yesterday. so we re already seeing this high number of covid patients. and although people do talk about the fact that we don t have this high as death rating with we re having higher hospitalizations. that s impacting the amount of people we can see. we have decreased number of resources, whether it s by nursing shortages that we re having or fact that now we re having staff going out, because they re getting omicron. with that, we have significant shortages so it s impacting our system, it s impacting us nationally. it s everywhere. i want to play some sound that you recorded at the beginning of your shift earlier in the week for folks to see what s going on. this isn t just impact those patients with covid-19 that i diagnose tonight. i m likely to diagnose people with other conditions that need to be admitted to the hospital and i m not sure that we ll be able to get them out of the emergency department tonight. i hope people can do their part
center. dr. spencer, you have been in the thick of it. what are you seeing in the e.r. right now? honestly, our e.r.s in new york city have been full for quite sometime and it hasn t just been covid patients. it has been patients who have been putting off routine care since the pandemic started, quite honestly. the other day i saw a patient who had been putting off a heart surgery that he needed from before when the pandemic started, and he waited until his symptoms got so bad it brought him into the emergency room and he got much worse. so right now we re seeing nursing shortages all throughout the city. we are seeing doctors and nurses leave their job because they re exhausted, they re burnt out, and we are still seeing a lot of patients pile into emergency rooms, hospitals that are full. we just don t have a lot of capacity and wiggle room for another surge of cases. yeah, and what is your concern looking ahead? i just spoke to a doctor in the last hour who predicted it is going