28 January, 2020
Returned to work after a wonderful Australia Day long weekend in
Adelaide. First time during my 10+ years of career as a GP in Australia where I
had to wear a surgical mask! This is because our clinic is in Eastwood, a
suburb with a high population of Chinese people. This busy suburb has just
turned very quiet... looks like it's gonna be a cruisy week at work?
4 February, 2020
Seems like some people are started come back to Eastwood… At least the
car park is no longer empty.
7 February, 2020
First time trying out the N95 and goggle combination gear (usually just
consulted in a surgical mask)! Man, this thing is supposed to be really tight
so there is a good seal... felt totally deoxygenated and became dark in the
face! Wore it for less than 10minutes! After taking it off it left imprints on
my nose bridge and cheeks!
1 March, 2020
People started panic buying toilet papers. Some people started exhibiting
violent behaviour, requiring intervention by police.
6 March, 2020
Levelling up on eye protection today using a dentist’s face shield I
borrowed... on the brighter side, lobsters are cheaper in some restaurants like
the Taste of Shanghai (but not in the Fisherman's Wharf Seafood Restaurant).
7 March, 2020
A GP in Melbourne with mild cold-like symptoms who don’t even fit the
criteria for coronavirus testing tested himself for the sake of completeness actually
tested positive! His name and his clinic got written all over the news and he
got abused by politicians who exclaimed that they were “Flabbergasted.” This
type of abuse will just discourage GPs from testing their patients or
themselves for coronavirus.
9 March, 2020
Pathology labs are getting so busy with coronavirus testing that it
takes a few days just to wait for an appointment to get the swab done, and 3
more days for results to come out. People are meant to self-isolate if they go
for testing. Looking at how slow the testings are being done, people might as well just
self-isolate for two weeks! Furthermore, the current Medicare testing criteria
doesn’t cover for mild community acquired cases anyways, and these people will
just slip through the system undetected.
10 March, 2020
Things are getting quite hectic in the highly multicultural city of
Ryde, which is the epicentre of the coronavirus community outbreak. There are
100 confirmed cases in Australia today, with 55 being in NSW! The Ryde Hospital
doctor who caught the coronavirus actually tested negative twice. However, his
symptoms had been so severe that they tested him a third time, and the third
test was positive! We had lots of people flooding in on Monday panicking about
their cold-like symptoms. It’s a bit better today. I don’t wear glasses but
need eye protection during consultations. If I must spend money on buying
goggles, I should just buy a face shield instead. Still contemplating on
whether to freeze my gym membership for a few weeks or not.
11 March, 2020
Tom Hanks and his wife tests positive for coronavirus, making him the
first famous actor to be diagnosed with this disease. Hmm, I was just watching Contagion
with my husband two days ago. He quizzed me about who the main character male
actor was. I knew it was Matt Damon but the words “Tom Hanks” came out of my mouth.
A gift of prophecy?
13 March, 2020
Froze gym membership.
My middle school classmate shares his experience in the epicentre of
Korea:
My husband thought it would be good to buy some stuff from the
supermarket. He also starts going OCD about charting coronavirus trends on the
graph.
14 March, 2020
People started emptying supermarkets. In retrospect, I was lucky to
have made a visit to the supermarket the night before. The thing about panic buying is, all these panicking people squeezing into confined spaces are just gonna increase their chance of catching the virus! It will become a self-fulfilling prophecy: they are really going to need those things they buy very soon.
15 March, 2020
A sudden jump in numbers of infected people in Australia: 100
overnight.
16 March, 2020
More coronavirus clinics open up in the public hospitals. Panicking
people crowd into hospitals because they want to get tested. Doesn’t all that
crowding just increase people’s chance of getting infected?
Just got told that our clinic will run out of face masks very soon. My
husband’s company allowed him to work from home. He is a lateral thinker and
decided to go to a paint store to see if there could be some face masks. Turns
out there were plenty! He bought two painters respiratory kit with replaceable
dust filters. In other words, these are reusable. They look ridiculous, but I
guess they could be useful if we really do run out of face masks.
Eastwood is now crowded with people, all wearing masks. Maybe people
feel safer in masks?
Went to the graduation ceremony for my MDiv. Completed my MDiv April 2019 and waited nearly a year for the once yearly graduation ceremony. They had to modify the
ceremony quite a fair bit due to the coronavirus: no worship singing, no shaking
hands, etc.
19 March, 2020
First attempt to do body pump exercise in my room. The space is too
small and I don’t feel very motivated.
Hospitals don't let staff wear masks:
A RN from Ryde hospital nervously told me hospital pathology wouldn't
let her get the COVID19 test when she had mild cold-like symptoms in early
March, because they think she “didn’t have any symptoms.” She mentioned that
when the nurses tried to get the masks, the NUM angrily threw the whole box of
masks on the floor and went hysterical. Now, the city of Ryde is the epicentre
of the community spread COVID19 in Australia, and many hospital staff got
infected. I think I am lucky to work in a private clinic, because there's no
one stopping us from wearing masks, and no one in our clinic got infected so
far.
20March, 2020
Australia has shut its borders. From 9pm tonight, only Australian
citizens, permanent residents and their immediate family members will be allowed
to enter the country (note: "immediate" meaning spouses, dependents and legal guardians, not parents who are non-dependent of you!). There are now 756 people infected in Australia.
Unfortunately, the death toll in Italy surpassed that of China as of
today, even though the number of people infected is only half of China. Many
Italians regretted laughing at people who wore masks.
I believe the best way to protect yourself is to avoid touching your
mouth, nose and eyes. Be very conscious of what your hand has touched and wash
your hands frequently. Avoid crowded enclosed spaces: if you must go to a place
like this, it’s better to have masks (surgical, N95 or P2) and eye protection.
It’s also important to live a healthy lifestyle to keep up your immunity: sleep
and wake early, eat healthily, do some aerobic exercises to increase your lung
capacity, take vitamin C. And if you develop cold like symptoms, then stay at
home and don’t spread it to other people. And remember to get your flu vaccine.
Telehealth services will be available to:
people
isolating themselves at home on the advice of a medical practitioner, in accordance
with home isolation guidance issued by the AHPPC, and people who meet the
current national triage protocol criteria for suspected COVID-19 infection
after consultation with either the national COVID-19 hotline, state COVID-19
hotlines, registered medical or nursing practitioner or COVID-19 trained health
clinic triage staff.
1) Travellers from overseas with onset of respiratory symptoms or fever
within 14 days of return
2) Close contacts of confirmed COVID-19 cases with respiratory symptoms
or fever within 14 days of last contact
3) Healthcare workers with recent onset of respiratory symptoms AND
fever irrespective of travel history. Healthcare workers who have fever OR
respiratory symptoms should be assessed for testing on a case by case basis
4) Patients admitted to hospital with acute respiratory illness or
unexplained fever
5) Patients with acute respiratory illness or fever in high risk
settings such as hospitals, aged care facilities, residential care facilities,
boarding schools, cruise ships
6) Patients with acute respiratory illness or fever presenting with
reported links to settings where COVID-19 outbreaks have occurred
7) Patients with unexplained respiratory symptoms or fever in
Aboriginal rural and remote communities.
Vulnerable
people:
1) people aged over 70
2) Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people aged over 50
3)people with chronic health conditions or who are immunocompromised
4) parents with new babies and people who are pregnant.
People in isolation or quarantine for COVID-19 can see any eligible
health provider through new telehealth items.
Patients in vulnerable groups can additionally see a health provider
via telehealth for a non-COVID-19 matter if they have seen that provider
face-to-face at least once in the previous 12 months.
The criteria listed above comes from the official information from the
Australian Health Department Area Health Network, which is general in nature,
and not individual medical advice.
For those living in Australia needing individualised medical advice,
please call Health Direct 1800 022 222 or
contact a doctor locally:
