It is just eerie. I hear about what went on in China, what’s going on in Italy, what’s happening in New York. Covid is up here too, no doubt. But it is just his advance spies. The battalions haven’t reached us yet. At the hospital my office is on the left as you come in through the ambulance doors, just past it on the right is the resuscitation room. I watched EMS wheel in a not old patient with no medical history other than contact at a large gathering with people who tested positive for COVId. From my desk, I could hear the ED doctor call for the intubation tray. I watched them ready to take the patient up to the ICU. More and more of the stretchers that go by my door have a masked patient and gowned EMS crews. But the thing of it is, there aren’t many stretchers going by my door. Call volume is low. No one is coming to the hospitals unless they have to.
I walk out through the ambulance doors There are only empty parking spaces. We have a huge tent erected in the lot. It is to be used when we are past capacity. It hasn’t seen a patient yet.
Our hospital is on top of a hill. I walk out to the edge of the lot and I look out over the valley and other Connecticut hills. They are peaceful. No sirens in the distance.
I think of the patient in the ICU and the few others up there with him. There are still many empty beds. Ventilators sitting idly, but ready to be put in service.
I drive home, the only car on the road. Two cars are parked in most driveways. Older couples are out walking two by two. I wonder if next week, I will be responding to this neighborhood, to any of these houses. If their residents will be febrile and struggling to breathe, too weak to make it to their cars, too sick to last much longer at home.
Maybe tomorrow COVID will appear on the top of the hills ready to descend down and join its advance spies seeded among our community.
I have my freshly washed uniform laid out for me when I rise in the dark of tomorrow’s morning. My boots are by the door. Ready for battle.
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Of the 1291 cases confirmed in Connecticut by Friday night, only 189 of them were in Hartford County with only 2 of the 27 deaths. Only 173 hospitalized in the state with only 36 hospitalized in Hartford county. I may start tracking the dead and hospitalized number as they may be a better tracking of the epidemic due to limited testing availability. Roughly 15% of the confirmed cases were hospitalized (counts the dead) so far.
Source: Connecticut DPH.
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Latest figures released Saturday evening. 1524 cases with 33 dead.
