Vicious Rants of an Angry Yellow Man

 I read yesterday that of the nurses who have died from COVID, 30% of them are Filipinos.  Filipinos make up about 4% of the nurses in this country.  So the death rate of Filipino nurses is more than 7 times of what is expected based on their percentage of the total nurses population.  There are, of course, multiple factors involved.  But the death rate of Filipino nurses, like that of all healthcare workers in this pandemic, could have been much lower if all of us had done better.

I don't have the statistics but based on my own experience, the Filipino nurses tend to work in ER, ICU and nursing homes.  Those are areas that have been hit hardest by the pandemic.  I also think they tend to end up at locations where it is difficult to recruit American nurses.  I also suspect when PPEs and other precautions were lacking, the Filipino nurses were less likely to complain and demand safety measures to be implemented.  

Yes, there may be personal factors also.  Filipinos have a higher rate of hypertension and diabetes which are risk factors of having severe complications from COVID.  As immigrants, they may also have to live in homes with more people.  While these factors cannot be changed easily, the actions of the American government and American people should be improved.  

We, the people, should take all the precautions to prevent the spread of the virus.  The less people end up in the hospital, the less chance healthcare workers will get sick and die.  There are people who still believe this is a hoax.  Some still believe in Trump's version of this disease.  I say to these people:  don't go to  the hospital when you sick if that is your belief.  You can stay home and take hydroxychloroquine and inject disinfectants into your body as Trump suggested.

There are still a few weeks until the Biden administration take over.  Until then, not much will change as Trump has basically checked out.  He even left the G20 meeting about the pandemic and went to play golf.  We can't count on anything done before he is out of the White House.  Biden will do better but I notice that the task force he named for the pandemic does not include a nurse.  I think that is a bad omission.  I think the nurses are the ones closest to the patients and their experience in taking care of these patients will give great insight in the war against this virus.