Day 5

Today, perhaps due to my PPE expertise, I’m working with the infection control team. We’re working on setting up different nursing stations and supply rooms in the Hot and Cold zones on each floor, so that materials are no longer being transferred between zones. This is harder than it sounds. How much material gets allocated to each station? There are more Hot than Cold patients, and they have more needs. On the other hand, if needed we can transfer materials from Cold to Hot but not the other way around. When it comes time to transport things, we need a rolling cart, but all the carts are currently Hot. Here’s what you do in that case: take the cart down the Covid elevator, doff PPE, disinfect cart thoroughly, don PPE, take the cart up the Clean elevator, load items in the Cold zone, roll to the Hot zone, unload items. The cart is now Hot again. It’s a bit dizzying.

To get materials, we go down to a large room on the first floor that’s storing a jumble of miscellaneous items. Parts of the room are sealed off with plastic and other parts separated by curtains. The nurse tells me that this area was planned as the original Hot Zone. When the pandemic was first declared, staff were working on setting up 5 isolation beds here, “in case” any patients got sick. However, on the first day residents were tested, 8 tests came back positive. They were overwhelmed before they started. That was Plan A.

Plan B was to transfer all the covid positive patients to the third floor. But again the number of infections swelled too rapidly even as staff were also going off sick. In the process of transferring patients, even more were infected.

I guess Plan C is us.

Some good news! Two patients got their second negative tests today, and are moving back to the Cold zone. Our first official recoveries! Everyone looks a little lighter today.

Back on PPE duty after lunch. My kitchen friend slips me a pastry with my juice.

Day 5 Addendum

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