This California doctor saw COVID-19’s devastation in New York. Will it happen here?
“I was holding back tears with one of my colleagues as we just listened to the family’s howls and sobs and watched the life leave one of our patients. And I think if people could see how heartbreaking that is, and how devastating this scenario has been for people, they would really understand that this isn’t an isolated thing.”
“Seventy percent of the patients we had in that ICU died and, and over 300,000 people across the U.S. have died in similar fashion — alone and in the care of strangers.”
These are the words of Dr. Alex Schmalz, an emergency care doctor on the frontlines of Sacramento’s COVID-19 surge. In this episode of the California Nation podcast, I talk to Dr. Schmalz about his experience in New York and his warning to Sacramento residents as California endures a third wave of infections: “This virus can affect you.”
Last spring, Schmalz volunteered to go to New York City to help confront a COVID-19 surge that killed thousands of New Yorkers. So many people died of COVID-19 during the first wave of the coronavirus in New York City that funeral homes couldn’t keep up with the demand. Many of those who succumbed to the virus were buried in mass graves.
For Schmalz, a young doctor new to his medical practice, it was a horrifying experience. Now he’s back in Sacramento and fears California’s winter surge of COVID-19 could result in similar carnage if Californians don’t remain vigilant against the threat.
With California’s infection numbers spiking just a few weeks after Thanksgiving, hospital beds and intensive care units are filling up. Gov. Gavin Newsom announced this week that he’s requested thousands of extra body bags and refrigerated mobile morgue trucks to handle a potential overflow of bodies. So far, 21,881 Californians have died, including over 700 in Sacramento County.
“The state says there is now no remaining capacity in the sprawling Southern California region, home to 20 million people,” reports Michael McGough of The Sacramento Bee. “After days fluctuating to and from 0%, the San Joaquin Valley region of 7 million people had 0.7% as of Thursday.”
Schmalz fears that Californians may learn the hard way, as New Yorkers did, that “this virus is real and it is very scary.”
“I see, every day, people who are surprised that they got COVID because they went to these gatherings,” Schmalz said of what he’s now seeing in Sacramento during COVID-19’s third wave. “And I see people who are coming in with their loved ones that they went to those gatherings with, and their loved ones might be really sick. Sometimes they really are. And then there’s this crazy amount of guilt that people have because ... you don’t know if you gave that to them.”
In our conversation on California Nation — and in a forthcoming op-ed in The Bee — Schmalz shares his experiences in New York and Sacramento. He also asks Californians to remember one simple thing this holiday season: “You can make a difference.”
“We also would encourage the community to realize that they also have this impact ... to do things like wear a mask and stay at home,” he added. “They can make just as big, if not bigger, of an impact than we can the hospital … We can only affect people once they come to the hospital with COVID or other medical issues. But the thing that prevents COVID from spreading rapidly is the work that you guys do out in the community and at home.”
This story was originally published December 18, 2020 at 5:00 AM with the headline "This California doctor saw COVID-19’s devastation in New York. Will it happen here?."