Every disaster is unique, but that doesn’t mean lessons learned from one event can’t be applied to another. In the case of COVID-19, Dr. Stephen Rockoff is seeing to use the lessons he learned during his time as an emergency room physician in Puerto Rico during Hurricane Maria to help with the pandemic response in Detroit, according to an article in Huffington Post.
Much like with the current pandemic, many items were in short supply in Puerto Rico, forcing Rockoff and his co-workers to improvise treatments and jury rig equipment, while considering the need to ration critical resources. This helped to prepare Rockoff for the rationing discussions when it wasn’t clear that Detroit might have enough ventilators to handle an influx of patients. Similar issues have occurred with rationing of personal protective equipment, with Rockoff noting “It’s unthinkable and unconscionable, to be honest, that our frontline providers don’t have the means to care for our citizens with proper equipment.”
The flux in treatments has also meant the situation is constantly changing. Says Rockoff, “We’ve changed our treatment algorithms probably four or five times already. When we find something that is better, they will update it and they’ll put it out to the frontline teams and we will do it.”
Source:
