New York has become the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic in the United States, as hospitals in the state face surging numbers of patients and deaths. On this episode of Social Distance, Dr. James Hamblin and Katherine Wells talk with one doctor about preparing for the worst at her hospital in New York City.
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An edited and condensed transcript of the conversation follows:
Katherine Wells: Can you tell us how you would like us to identify you? You can introduce yourself with whatever level of detail you feel comfortable with.
Angelica: Sure. So my name’s Angelica. I am a third-year resident in an internal-medicine program in a large hospital in New York City.
James Hamblin: Right. So tell us what you’re experiencing. What was the lead up, and where are we now?
Angelica: Things are really heating up. As of today, we have 81 people admitted in our hospital with COVID-19. That’s just people admitted, meaning hospitalized. My hospital is part of a big system. In our entire system, as of today, the number I got this morning was 424 people admitted, and about 20 percent of the people are admitted in the ICU right now. So at our facility, we have 18 of our 81 admitted patients in the ICU. And, of those 18, 17 of those are on ventilators, meaning hooked up to breathing machines. Three of those patients are requiring ECMO, which is a means of oxygenating someone’s blood in a very high-tech way.