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Of: TT
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1 of 3 | Photo: Jonas Ekströmer / TT
Kevin Cho Tipton, a medically responsible intensive care nurse and assistant professor, in Miami, Florida, who has so far had more than 15,000 deaths from covid-19.
He has put his colleagues on a ventilator, based in crowded intensive care units, has received death notices and has been questioned in his professional role.
The politicization of the corona pandemic in the United States has made a difficult time even worse for intensive care nurse Kevin Cho Tipton in Miami.
“At one point, the relatives of a Republican family wondered why I did not give hydroxychloroquine to their grandmother sick with covid (antimalarial medicine), of which President Trump spoke so much,” he says.
– I said it was dangerous for the grandmother given her heartbeat. Then they accused me of politicizing the virus.
For Kevin Cho Tipton, the last six months can be compared to an ongoing marathon with elements of political frustration. As a medically responsible intensive care nurse and assistant professor, he has traveled between Florida’s two largest public hospitals, frequently working 24-hour shifts, and watching entire families die. It has put hundreds of patients on a respirator.
– It is terrible to see the despair of patients with covidity before receiving life support treatment. They gasp and gasp, they’re close to suffocation, he tells TT early one morning after the night shift.
Cho Tipton says the only thing that keeps him going is knowing that he’s helping save lives.
Every six minutes
With 15,000 deaths and more than 720,000 coronavirus cases, Florida ranks third on the unenviable list of CDC states with the most covid-19 cases. Kevin Cho Tipton recalls the first covid disease he dealt with in March, a young migrant worker who survived but whose fall caused concern. At that time, hospitals were poorly prepared, among other things, there was not enough protective equipment.
In April, Florida closed and the hospitals he works at were able to obtain additional protective equipment. Despite the closure, the intensive care units were overcrowded. It got even worse in July, when the gradual reopening of society led to a spike in the spread of the infection.
– For a time this summer, one of the covid-19s in Florida died every six minutes. I myself had to give many death notices. Almost all the families I spoke with said they regretted defying the recommendations, had met at a family party, and were not wearing mouth guards, says Cho Tipton, who emphasizes that he speaks like a private person.
“It pisses me off”
In the United States, as in many other countries, people are encouraged to stay away from others, to wear mouth guards, and to wash their hands frequently. That so many Americans have violated infection control rules blames the country’s leaders whom they regard as poor role models.
– It is dangerous to have a president who obviously ignores infection control measures, acquires covid-19 and then continues to ignore them. The fact that you don’t wear a mouth guard in public ultimately makes it harder for us in healthcare, Cho Tipton says emphatically.
TT: There are only a few weeks until the presidential elections, how do you see the corona virus becoming politicized?
– It makes me angry. Wearing a mouth guard, staying away from others, certain medications – none of that should be a political issue. Both (President) Donald Trump and (Democratic challenger) Joe Biden should leave the virus problems to those with medical experience.
Forced to work
Cho Tipton, who is also a captain in the National Guard, believes local leaders have handled the crisis better. Miami Mayor Francis Suárez was affected by covid-19 this spring. Like President Trump, he is a Republican. But unlike Trump, he advocates the use of mouth guards and was also early in the donation of blood plasma.
– You did the right thing, you helped protect our city.
Cho Tipton himself has started a collection of names to make mouth protection mandatory in Florida. He has not known his parents since last winter and has sent his partner to California, due to the risk of contagion. In what little free time he has, he likes to dig into the statistics. Now think about why the number of deaths per capita is more than double in the United States than in Europe.
– Of course we have an obesity epidemic coming into play, but it is not the whole explanation. In Europe, authorities have helped people with support packages so that they can stay at home during the pandemic. But in the United States, the poor are forced to work in vulnerable environments just to make ends meet. They are the ones who get infected and eventually die alone, he says.
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