Essays from the Edge of the World: COVID 19 in Seattle, Part 3 The Fish Bowl
Life Care Center in Kirkland isn’t nice; it’s not nasty either, not by nursing home standards anyway. Still, walking in there gave Edgar the heebie-jeebies. Edgar was never a particularly good EMT. Driving the ambulance was about the only aspect of the job he really excelled at, and let’s face it, most people can drive an automobile from one place to another. He certainly didn’t excel at patient care.
Later, he worked in Swedish Medical Center’s Emergency Room, where he also failed to excel at patient care, and there was nothing to drive, so he literally excelled at nothing. It wasn’t that he lacked empathy, but working around sick people just wasn’t his calling. He’d taken enough pathogen classes to be scared of bacteria and viruses, but not enough to ever feel comfortable around sick people. When he looked around his ambulance, or an ER room, all he ever saw was a film of invisible germs. That was under normal circumstances. Now, as COVID 19 began ravaging Life Care in Kirkland, Edgar silently echoed Audrey’s sentiments. He was glad he was no longer an EMT.
Life Care personnel noticed residents suffering from a respiratory illness in early February, but didn’t alert state authorities until nearly the beginning of March. There was actually a confirmed case at the facility on February 19th, but this was not widely disseminated, so visitors, staff, and first responders such as police, fire, and EMS personnel continued to freely come and go from Life Care. All the while, this respiratory illness, that we now know as COVID 19 percolated through the residents at Life Care, infecting at least 81 of the 120 residents there. At least thirty-seven of those died. Another way to say that is, nearly half of the residents who had COVID 19 at Life Care died. Still another way to say it is, nearly one-third of 120 residents at Life Care died of COVID 19. There is not a good way to say it, just variety of terrible ways to say it.
By the last day of February, reporters from every major news outlet had set up their tent in the Puget Sound to watch the canary in the coal mine. While all eyes were on a small nursing home, in a small suburb outside Seattle, the first case of community spread happened in California. To most viewers, this was not a significant development, and was nowhere near as dramatic to watch as the dysfunction and death unfolding at Life Care. It was, in retrospect, the real canary in the coal mine. The other day, New York State had an average of 33 people die per hour from COVID 19, which in retrospect makes Life Care’s 37 total deaths, happening over several weeks, seem tame.
Those last days of February seem so innocent now. Back then, we still thought we were dealing with a localized epidemic, of a virus, that would peter out in a week or two. Just something to stitch the last major news cycle to the next major news cycle. A distraction between the last presidential debate, and the next state primary. Nobody knew then, that Bernie Sanders would have to drop out of the presidential race over Skype because nobody had left their house in a month and gatherings of any kind were barred. Right then, life was more about watching the fish bowl that Life Care had become, and it had become just that.
It had become commonplace, and even expected to see news footage of family members waiving through windows at their quarantined, elderly, and often dying relatives in their rooms inside the Life Care facility. You could guarantee the next CNN live shot would be either, a patient leaving on an EMS stretcher, with Life Care staff holding up a sheet to protect the resident’s identity, or an angry relative shouting into a reporter’s microphone. Sometimes they were crying, but usually just angry.
Later, he worked in Swedish Medical Center’s Emergency Room, where he also failed to excel at patient care, and there was nothing to drive, so he literally excelled at nothing. It wasn’t that he lacked empathy, but working around sick people just wasn’t his calling. He’d taken enough pathogen classes to be scared of bacteria and viruses, but not enough to ever feel comfortable around sick people. When he looked around his ambulance, or an ER room, all he ever saw was a film of invisible germs. That was under normal circumstances. Now, as COVID 19 began ravaging Life Care in Kirkland, Edgar silently echoed Audrey’s sentiments. He was glad he was no longer an EMT.
Life Care personnel noticed residents suffering from a respiratory illness in early February, but didn’t alert state authorities until nearly the beginning of March. There was actually a confirmed case at the facility on February 19th, but this was not widely disseminated, so visitors, staff, and first responders such as police, fire, and EMS personnel continued to freely come and go from Life Care. All the while, this respiratory illness, that we now know as COVID 19 percolated through the residents at Life Care, infecting at least 81 of the 120 residents there. At least thirty-seven of those died. Another way to say that is, nearly half of the residents who had COVID 19 at Life Care died. Still another way to say it is, nearly one-third of 120 residents at Life Care died of COVID 19. There is not a good way to say it, just variety of terrible ways to say it.
By the last day of February, reporters from every major news outlet had set up their tent in the Puget Sound to watch the canary in the coal mine. While all eyes were on a small nursing home, in a small suburb outside Seattle, the first case of community spread happened in California. To most viewers, this was not a significant development, and was nowhere near as dramatic to watch as the dysfunction and death unfolding at Life Care. It was, in retrospect, the real canary in the coal mine. The other day, New York State had an average of 33 people die per hour from COVID 19, which in retrospect makes Life Care’s 37 total deaths, happening over several weeks, seem tame.
Those last days of February seem so innocent now. Back then, we still thought we were dealing with a localized epidemic, of a virus, that would peter out in a week or two. Just something to stitch the last major news cycle to the next major news cycle. A distraction between the last presidential debate, and the next state primary. Nobody knew then, that Bernie Sanders would have to drop out of the presidential race over Skype because nobody had left their house in a month and gatherings of any kind were barred. Right then, life was more about watching the fish bowl that Life Care had become, and it had become just that.
It had become commonplace, and even expected to see news footage of family members waiving through windows at their quarantined, elderly, and often dying relatives in their rooms inside the Life Care facility. You could guarantee the next CNN live shot would be either, a patient leaving on an EMS stretcher, with Life Care staff holding up a sheet to protect the resident’s identity, or an angry relative shouting into a reporter’s microphone. Sometimes they were crying, but usually just angry.
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