SAN FRANCISCO – Nearly a year into a life-altering pandemic, many Americans are fed up with wearing masks, desperate for a return to normalcy and numb to the relentless stream of grim numbers, such as the 500,000 COVID-19 deaths the USA is about to surpass.
Health care workers don’t want to hear any of that.
They have been working endless hours amid constant death and suffering, forsaking time off and exposing themselves to the disease, leaving them exhausted and with no real indication of when the pandemic will relent.
“There’s definitely some tangible fatigue on the health care workers’ side, being sick of COVID and sick of people disregarding public health guidance, getting sick and expecting us to defer another vacation or put off something else,” said Eric Cioe-Peña, an emergency room physician running a COVID-19 field hospital in Staten Island, New York. “I’ve been telling people who thank me for this, ‘Just tell yourself and everyone you know to wear a mask when you’re out in public places. Don’t clap, don’t give me baked goods. I don’t need any of that. I need you to wear a mask and not get COVID.’”
The toil has taken a toll. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has recorded nearly 409,000 coronavirus cases and 1,438 deaths among health care personnel nationwide, but the agency acknowledges its data is incomplete. A report in late December by Kaiser Health News and The Guardian said the number of fatalities was closer to 3,000.
The arrival of vaccines in mid-December has removed some of the worry for medical workers, who were at the front of the line for inoculations.
Michael Daignault, an emergency room physician at Providence St. Joseph Medical Center in Burbank, California, recalls the joy and relief among his co-workers when they got vaccinated. Several posted online photos of themselves getting the shot, which he said may have helped convince some people that the vaccine is safe.
But Daignault also remembers the exasperation he felt watching his fellow Los Angeles County residents ignore health advice as infections piled up and turned the area into the center of the COVID-19 calamity over the winter.
“Last year was super frustrating for me because I worked most of the major holidays – July 4, Memorial Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving – with the exception of Christmas,” Daignault said. “Listening to the radio driving to work, they’re saying, ‘Please don’t congregate over the holidays, or we’re going to contribute to the spread.’ And it seemed like Los Angelenos celebrated every holiday last year.”
LA, by far the most populous county in the nation, has recorded 1.18 million coronavirus cases and almost 20,000 deaths, more than double the totals for any other county. That has raised concerns about the long-term mental health effects on medical workers there and in other highly affected areas.