Yeah, it's really horrible. They can't allow people to stay home because there aren't enough people to cover the gaps, so it's definitely a unique, odd and scary situation right now.
Another weird thing is that the hospital is currently in lockdown, sort of. We don't allow visits to any of the patients etc. That doesn't apply to the entire hospital though.
Our patients, in the psychiatry department, they are allowed to go home, visit their families, go out and stuff like that. I mean, we have no idea who they meet, but that seems to be totally fine...
Many of our patients are going home over the weekends for instance. They do some grocery shopping, they spend time with their families and then they are coming back to us again.
And, we don't have any safety equipment as we don't have any covid-19 patients (so far), and the only time we will ever use any form of safety equipment is if and when a patient have symptoms. Which is basically too late.
The more people that get the virus (not elderly or vulnerable) the better, as the immunity will rise and the elderly can end their voluntary isolation and not be infected by anyone.
Well, that is true, when it comes to these viruses in general. It's a bit too early to tell if you actually become immune or how long you will be immune in this case though.
WHO warned as late as April 24th that antibodies in the blood doesn't necessarily mean that the individual has developed immunity to the infection. We've seen people recovered from Covid-19 and become ill a second time as well. That might've been because they still had the virus the first time though, but it's not certain.
That being said, even if we become immune, it's extremely stupid to risk patients and hospital personnel by letting psychiatric patients go home and not be under lock down when the rest of the hospital is in lock down. If we become sick, we're basically doomed. There's not enough manpower to cover the gaps if we would stay home.
Which is also why they won't test us.