Heroes, vectors or victims health professionals require all the necessary resources to fight the COVID-19 pandemic
The involvement of SARS-CoV-2 infection in health personnel constitutes a serious problem for controlling the effects of the pandemic. The contagion of health personnel constitutes not only a risk for the professionals who are infected, but also for their work, family and social environment, becoming a “vector of trust” during the incubation period of the disease. The ignorance of an exact viral contagion period and the high possibility that totally asymptomatic or oligosymptomatic patients are transmitters of the virus constitutes a serious problem and is one of the factors of the fast and increasing number of infections. The advance of the pandemic, its rapid acceleration and easy spread, the access of health personnel to the adequate protection equipment for the management of patients who are carriers or at risk of being carriers of the SARS-CoV-2 virus is a growing concern. In many countries, health workers have priority in accessing the scarce personal protective equipment (PPE), but frequently they are obliged to assist patients, possibly in periods of infection without clinical manifestations. Becoming vectors of pathology is another cause of concern for health workers. The fact that these workers often have to work in various institutions further increases the risk of transmission and, due to the contagion, they are forced to complete isolation, leaving their workplaces uncovered, forced to hire new personnel, often without adequate training or unaware of the work methodology in that place with the consequent increase in errors in the proper management of patients. It is vital that the authorities do not see health workers as mere pawns to be deployed on a battlefield without the adequate weapons to combat the pandemic, but must prioritize the indispensable resources in addition to the economic one and provide, in addition to the measures of personal protection for him and his patients, but also of the resources, provision of adequate rest, support for him and his family and even psychological and legal support that allow him to carry out this battle with the least amount of victims. By the way, one can acquire the protection elements on the market perhaps from one day to the next, but they will not be able to train trained health personnel in such a short time. The following presentation tries to provide authorities and health professionals with a vision of the forms of protection that are absolutely necessary, even after the patient’s death, to avoid becoming vectors of the disease and continue working as the heroes of this disease. pandemic. It is absolutely necessary to understand that protecting them protects their environment, other patients, their family and finally the community, thus avoiding the vicious circle that maintains the pandemic.
