Panic is not the problem

Absolute idiocy is the real problem. And most people are idiots.

I just got off the phone with doctors in Bergen County, New Jersey who told me their hospitals are saying doctors & nurses will be *disciplined* for wearing protective gear, including masks. This is dangerous and may be illegal. And their stories are alarming…

Hospital physicians tell me this is happening across the state. Nurses worry they could be fired if they wear protective gear, but worry if they don’t they’re putting themselves & patients at risk. It comes as NJ has an explosion in COVID cases, particularly Bergen County. I’ve heard other hospitals nationwide are enforcing this policy, too. Who knows how rampant it is? Some internal documents we obtained suggest certain federal restrictions by the CDC may be guiding this decision.

If that’s the case, @realdonaldtrump should immediately intervene & prohibit public hospitals from being able to threaten their staff for wearing protective equipment during this crisis, including gloves and masks. This is urgent and common sense. And it will save lives.

Folks have been asking for what the “explanation” is for this decision. We’ve been told the hospital administrators are concerned patients & visitors would be unduly alarmed & fearful if they saw health care workers wearing protective clothing & masks.

I am always very skeptical of decisions that are supposedly made on the basis of “preventing panic”. In most cases, that translates as “the denial of information in order to prevent rational self-interested behavior on the part of the correctly informed”.

And no, it’s not just rumors out of New Jersey, as this case of an Oklahoma nurse fired for wearing a mask will demonstrate:

Kevin Readel worked at the Oklahoma Heart Hospital South for over five years. That was until Wednesday when he claims he was fired for wearing a droplet isolation mask.

“It was to protect myself, to protect the patient and to protect my family,” Readel said.

Readel worked in the Cardiac Care Unit, an ICU area for the heart hospital. Readel said he didn’t wear it all the time, but he was wearing it while putting an IV in a patient on Monday.

“I was trying to maintain some level of barrier,” he said when referencing himself and the patient.

According to Readel, his supervisor approached him and allegedly told him he needed to take it off, stating that it could cause fear and panic among the patients and staff.

Fear and panic are not the problems. Infectious disease and a failure to take basic precautions are. What are they going to do for an encore, ban surgeons from washing their hands prior to an operation for fear that impious ablutions could cause the surgery gods to frown upon the surgery?

We literally had an anesthesiologist WALK OUT because our Chief of nursing refused him having a mask.  

He did the right thing. All medical workers should refuse to work under unnecessarily unsafe conditions. They are on the front lines and their health should be the absolute top priority of everyone involved.

UPDATE: It should not be surprising to learn that the CDC’s policies are insanely counterproductive. It’s being run by corrupt Deep State clowns:

As the coronavirus spread to all fifty states over the last two months, the Trump administration faced mounting criticism for the lack of reliable, widely accessible test kits. Now, a former senior federal health official nominated to his post by President Trump, alleges that the delays in testing occurred because leaders at the Centers for Disease Control “lied” to the president, and to Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, about the center’s ability to produce the kits.

In making the allegation, Chris Meekins, a former assistant secretary of Health and Human Services for preparedness and response, cited private discussions he has held in recent weeks with top federal officials and physicians and scientists employed in private-sector industries that are active in the anti-coronavirus effort. Meekins described his contacts on the White House Coronavirus Task Force as “friends,” some of whom he has known for many years.

“From my conversations with members of the task force, both inside and outside the administration,” Meekins told Sinclair in an exclusive interview, “The U.S. government, from Secretary Azar to the president relied on the Centers for Disease Control to produce a test; they failed….CDC said they would handle it….What we have found out is that these leaders at the CDC lied to both the HHS secretary and, by extension, the president. And as a result the nation got weeks behind.”

This is yet another reason why the Swamp must be drained.