In Search of Wise Management of Medical Resources and Personnel in the Long Combat With Coronavirus

It has been 5 months since the COVID-19 outbroke in Wuhan, China, at the end of 2019. Despite the small sigh of relief in China, the situation seems to be growing more intense in the rest of the world, as the number of cases of confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection continues to increase. What is truly worrying is the condition of healthcare professionals. On March 25th, the number of medical personnel with confirmed infection had reached nearly 6,500 in Spain, representing almost 14% of the country’s total cases, while in Italy, there was about 7,400, nearly one-tenth of its total cases (Wilson and Parra, 2020). Besides the coronavirus, frontline healthcare workers are facing the threat of occupational burnout. Apart from taking care of a substantial number of patients with symptomatic COVID-19, healthcare providers are responsible for clinical screening for asymptomatic or minimally symptomatic patients with suspected COVID-19 while providing necessary health services for other non-infected patients. By April 7th, a doctor at the center of the largest outbreak in a county of the United States had cared for 450 people, among which 41 tested positive and three died. In a hospital in Chicago, the medical staff in an ICU need to do the job of doctors, nurses, and technicians (Fraser et al., 2020). Considering such a burden, any kind of health problems of healthcare workers, from mild mental stress to SARS-CoV-2 infection, may consequently have an impact on the already overloaded medical facilities, or worse yet, accelerate transmission of the pathogen, causing a more intractable situation. Infection-control relies on the health system working at its best, and more essentially, depends on each individual frontline health professional working with adequate personal protective equipment (PPE), including masks, gowns, gloves, and eye protection. As far as we know, however, surging demand for PPE has become a major issue in different areas that has given rise to an interregional scramble for medical resources, potentially intensifying the stress of the disadvantaged areas (Durkee, 2020). The shortage of medical resources underlying the soaring demand for PPE means patients are receiving insufficient care and an increased risk of death, and increased exposure to the coronavirus for the non-infected. For the frontline workers, either way could bring additional workload and negative feelings including frustration, hopelessness, and selfaccusing thoughts. Another problem resulting from such a shortage is inadequate self-protection of healthcare workers that led to concerns over their personal health and spreading the virus to families and friends. Thus, it is obvious that frontline workers are suffering from as much fear and anxiety as the public, as the shortfall of the healthcare workforce continues (Xiang et al., 2020).