoms, and the resultant infection makes you even more resistant. The numbers of vaccinated continue to trickle up and the unvaccinated folks that end up getting COVID-19 briefly add to the immunity (or they die), helping us toward the endemic phase.

As a provider, I am really tired of wearing a mask, and harping on people to be vaccinated. I want to go back to normal just like everyone else, and fortunately I think we are nearly there (hopefully this statement ages well). I realize the government wants more vaccines in arms before they start to roll back travel restrictions and precautions, but at this point, if someone doesn’t want to be vaccinated, I think it’s time we just say “fuck it” and begin to move on. The rest of us with vaccines will be just fine, and if someone bites the dust for their stupidity, they basically had it coming. I realize this sounds harsh, but this is coming from a provider 2 years in, at a period of time where I get belittled on a weekly basis by these people because I’m dumb for believing in vaccinations, or I’m dumb because I won’t prescribe you Ivermectin. I will continue to be a professional, care for you, and do everything in my power to keep you alive. Ultimately though, those in society that give a shit have their safety net in vaccines, and we really just want to get on with life.

I think we are close to being able to see COVID-19 as just any other viral illness. One where mild congestion doesn’t paralyze us, prompting us to run to Walgreens for a bunch of $20 antigen tests, or getting in a 3 hour line at the county drive thru testing center. Hopefully as 2022 rolls on, we start to move closer to what life was like in 2019.

If you read all that, I’m sorry.