The Calm Before The Storm

The coronavirus has unleashed a series of paradoxes into our lives. We show solidarity by staying apart, with the belief that young people meeting for brunch endanger elders in rest homes. We cease gathering around dinner tables, while hiking trails are packed not with seekers of solitude but with seekers of social connection (for as long as parks stay open). Waiters have lost their jobs, grocery-store clerks serve on the front lines, and there is no traffic on the Bay Bridge.

It is shocking how quickly we have adjusted to this new normal. At Intrepid Ascent, we’re as connected to each other as ever before even though no one has been in the office for two weeks. Most people I know are having more conversations with family and friends, gathering for virtual chats and checking in through an expanding circle of group texts. People are finding ways to help each other navigate dramatically altered times.

Amid these revolutions in daily life, there’s an eerie sense of calm before the storm in health care. Yes, the planners are busy planning and needed space and equipment are being considered, counted, ordered, set aside. But at least here in California, Emergency Departments and Urgent Care centers are relatively quiet. A large medical center nearby has actually emptied out, keeping doctors and patients at home and as healthy as possible in anticipation of the coming waves of very sick people needing intensive care. And many potential patients are themselves reluctant to visit health care settings, which are perceived to be hot-spots for COVID-19.

So we’re rationing health care, both consciously and unconsciously, on a vast scale in response to the crisis. Not yet in terms of which lives to save with a respirator or bed in the ICU, but in terms of who gets tested and receives sustained professional attention. Given the botched testing regime in the US to date, people with COVID-19 symptoms who do not seem to require immediate intensive care are told that while they probably have the virus, they will not be tested, nor will their contacts be traced. They should stay home and follow the guidelines, no matter how many others they live with or how porous the quarantine.

When such a diagnosis of COVID-19, whether remote or in person, is entered into an individual’s electronic health record, it will be coded in a manner that can be shared and communicated widely beginning April 1, thanks to an unprecedented update to diagnostic codes (which otherwise occurs on on annual basis, in October). Nevertheless, as our post on lab data explains, there is a disconnect between clinical and public health databases, and a diagnosis alone will not usually trigger public health to count an individual as an official COVID-19 case. Public health agencies are relying on positive lab test results for that, and we’re not testing nearly enough. So, in this very basic way – knowing who has the virus and who doesn’t – we’re in a fog. Thankfully, bright spots are emerging with the creative use of software tools by front-line staff to assess risk factors for COVID-19 and to coordinate services for vulnerable populations such as the homeless; and the engines of Silicon Valley innovation are revving up.

As the coming storm crashes into our imperfectly prepared institutions, we will need all of the tests, N95 masks, hospital and ICU beds, respirators, courageous medical staff, brilliant data scientists, and enlightened policymakers we can find. But also resilience, empathy, and ingenuity from the rest of us. Staying home and watching Netflix will not be enough. In Wuhan, in addition to aggressive testing and other measures to track and isolate the virus, “many people idled by the lockdowns stepped up to act as fever checkers, contact tracers, hospital construction workers, food deliverers, even babysitters for the children of first responders.”* An outbreak of common spirit is evident all around us, and I am confident that as the challenge deepens, so will the response. Let’s get ready.

*McNeil Jr., Donald G. “The Virus Can be Stopped, but Only With Harsh Steps, Experts Say,” The New York Times. March 22, 2020.