The effects of the shutdown from the COVID-19 crisis are starting to seriously impact the flow of goods and services. A serious concern will be for essential services or goods that people need. If a shutdown lasted long enough, people could die as a result of it.
As doctors and nurses fight to have proper gear to treat COVID-19 patients, pharmacies are dealing with a shortage in medications.
CBS2’s Cory James spoke with a local pharmacist who said she is low on some prescription drugs and she doesn’t know when she will get a new shipment.
“We definitely are on the front lines,” pharmacist Rosa Mathew told James.
Along with doctors, nurses and traditional health care providers, pharmacists, like Rosa Matthew at EZ Care Pharmacy, have been overwhelmed since the outbreak of COVID-19.
“I’m down to my last two packets, so I have to make a decision as to who gets this medication,” said Matthew.
That decision is getting harder each day.
Matthew said an influx in customers is leading to a shortage in medicine, specifically hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin. (source)
The situation is already a few weeks in, and there are already medicine shortages.
This is not good. People are going to die from this.
The morgues in New York City are already at capacity per the DHS, and there is talk of setting up ‘makeshift ‘ morgues. It is only worsened by the fact that nurses who have been treating patients with the disease are starting to succumb to it such as with one nurse in New York.
If you have not already made preparations for the virus, you need to.
Likewise, you need to stay away from people, minimize contact with potentially infected persons, and take good care of yourself because there is no solid information available to assure one of safety.
Speaking as one who researches the news, current events, and history, there is no “safe call” I can give to say that one should in any part at all reduce the current intensity of CDC safety precautions. In reality, they should probably be increased.
To that, it is likely a highly recommended idea to stock up on supplies and medicines if one needs them, to be very careful in following the CDC guidelines stringently, and to be very careful for the next eighteen months about how one interacts in the public.
As always, be ready for the unexpected and take precautions now so one is not caught unprepared.