Think about the COVID-19 virus and how much of a burden it is putting on our health care workers, the doctors and nurses at our hospitals and urgent care facilities across our nation. Think about five or six highly trained medical professionals required to turn a COVID-19 patient from supine to prone and then back to their back and then back to their stomach again and again because this is part of the protocol required to relieve the burden on the lungs, or to discourage clotting. The point is that COVID-19 patients require, at times, a high level of intensive care by many many nurses and doctors. Our nation’s citizens need to up their game significantly in order to not lose more of these professionals due to attrition or worse … death. And, they are needed greatly.
Nurses and doctors are exhausted physically and emotionally. One of these professionals said her 4 and 8 year olds no longer greet her when she comes home due to the risks. Emergency 911 calls are starting to be impacted in areas where patients must be transported to other hospitals.
Wearing a mask and distancing is inconvenient as heck. None of us like to wear stuff covering our mouths when we’re trying to live our day-to-day lives. It’s a pain to hear sometimes. My nose itches every time I put a mask on. I get the inconvenience. But a sacrifice? Not so much. Losing a loved one, not being able to breath, or suffering for months after the COVID-19 contagiousness is gone is an unnecessary sacrifice that we can help to prevent but cannot undo once the virus gets ahold.
Whose freedoms are really important? We must be able to agree mutually that life is full of inconveniences. Let’s accept that reality and take a deep breath and think about ways to get through this in a problem solving way. There are facts we can use to help us.
United we stand. Divided we fall. Suck it up and wear a mask until you hear from a trusted epidemiologist, like Dr. Anthony Fauci, that we are out of the woods and can relax our behavior a bit. Get out of your head and engage in helping to solve this problem. It’s easier than the law enacted making smoking in a public indoor space illegal. If you’re a smoker or know a smoker, you’ll recall how that changed our behavior. But you adjusted to that or know someone who did. Remember the reaction to the seat belt law way back when? It’s a natural feeling now, but it was inconvenient at first. We have adapted to so many things to stay safe or to become safer. We don’t need to die because we are stubborn, do we?
Come on!
Marla Hunter is a resident of Naalehu.