COVID-19

Physicians, nurses, residents, and students writing on KevinMD during and after the COVID-19 pandemic, most of it in real time between March 2020 and 2022: the first weeks and the shortages, the surge, redeployment, schools and masks, the vaccine's arrival and the people who refused it, and what the years did to the people who worked through them. This archive is a primary record of what clinicians wrote as it happened, and more of it was written anonymously than any other subject on the site. For that record organized as a timeline, with the disagreements recorded as physicians made them, see COVID-19: what physicians wrote as it happened. For what physicians said about burnout in those years and since, see Physician burnout: what physicians say, in their own words.

The idiot’s guide to coronavirus from an emergency physician

Rada Jones, MD

Conditions and Diseases

March 9, 2020

1. Wash your hands like your life depends on it. Because it does. Not only for Corona, but for the many germs you’ll acquire from touching elevator buttons, doorknobs, or somebody else’s hand. Or the dirtiest thing on earth: money: Everybody handles it, and nobody washes it. Except for the mob. And me, when I forget it in my pockets.

2. Stay home if you’re sick. Same with your children.

3. Disinfect frequently touched …

Is the conference cancelled? How coronavirus is upending the conference industry.

Liz Szabo

Conditions and Diseases

March 6, 2020

Nearly 100,000 pop culture fans flocked to Emerald City Comic Con in Seattle last year, including many dressed as superheroes, aliens, and robots. But something scarier than a comic book villain is roiling the conference this year — the spread of the coronavirus.

Ten people have died from novel coronavirus in King County, Washington, where Seattle is located, according to the Washington State Department of Health. At least 70 people have …

COVID-19 showcases the bravery of first responders

Carmen Heredia Rodriguez

Conditions and Diseases

March 6, 2020

When first responders answered roughly ten calls from a long-term care center in Kirkland, Washington, over the course of a week, they did not expect to become patients themselves.

Entering the Life Care Center of Kirkland last month exposed them to the novel coronavirus that sickens people with an illness known as COVID-19. Because the emergency calls came before authorities realized the virus was circulating in the community, some of the …

What coronavirus is teaching us about telehealth

Blake McKinney, MD

Conditions and Diseases

March 6, 2020

“Should I cancel my business trip?”

That is not the kind of question that patients typically ask their doctors. For most people, that’s not even a question they can ask their doctors, at least, not without an appointment, a co-pay and an anxiety-inducing wait in a crowded doctor’s office.

As U.S. cases of coronavirus rose this week, I fielded some version of this question from countless patients via telemedicine. Technology and experience-based …

How to prevent coronavirus: Your COVID-19 questions answered by a public health professional

Brian Labus, PhD, MPH

Conditions and Diseases

March 6, 2020

1. What can I do to prevent becoming infected?

When people are sick with a respiratory disease like COVID-19, they cough or sneeze particles into the air. If someone is coughing near you, the virus could easily land on your eyes, nose, or mouth. These particles travel only about six feet and fall out of the air rather quickly. However, they do land on surfaces that you touch all the time, …

COVID-19’s biggest threat is to the health of our economy

Josh McKinney, MD

Conditions and Diseases

March 6, 2020

“Made in China.” Words ubiquitous throughout the products we use every day and now, ironically, applicable to the virus that has laid siege around the world. Illness and death have spread across borders and continents, as well as fear and panic. Illness and death we can quantify in numbers, however, fear and panic are less easily measured than felt in our news feeds and social media posts. It is the …

An infectious disease doctor answers your COVID-19 and coronavirus questions

Paul Sax, MD

Conditions and Diseases

March 5, 2020

Being a specialist in infectious diseases right now is an interesting experience. Added to the usual challenges of our everyday practice — caring for people receiving transplants or chemotherapy, those with HIV, surgical infections, tropical diseases, and others — we now must manage a deluge of coronavirus-related questions from friends, family, and colleagues.

Here are a few recent examples in bold, along with my responses.

Frequently asked questions

My baby …

A doctor’s COVID-19 advice to physician leaders

Maria Yang, MD

Conditions and Diseases

March 4, 2020

I work as the medical director for a non-profit agency that serves people who are currently or formerly homeless. I am trained as a psychiatrist and have previously worked in local government. I live in the county in Washington State, where people have died from COVID-19.

Here are my recommendations for other physician leaders in other regions, particularly those who work in outpatient, non-profit settings. I hope this information can help …

Seattle is at risk for explosive coronavirus growth

Helen Branswell

Conditions and Diseases

March 4, 2020

The coronavirus outbreak in the Seattle area is at a critical juncture and could see explosive growth in cases much like Wuhan, China, if public officials don’t take immediate, forceful measures, according to a new analysis of genetic data. The author of the analysis, a computational biologist named Trevor Bedford, said there are likely already at …

A physician’s chilling COVID-19 diagnostic journey

Timothy Hlavinka, MD

Conditions and Diseases

March 3, 2020

We watched as the new viral outbreak happened in a remote place in China, wondering if this would be a quick flameout or if Mother Nature would again exert her majesty on us mortals.

My associate, Madilyn, and I watched with more interest, knowing that her sister was in South Korea teaching English. She was due to return in late February, …

More worried about the coronavirus than the seasonal flu? Here’s why you should be.

Tom Duszynski, MPH

Conditions and Diseases

March 3, 2020

The spread of the new coronavirus, which has infected over 80,000 people worldwide and resulted in the death of more than 3,000, has raised alarms around the world.

At the same time, the seasonal influenza, known as the flu, causes severe illness in between 3 million and 5 million people, with hundreds of thousands of deaths every year worldwide.

With …

The alarming risk of COVID-19 in nursing homes

JoNel Aleccia

Conditions and Diseases

March 3, 2020

An outbreak of coronavirus disease in a nursing home near Seattle is prompting urgent calls for precautionary tactics at America’s elder care facilities, where residents are at heightened risk of serious complications from the illness because of the dual threat of age and close living conditions.

As of Monday afternoon, the emergence of the novel contagious illness at the Life Care Center of Kirkland, Washington, had left four residents dead and …

How many people have coronavirus? We don’t really know.

Elisabeth Rosenthal, MD

Conditions and Diseases

March 3, 2020

It has been nearly three months since the first cases of a new coronavirus pneumonia appeared in Wuhan, China, and it is now a global outbreak. And yet, despite nearly 90,000 infections worldwide (most of them in China), the world still doesn’t have a clear picture of some basic information about this outbreak.

In recent weeks, a smattering of scientific papers and government statements have begun to sketch the …

During the coronarvirus outbreak: A failure to recognize physicians’ worth

Eileen Natuzzi, MD, MPH

Physician

March 3, 2020

Recently, Congressman Jimmy Gomez, D-California, questioned HHS Secretary Alex Azar about improper preparation of health care workers before and during their interactions with Americans repatriated from Wuhan, China. A whistleblower reported to the California congressman that while assisting evacuees housed at Travis Air Force Base, federal health employees were not given personal protective equipment or briefed on protocols to avoid exposure and spread of the novel virus COVID-19.

More shocking than …

COVID-19 and coronavirus FAQs

Molly Walker

Conditions and Diseases

March 1, 2020

A case study seemed to confirm the presence of asymptomatic transmission within China, where a woman was afebrile with no chest CT abnormalities or laboratory abnormalities. She did not develop the virus, while five of her relatives did.

An earlier report out of Germany found a woman traveling to Germany from China with …

Read more…

COVID-19 and coronavirus FAQs

COVID-19 will expose EMTALA and the physician shortage

Edwin Leap, MD

Conditions and Diseases

February 29, 2020

Coronavirus, a.k.a. COVID-19, is lurking on the edges of the United States. What it will do here has yet to be seen. I was initially very concerned since I work on the front lines in community emergency medicine. For the last week or so, I have felt a little better after reading several articles. I suspect it will not have a high lethality among otherwise healthy individuals. But I’m no …

As the coronavirus spreads, should unvaccinated people be allowed to fly?

Christopher Robertson, JD and Keith Joiner, MD, MPH

Conditions and Diseases

February 28, 2020

As the coronavirus spreads, the nation’s leading health official told a Senate committee on Feb. 25 that “we cannot hermetically seal off the United States to a virus.”

The comments from Alex Azar II, head of Health and Human Services, heightened concerns about the effects of the coronavirus in the U.S., which so far has sickened a relatively small number – 57 – of people in the …

The problems with testing for novel coronavirus

Anna Maria Barry-Jester and Rachel Bluth

Conditions and Diseases

February 28, 2020

Just weeks into the federal government’s efforts to contain the novel coronavirus, a new California case has exposed weaknesses in the testing procedures that could be masking more widespread reach of the disease.

A woman in Solano County, California, who hadn’t traveled abroad or had contact with another known patient with the illness was diagnosed with the virus Wednesday, raising concerns that cases are going undetected because of the federal government’s narrow …

How businesses are handling COVID-19

Julie Appleby

Conditions and Diseases

February 28, 2020

Chances are, if you work for a large company, you received an email like one sent to Volkswagen employees Monday: Coronavirus concerns mean some limits on business travel, everyone should remember to “wash your hands frequently” and stay home if sick.

As the viral illness, dubbed COVID-19, continues to spread, some employers are canceling conferences and limiting travel, checking supplies, and dusting off their emergency preparedness plans, just as they have …

Read more…

How businesses are handling COVID-19

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