COVID-19 diaries: Coronakindness

The last few days have been incredibly busy at work as we have been restructuring how each department is managing the pandemic. Right now the hospital census is low as we are taking less patients to protect our healthcare workers. The census at the ER is incredibly low too. We also stopped taking visitors a few weeks ago. Though it appears calm, we have been preparing for the surge in the background. Think of it as being tasked to build an ark to prepare for the flood.

Over the last few days, we’ve been receiving a lot of donations from medical equipment, PPE, and meals. Oh yes, the meals! People from the community have been sponsoring meals and we deliver them to various units in the hospital. These surprises have lifted our spirits. What lifts our spirits even more is hearing people and their reason to donate; they felt sponsoring meals was a big way to say “thank you” for taking care of their family.

Lately on my Instagram feed, I’ve been sharing more #coronakindness. I have been seeing more anxiety-filled posts — most are reasonable and some come up with awful conspiracies. I also see posts where people are indifferent and they feel like quarantine is a glorified mass grounding. There is also a lot of fake news. I thought to turn things around, sharing #coronakindness in the hospital could show people who cannot go out what the world is like. Yes there are bad parts like the increased daily count of confirmed cases and the neverending news cycle, but there’s also plenty of good too.