Hello all. I want to share my friends post from Armenia. As you know we left there in the sumner.
You may be aware of the terrible situation in Artsakh but Covid has made it worse.
Here is her post. I have not edited in any way.
I live in Yerevan, Armenia. When the pandemic began last March cases of Covid 19 slowly rose from two digit numbers to three and at their highest last July were at an average of 450 new cases per day. People were worried then, as that number seemed high, but there were plenty of hospital beds available, and the weather was nice so we all just did our best to stay safe and remained upbeat about the situation.
Fast forward to November. Armenia is at war. Hospital beds are no longer available; the majority of them taken by wounded soldiers. In the bomb shelters in the war torn area about three hours north of Yerevan, people huddle together in basements for hours in large groups trying to stay safe from the bombs that drop above them. Covid is spreading there, at an alarming rate.
80,000 of those refugees have made their way to Yerevan and a lot of Covid cases arrived with them. Illness continues to spread quickly throughout the city. Currently, local schools are on a month long holiday to help stop the numbers from climbing. (My school is still open)
Daily, new cases continue to bounce between 2,300 and 2,900 per day. Death counts, previously around 3 to 5 per day in the summer, have jumped to 20 to 25 new deaths daily. A phone app tells me that around 650 people in Yerevan need a hospital bed every day due to Covid and usually only around 300 beds are available. Ranks already thinned by the need for doctors and nurses at the war front, local hospitals are also short of help as employees become sick with Covid. Supplies and medicines are often unavailable. It’s difficult to find vitamins, particularly Vitamin D in the pharmacies.
Today is Saturday and I had to go to the hospital for some blood work. I could have gone earlier in the week, but I waited for the weekend to be one of the first at the hospital when the lab opened at 9:00 to avoid as many people as possible. I went first to the insurance desk to pick up my paperwork and thought it odd that only one woman was working there. Usually there are six.
Masks are mandatory here by government law. The woman helping me wasn’t wearing a mask, but when she saw that I was, she put hers on too.
I was the only patient at that moment, but the hallways were crowded with people outside this office area. Most of them didn’t have masks on either. I noticed that two workers in another department nearby, had their masks around their chins and they were speaking in hushed tones, heads together, leaning into one another, as if sharing a secret. I looked at them, starred actually, and when they saw me looking, they first looked around to see if there were any other employees who might be watching them, and noting none, ignored me and went back to their conversation without putting their masks on.
Thirty minutes went by. I had been assured that all the paperwork was done, but this woman couldn’t find mine. She made five phone calls, asked me to speak with another doctor on the phone for approval, and finally, I’d had enough. I told her, politely, that I came this morning because I was assured on Thursday that the paperwork had been sent, that everything was approved and that I would only have to wait 5 minutes. What was the issue? Did I need to call the manager of my insurance company to help?
She became flustered. I said, “Look, I’m not angry with you, and I can see that you’re working hard to figure this out, but obviously there is a problem and I want to help fix it as quickly as possible.” I felt trapped, at risk, wishing to get out of this hospital as quickly as possible to minimize my risk of catching Covid. There were no windows, no ventilation. How could I possibly protect myself from illness in this situation?
That’s when the woman put the papers and the phone down, took a deep breath, looked me in the eye and said, “I’m trying to help, but I don’t work for your insurance company. I don’t know what to do. Your insurance person isn’t here. The other five people who are supposed to be at work this morning are all out sick with Covid. I have to do all their work for all the insurance companies today alone.”
That’s when the reality of 2,500 new Covid cases per day hit me. She was the last person standing. What will happen when she gets sick too? And knowing this, why aren’t these people wearing masks and following procedures to keep themselves safe?
We’ve been lucky. At our school we have 58 employees and so far, only three currently active cases. Those numbers were nerve wracking enough for me. But here in this one hospital department five sixths of the employees were sick with Covid.
We finally got the paperwork figured out and I went down the hallway to the lab. I had to push my way through the numbers of mask-less people in the hallway waiting to see their doctors. I felt frightened as I made my way there with people sneezing, blowing their noses and speaking with each other without distancing as I made my way down the hall. What were they thinking? Why aren’t they wearing masks in a hospital where they know people are here because they are sick?
Finally I reached the lab, and opened the door. Inside a room the size of a small office were four workers in a closed, non ventilated room. None of them had masks on. They were sitting enjoying coffee together. I wondered how long they’d been there. Covid is transferred from one person to another in infected droplets of water vapor that can linger in the air for hours in a non ventilated space. If there had been a window in the room, I would have opened it. There was none.
I asked if anyone spoke English. No one answered. Assuming that they didn’t understand English, and since I can’t speak Armenian, I pointed to my mask and gestured for them to put theirs on. They clearly didn’t want to. One of them even held up their coffee cup as if to say, “Hey lady, we’re drinking coffee here, we don’t need to wear a mask for you.” They looked at one another to see if one of the others would go first and put their mask back on. I stood and waited, then when no one complied, I touched my mask again and said in my best teacher voice, “Masks. NOW.” Everyone put their masks on. Their hostility was palpable. I smiled and thanked them, got the blood work done and raced outside.
This happened at a HOSPITAL - one of the best in the city!
I can’t catch Covid. I just can’t. How is a person supposed to protect themselves from getting sick when the city is in the middle of a pandemic and people won’t comply with government regulations? Right now I personally know thirteen people who are sick with Covid, and I’m a foreigner who doesn’t know many people.
I have these conversations all the time. People think herd immunity is a year away. It is not. They think there will be a vaccine soon. Maybe. They think masks don’t work. They do. Some people I know still doubt that this is a “real” illness. They don’t even flinch when I tell them that I lost my father to Covid last spring. “He must have been sick with something else,” they say. He wasn’t. Three people have actually told me that if I’m not healthy enough to withstand Covid, then it is a “natural selection process” where maybe nature is telling me it’s my time to die. They actually said this! I had a hard time containing my anger when confronted with that sentence, and yet I also know, nothing I could say would likely change their minds. Some people don’t take Covid seriously until it touches them personally.
I realize that there are just as many people around me who are helpful and kind, who wear masks, who do care for others and care for me; who understand science, and who play by the rules. I just didn’t happen to meet them today; but it begs the question, what are we going to do? How are we going to contain this pandemic? When will it all end?
For my part, I’m going home to “turtle”. I will not come out of my safe little shell of an apartment until work on Monday. A dear friend who is very sick with Covid at the moment said to me on the phone this week, “People don’t understand how awful this illness really is. I’m so sick. I wouldn’t wish this on anyone.”
She asked me to stay safe, and I will try. But how?
#armenia #covid19
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