If large numbers of us come down with Covid-19 at once, the sky will fall in for the doctors and nurses who will be forced to work around the clock. Although it’s their job and they can take some consolation in being paid commensurate with their responsibilities, they put themselves at higher risk of catching the disease. The call has gone out here for health professionals in retirement to come back to work.
“Doctors, nurses, and other medical staff are flocking to the front lines as the world struggles to contain the coronavirus outbreak, which has now infected more than 341,000 people and spread to at least 167 countries and territories.
As hospitals fill up and more and more people get infected on a daily basis, medical staff have to endure long hours, intensifying conditions, and the looming fear of contracting the virus themselves.”
Business Insider
Paolo Miranda/ AFP/Getty
A risk for medical staff seldom talked about, is professional burnout.
“Dr. James Adams of Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine, and Dr. Ron Walls of Harvard Medical School, write in a new paper that the combination of stress and possible exposure puts healthcare professionals, from physicians, to nurses, to specialists, at greater risk of contracting COVID-19 and potentially spreading it to others.”
HealthcareFinance
PPE equipment in Europe is in short supply meaning staff are more exposed.
“About one in every 10 people testing positive for coronavirus in Italy and Spain are doctors and nurses, with governments warning that a shortage of protective equipment has left health workers “going into battle with paper shields and toy guns”.
Sydney Morning Herald
But there is another group of people, the unsung heroes also putting themselves, and their families, at higher risk of catching Covid-19. They leave home to provide us with the necessities of life: the butchers, cooks, cleaners, couriers, supermarket shelf stockers, checkout operators and petrol pump attendants. Some of it menial work, none of it glamorous, but all critical services often rewarded with minimum pay, or close to it.
Then there are the Wallys. They range from the idiots out and about, some driving a carload of kids to goodness knows where. Some are salespeople carrying on business as if life is normal.
This realtor on TV3’s The Café on Friday fronted up to talk about homes for sale and the dates of upcoming auctions. There is no doubt a crisis brings out the best and the worst in people, but does he really think anyone is going to attend his open homes or auctions? Get the idiot off. In fact, why do the media even bother presenting this show at all? In this context, it is not an essential service. Get them all off! Give us re-runs of anything else. In the words of Jane Austen, they are an affront to our sensibilities.
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