Please Wear a Mask
Dear Editor: If you have been following the news, you will know that there is now a coronavirus surge in all parts of the country. Many hospitals throughout the country are perilously close to full capacity. Last week, there were only three intensive care beds available in Anchorage. On Thursday, 11 counties in southern California had reached zero capacity in their intensive-care units. That means that in addition to not being able to admit more COVID patients, heart attack victims, accident victims etc. were not able to find beds. In Los Angeles County, emergency rooms are so crowded that some ambulances have been forced to wait as long as six hours to offload patients. California is also desperately seeking more medical staff from overseas since hospitals in the rest of the United States are also facing critical staffing shortages.
My brother-in-law in Los Angeles is a COVID doctor. Since April, the only patients he has treated have been COVID patients. He has seen well over 1,500 COVID patients and he has told me that more than 90% of his COVID patients did not wear masks. He has pointed me to studies that show that mask wearing can curb the spread of the disease.
It is deeply disturbing to him to see people not wearing masks, especially indoors. But he says he cannot convince some of his patients that they must wear masks to prevent their family and others around them from contracting the disease. He told me of one COVID patient in her 60s who had her mother residing in the household. My brother-in-law told the woman that she had to wear a mask because her elderly mother might not survive the disease. She told him that COVID was ‘‘not as bad as the flu.”
The elderly mother got COVID and survived. Her 30-year-old son got COVID and died.
My brother-in-law sees his patients virtually and speaks with patients by phone. He checks in with each COVID patient on a daily basis. He makes the decision, based on oxygen levels and other criteria, when to send his patients to the ER. My brother-in-law told me today that patients are waiting more than six hours outside the emergency room doors, in the cold, at his hospital just to get inside the building. With lines so long, many of his patients can’t even go to the ER. Many are at home, sick, scared and dying. He is working long hours every day and he can’t keep up with the volume of out-patients who need to be seen, evaluated and treated.
My brother-in-law is also concerned about the long-term effects of the disease. He has patients in their 30s who are athletes. They now have cardiomyopathies. He does not know if the heart damage is permanent. He has patients who probably have permanent lung damage. He says this is a dangerous disease.
Sitkans have to remain vigilant. We have been lucky so far but it will be many months before we can all be vaccinated. Let’s not end up like towns and cities in the lower forty-eight. PLEASE WEAR A MASK In Businesses And Inside Public Spaces.
Susan Litman, Sitka
Sentinel Coverage
Dear Editor: I want to thank the staff at the Sentinel for hanging in there with the community during this difficult and challenging year. Having some semblance of normalcy has been helpful to me as so much has been turned on its head.
In particular were stories from last week from Sentinel writers that stand out. Shannon’s cultural uplifting story about the fundraiser brass concert. Ms. Ariadne Will’s story on “Sitka Teacher Logs Award” both in Friday’s paper and Garland Kennedy’s story “School District Listens To Views of 2021” in Thursday’s Sentinel. All were written with empathy and detail. These stories hit a homerun for me.
John Murray, Sitka
