‘They are all nervous.’ Coronavirus threatens Mecklenburg healthcare workers, report says.

Fear is rippling through Charlotte’s medical community.

Doctors are sending their families to stay with relatives, changing their clothes in the garage when they get home from work and even sleeping in tents away from their spouses.

Health care workers around the globe have fallen ill from the coronavirus, some of them left in critical condition.

As the prospect looms that coronavirus could overwhelm Charlotte area hospitals with new patients, health providers are afraid they could become infected and transmit the illness to their families, medical groups representing doctors and nurses say.

They worry that the hospitals and clinics where they work will run out protective gear they need, officials said. At the same time, they don’t know which patients have the coronavirus because testing has been lacking.

“They are all nervous,” said Dr. John Allbert, president of the Mecklenburg County Medical Society. “They are watching what is happening in New York City and hoping that it doesn’t happen here.”

A county report underscores their anxiety.

Hospitals, ambulances and other medical providers could see a major surge in patients while 25 to 35% of health care providers would be absent from work due to illness, according to Mecklenburg’s pandemic response guidelines plan, which was updated in February.

“In a severe pandemic, the imbalance between supply and demand is likely to overwhelm current health care system capacity,” says the report, which the Observer obtained through an open records request.

Medical experts said the issue is critical because doctors, nurses and others who are infected with coronavirus can unknowingly pass it to patients. If health care workers must take time off to recover, they said there could be a severe shortage of staff to provide care.

State officials have tried to entice recently retired doctors and nurses to come back to work. They also have eased some requirements for graduating medical school and nursing students to allow them to work during the crisis.

In written responses to questions from the Observer, Mecklenburg County officials said the region’s biggest hospital systems — Atrium Health and Novant Health — have taken necessary steps to ensure they are prepared for a rush of new patients.

The county currently has enough personal protection equipment to keep medical workers safe, the statement said.

“We are all working, collectively, to ensure we maintain the appropriate level of supplies not only for the duration of this pandemic, but to ensure we can manage a surge of patients,” the county said. “We will continue working with our state and federal partners to ensure our health care systems have access to the supplies they need.”

Illnesses expected

North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Mandy Cohen said Friday that the state has issued a stay-at-home order effective Monday to slow the spread of coronavirus and help prevent the health system from becoming overloaded.

If the strategy fails, nurses, who are concerned for their safety, will likely face greater risk of infection, said Dennis Taylor, president of the North Carolina Nurses Association.

Taylor said he has seen an estimate that says up to half of healthcare providers will become ill.

The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in North Carolina topped 1,000 on Saturday. Mecklenburg counted 315 infections as of Sunday, the highest total in the state.

“I have no doubt that it will get worse before it gets better,” Taylor said. “In the next three to four weeks, we will see if social distancing has had the impact of flattening the curve.”

Mecklenburg County health officials updated their pandemic response guidelines in late February as the global pandemic was in full swing.

The report is based on what might happen during a influenza pandemic.

But health experts said they believe the coronavirus likely represents a bigger threat because it is transmitted easily and it is a new illness for which humans have no immunity.

Mecklenburg’s report warns of prolonged high demand for ambulance service at a time when more than one in three EMS workers could be out of work ill.

Jonathan Studnek, deputy director of Medic, the area’s ambulance service, said the report does not represent a worst-case scenario, but a situation that forces officials to consider alternative plans.

Studnek said he is comfortable with the amount of personal protection gear that his agency has on hand, but he and other officials have made contingency plans based on workers getting sick.

“That is going to be an unfortunate reality of this situation,” Studnek said.

A shortage of masks

Some doctors are no longer living with their families to avoid possibly transmitting coronavirus, said Allbert, president of the Mecklenburg County’s Medical Society.

A segment of physicians are over age 65 or suffer from medical conditions that make them more susceptible to the worst health consequences from coronavirus, he said.

Doctors are worried hospitals and other facilities don’t have enough N95 respirator masks needed to protect them against infections, Allbert said.

“There is a lot of anxiety,” he said. “It’s all revved up right now.”

The state is struggling to get enough personal protective equipment and other supplies, North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper said last week. And Mecklenburg doctor’s

Speaking by teleconference to county commissioners from around the state on Tuesday, Cooper said the federal government has not “stepped up to provide us with the necessary supplies” to cope with COVID-19.

As of February, Mecklenburg County had purchased and stockpiled 1,300 N95 respirator masks and 60 face shields, according to the pandemic report.

The report recommended hospitals and other medical providers boosts supplies of personal protection gear.

Since February, the county said it has obtained another 100 face masks. Officials said they also received additional N95 respirator masks, but did not specify the number.

The county said that for now it has an adequate supply of personal protective equipment, referred to as PPE, but added “as the number of cases increases, we will need more PPE.”

Seeking donations

Stephen Small, a Charlotte emergency room doctor and past president of the North Carolina College of Emergency Physicians, is taking matters into his own hands.

Small is helping solicit masks from donors in case the virus overwhelms supplies at local hospitals.

Small posted a plea for masks on the Nextdoor social networking site for neighbors.

In a brief interview, he said Novant Health has done a good job saving personal protection equipment, but could run short on masks in a worst-case scenario.

Small is a leadership board member for Mid-Atlantic Medical Associates, which provides emergency room physicians to Novant hospitals.

“There are none to be had,” Small said. “We called a half dozen distributors. It appears people have been hoarding them. I thought let me send this out to my neighborhood and if we could get masks and filter them, it would be better than nothing.”

Small said doctors and others fear coronavirus with good reason.

“It sounds like it is going to get worse,” he said. “The reason this is scary is no human has ever seen this before.”

Staff writer Lauren Lindstrom contributed to this report.

This story was originally published March 29, 2020 at 11:49 AM with the headline "‘They are all nervous.’ Coronavirus threatens Mecklenburg healthcare workers, report says.."