EVEN as the number of coronavirus patients jumped to 872,912 globally today (1.4.2020) with 43,271 having succumbed to this disease and 184,588 recovered, many doctors have died battling this pandemic while American are health-care workers are being pressured to keep silent about their working conditions.
The grim tally in US today, 188,592 cases with an increase of 62 over the past 24 hours and 4,056 deaths with an addition of 3, raises dire concerns with the administration of US President Donald Trump warning on Tuesday that in the best case scenario between 100,000 and 240,000 Americans are still expected to be killed by COVID-19, according to Yahoo News and Worldometers.info.
Here in Thailand there were an additional 120 cases overnight taking the total of 1,771, and two more deaths pushed up the tally to 12.
Disturbingly some American hospitals are threatening to sack health-care workers who air their working conditions during this pandemic publicly, with some having already lost their job, Bloomberg reported.
Ming Lin, an emergency room physician in Washington state, said he was told on Friday he was out of a job because he had given an interview to a newspaper about a Facebook post detailing what he believed to be inadequate protective equipment and testing.
In Chicago, a nurse was fired after emailing colleagues that she wanted to wear a more protective mask while on duty. In New York, the NYU Langone Health system has warned employees they could be terminated if they talk to the media without authorization, the Bloomberg report said.
“Hospitals are muzzling nurses and other health-care workers in an attempt to preserve their image,” said Ruth Schubert, a spokeswoman for the Washington State Nurses Association. “It is outrageous.”
Meanwhile in the Indian state of Assam, a doctor allegedly died after taking anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine as virus prevention, Ndtv.com reported.
The Indian Council of Medical Research, the top government medical body, has recommended the drug for doctors, health workers and family members exposed to the COVID-19 patients
Sources said that the doctor, 44-year-old Utpaljit Barman, who was a senior anaesthetist at a private hospital in Guwahati, had consumed the drug of his own accord as a precaution against COVID-19.
It is not confirmed if the drug triggered the heart-attack, but, sources say, he had written a WhatsApp text to his colleague about feeling uneasy after taking the medicine.
CAPTION:
Medical staff wheel a patient to a high speed train at the Gare d’Austerlitz train station in Paris on April 1 to be evacuated to other hospitals in western France. PHOTO: Thomas Samson/AFP via Getty Images and published by CNN
