In January, when he first heard about the coronavirus, Dr. Eric Alcouloumre
was not particularly worried. Having worked at Hoag Hospital since 1986
and currently serving as its associate director of emergency services,
he thought, “We got this. We controlled SARS. We controlled Ebola.
No problem.”
The 27-year Laguna Beach resident and his wife, attorney Annee Della Donna,
traveled to Peru to climb Machu Picchu.
“While I was gone, our first coronavirus patient was admitted to
Hoag Irvine.”
As a result, a fellow Hoag doctor had to quarantine for two weeks because
he saw the patient without wearing eye protection. It was a wake-up call.
Next came alarming reports from Italy. Hoag prepared for a wave of
COVID-19 cases “just in case.” Then, New York.
“Nothing hit closer to home than seeing the video from inside the
ER at the university hospital in Brooklyn,” Alcouloumre said. “COVID-19
patients were lined up on gurneys in hallways, flimsy curtains separating
them, doctors and nurses not having time to change PPE between patients
and probably becoming vectors themselves. We were seeing impoverished
conditions in our best hospitals, and we weren’t seeing the political
leadership necessary to support frontline workers, as if they were an
expendable resource.
“When I decided to go into emergency medicine, that is not what I
signed up for,” he said.
Although the number of cases at Hoag is increasing, he said, most patients
recover because the hospital is functioning well within its capacity and
with ample resources.
In its early response, Orange County did well, he thought, then blew it.
Starting with protests against Gov. Gavin Newsom’s mandate, Alcouloumre
said, “politicization of the pandemic response took over.”
He laments that confusion was further sown by popular videos like the slick,
fallacy-filled “Plandemic” and two Bakersfield doctors who
shared false information before being rebuked by professional medical
groups and kicked off social media.
He deplores the lack of leadership at many levels, pointing to the Orange
County Board of Supervisors for failing to support its own public health
officer, leading to her resignation. He blames OC Sheriff Don Barnes’s
refusal to enforce mask-wearing as a measure needed to slow the spread.
Alcouloumre said the Orange County Board of Education “put out a
politically biased plan to reopen schools” that contradicts the
recommendations of authorities in public health, education, and medicine.
“Our national political leadership has undermined its experts, leaving
us uncertain of what we should be doing,” Alcouloumre said. “This
has wiped out all the gains we made with our initial efforts.”
He noted that since “almost everyone I saw on news coverage of the
Black Lives Matter protests was wearing a mask,” that did not significantly
contribute to the increase. However, mixed messages from leaders, including
failing to dissuade youth from socializing, “has resulted in young
people becoming the biggest factor in the current resurgence of the virus.”
“I was proud of many Laguna merchants and restaurants in their efforts
to begin reopening safely,” he said, “but now they are suffering
because of a minority that refuses to do the right thing.” The result
is an alarming rise in cases and the threat of another statewide shutdown.
Alcouloumre devotes time daily to sharing his pandemic-related ER experiences
on his public Facebook page, emphasizing that, as with this article, he
is speaking for himself, not as a Hoag Hospital representative.
His takeaway advice: “Be a decent human being, show concern for your
community, and make the sacrifices we all need to make to get through
this together. It’s so simple—wash your hands, social distance,
and wear the mask.”
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