Speaker 1: It's Friday, December four. I'm Oscar Ramrors from the Daily
Speaker 1: Dive podcast in Los Angeles, and this is reopening America.
Speaker 1: We are seeing coronavirus continue to spread across the country.
Speaker 1: Hospitalizations and debts are also on the uptick, and doctors
Speaker 1: and nurses are caught in the middle with treating the
Speaker 1: sick and people who still think the virus isn't as
Speaker 1: bad as some make it seem. Some healthcare workers call
Speaker 1: it COVID denial, and on top of the physical and
Speaker 1: mental demands of the job, they say this makes it
Speaker 1: harder for them to provide care. Sarah Krause, health reporter
Speaker 1: at The Wall Street Journal, joins us for more on
Speaker 1: this extra challenge healthcare workers are facing. Thanks for joining us, Sarah,
Speaker 1: Thanks for having me. We're unfortunately seeing cases of coronavirus rise,
Speaker 1: hospitalizations rise, debts rise. We're really hitting a bad part
Speaker 1: of this pandemic all over again. And one of the
Speaker 1: things that we always like to check in on is
Speaker 1: our doctors, our nurses, our healthcare workers. It's been a
Speaker 1: tough go for them. You know, they're the ones on
Speaker 1: the front lines dealing the patients all the time and
Speaker 1: helping people get better. And we've done stories in the
Speaker 1: past before already on the podcast about the burnout that
Speaker 1: the doctors and nurses are facing, some of them are
Speaker 1: retiring early, all that jazz. But right now you wrote
Speaker 1: an article, Sarah, about how some of this coronavirus disbelief
Speaker 1: is really affecting them. You know, it's hard for them
Speaker 1: to go there every day, but still constantly hear people
Speaker 1: say that it's not as bad as it seems, or
Speaker 1: it's a hoax, etcetera, etcetera. So, Sarry, tell us a
Speaker 1: little bit about some of the conversations you were having
Speaker 1: with doctors and nurses about this. So I spoke with
Speaker 1: several doctors and nurses across the country and basically what
Speaker 1: they described or treating patients who are seriously ill in
Speaker 1: the hospital as part of their day job, and then
Speaker 1: going home and either in the line at the grocery
Speaker 1: store or through family or friends and family hearing from
Speaker 1: people who think the virus as a hoax or just
Speaker 1: not as serious as public health officials have said it is.
Speaker 1: And they say that that sort of disbelief on top
Speaker 1: of months of the physical and mental demands of caring
Speaker 1: for very sick patients during the pandemic is frustrating and draining,
Speaker 1: and the overarching is that if the broader public is
Speaker 1: not taking the pandemic and the associated risks seriously, does
Speaker 1: it risk furthering the virus has spread. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: a weird situation. We see it a lot playing out
Speaker 1: in the media, obviously how bad it is. We see
Speaker 1: our local elected officials talking about it constantly, imposing new
Speaker 1: restrictions and lockdowns, and that's probably fuel some of the
Speaker 1: frustration on the part of people not wanting to go
Speaker 1: through that. You know. Obviously huge economic effects that are
Speaker 1: going on because of it is hard for a lot
Speaker 1: of people. And despite these huge numbers, there's a lot
Speaker 1: of people that have not gotten this, and maybe some
Speaker 1: people don't know somebody that might have gotten it, so
Speaker 1: it might fuel some of that skepticism they said, you know,
Speaker 1: some of this in their sort of groups of family
Speaker 1: and friends is rooted in the fact that there were
Speaker 1: parts of the country that shut down before the virus
Speaker 1: was widely circulating there. So there's this frustration from economic losses,
Speaker 1: whether it be a job or just instability in a
Speaker 1: person's household. Financial situations that contribute to this frustration as
Speaker 1: shutdowns continue, as the numbers continue to swell. You had
Speaker 1: a story about a nurse in El Paso, Texas who
Speaker 1: had a patient in early November, wheeling him out of
Speaker 1: the intensive care unit, and he was still saying that
Speaker 1: it wasn't that bad, that the media was exaggerating it.
Speaker 1: She said that she took that time to say that
Speaker 1: he was the only person that she had treated that
Speaker 1: day that was able to converse with her, you know,
Speaker 1: and that also the distance that she was treating are
Speaker 1: the most severe that she had seen in ten years
Speaker 1: as a nurse. So she said that in that situation,
Speaker 1: the patient changed their minds. Other healthcare professionals that I
Speaker 1: talked to said at times they faced more of an
Speaker 1: uphill climb in convincing those around them that this is real.
Speaker 1: And one of the things that came up repeatedly in
Speaker 1: the conversations I had with healthcare workers and what they
Speaker 1: hear from the communities around them are patients, is there
Speaker 1: have been conflicting messages around the merits of mask wearing
Speaker 1: early on, and because the virus continues to spread, now
Speaker 1: there's not only a pandemic fatigue, but there's a little
Speaker 1: bit of whiplash in terms of what measures should I
Speaker 1: or should I not be taking? Is it actually making
Speaker 1: a difference? Yeah, that might have been one of the
Speaker 1: biggest drawbacks. I think that the CDC was involved early
Speaker 1: on when the recommendations were bouncing back and forth. And
Speaker 1: you know, they talk a lot about in your conversations
Speaker 1: with them, you know, misinformation, and they hope that, you know,
Speaker 1: the quality of care doesn't go down, and a lot
Speaker 1: of them are nervous we're getting to the point where
Speaker 1: vaccines are going to be improved, and public polling out
Speaker 1: there says that a lot of Americans don't want to
Speaker 1: take the vaccines for a variety of reasons, right, And
Speaker 1: that's one of the many sort of knock on effects
Speaker 1: that they described as fearing in this one is you know,
Speaker 1: if people don't think there is merit to mass wearing
Speaker 1: other mitigation measures, that they won't do it, the virus
Speaker 1: will continue to spread. But also when a vaccine is available,
Speaker 1: these feelings will contribute to some Americans not getting vaccinated
Speaker 1: because they didn't think it was serious in the first place,
Speaker 1: or they have distrust of the vaccine. Yet another knock
Speaker 1: on effects from it was the concern about overcrowding having
Speaker 1: so much of a burden. If this continues to spread
Speaker 1: on the health care system, that you run out of
Speaker 1: beds with the ability to care not only for COVID
Speaker 1: patients but also sort of routine, elective but still important procedures,
Speaker 1: or in remote parts of the country where there's maybe
Speaker 1: you know, a main trauma center and then that serves
Speaker 1: as a hub that if that's still COVID patients that
Speaker 1: can't accept the normal car accident injuries or other injuries
Speaker 1: that might come through that then must be treated in
Speaker 1: smaller facilities that have less experience doing so. So they
Speaker 1: sort of described this ripple of fact that has a
Speaker 1: lot of different components to it. On the vaccine front,
Speaker 1: one of the latest Gallipole said about Americans say that
Speaker 1: they wouldn't get vaccinated. I don't like to hear that
Speaker 1: type of stuff, especially considering how hard people have been
Speaker 1: pushing for the vaccines to get through the process and everything.
Speaker 1: I think this kind of encapsulates a lot of this.
Speaker 1: One of the nurses you spoke to said, Hey, I
Speaker 1: check your cholesterol and show you a number, and you
Speaker 1: believe us. But when it comes to this, you're not
Speaker 1: believing us now, and that's got to be frustrating for
Speaker 1: these healthcare workers that are in the trenches working on this.
Speaker 1: And you also mentioned that there's a lot of local
Speaker 1: public health meetings that some of these nurses are taking
Speaker 1: their time to go to as well, so they're not
Speaker 1: just treating patients in the hospitals, they're also going to
Speaker 1: these public meetings to help get the word out. And
Speaker 1: even then still there's back and forth on it. I
Speaker 1: described a meeting in Idaho where a local public health
Speaker 1: board invited both doctors from a local hospital system as
Speaker 1: well as to other individuals who advocated for unproven treatments
Speaker 1: and made assertions that there's no evidence that masks prevent
Speaker 1: the spread of COVID nineteen, which is incorrect. And so
Speaker 1: the doctors that I spoke with who were at that meeting,
Speaker 1: you know, sort of spoke about frustration, feeling like they
Speaker 1: are up against conflicting and incorrect messages on top of
Speaker 1: their day job of caring for patients. And you know,
Speaker 1: one of them sort of described it feels like a
Speaker 1: parallel universe when you see people dying of a virus,
Speaker 1: or you see a virus having longer term complications for
Speaker 1: some patients. At your day job, and then you go
Speaker 1: home or in your surrounding community, it's not taken seriously, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it's very hard. I know there's been a
Speaker 1: lot of politicization throughout this whole process of the pandemic,
Speaker 1: and even in my own circles. You know, I heard
Speaker 1: a lot of people saying, oh, you know, this is
Speaker 1: all going to go away after the election. It's quite
Speaker 1: the contrary. It's actually gotten worse very recently. And you
Speaker 1: see today we're we have record hospitalizations as of yesterday,
Speaker 1: a record new case count, more than two hundred thousand.
Speaker 1: Deaths are continuing to climb, and so I think one
Speaker 1: of the challenges here is you have this continued spread,
Speaker 1: and in some parts of the country, the worse it's
Speaker 1: been yet, on top of many months of lockdowns and
Speaker 1: fits and starts. So you have this sort of frustration
Speaker 1: and desire among a lot of people to get back
Speaker 1: to normal and find a way to live with it.
Speaker 1: You know, I think from the doctor's perspective and nurses perspective,
Speaker 1: you're also coming off many months of pretty intense shift
Speaker 1: caring for sick people, and so um I think We're
Speaker 1: at a moment where some of those frustrations are bubbling up.
Speaker 1: Sarah Krause, health reporter at the Wall Street Journal. Thank
Speaker 1: you very much for joining us, Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1: I'm Oscar Ramirez and this has been reopening America. Don't
Speaker 1: forget the effort today's big news stories. You can check
Speaker 1: me out in the Daily Dive podcast every Monday to Fridays.
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