NYC doctor worries about reopening: 'We can't let our guard down'
She said we can’t let our guard down as we go back to more normal activities.
Dr. Sujana Chandrashaker, a top ear, nose and throat specialist in New York and northern New Jersey, started reading about COVID-19 in medical journals and began tracking the virus clinically in early March. She was shocked and scared by what she saw.
Chandrashaker spoke to ABC News’ Cheri Preston, the host of ABC News’ "Perspective Podcast", about her experience and said there is a fear in the city similar to the time after 9/11, but there is a major difference between the two.
"After 9/11, we were all in it together. We were not a danger to each other, we weren’t going to bring 9/11 home to our families. With this I have to tell you, I was so anxious that today was going to be my last healthy day on Earth for the first two weeks of this," she said.
Governors across the country are starting to reopen their states, allowing residents to go to places like restaurants, barbershops and malls, despite warnings from health officials, who say they virus could spread further.
Chandrashaker said the battle between politics and medicine is hurting society, but she understands the push to reopen.
"We can't keep our country and our world closed forever. People have to eat. People have to work. People need the mental health of getting away from their families for some amount of time during the day. Our kids need the mental health break of being with their friends of doing all the things that we used to do a month ago," she said.
She said we can’t let our guard down as we go back to more normal activities.
"As we start opening our world for commerce, we need to know that we still need to physically distance ourselves. We still need to be six feet from other people, and we still need to be wearing a mask. We still need to be wearing gloves even if we go shopping and we still need to wash our hands for 20 seconds, that’s going to happen for a long time. Americans are not used to wearing masks in life and we have to get used to doing that," she said.
Eventually, offices and other workplaces will reopen as more restrictions lift. Chandrashaker said if workers are stressed or have anxiety about being close to co-workers then they shouldn’t be forced to go back into work spaces.
"I think if you don't have to go in and you've been working from home, why shouldn't you continue? If you are getting all the work of your company done and you don't have to be there, and you can be on a conference call and you can be on a Zoom call and you can be this and you can be that. ... I think we're actually going to see a difference in the way a significant percentage of businesses do business," she said.
In her world, changes have already started with doctors seeing patients via telemedicine. She said even more changes will come.
"We are all making our waiting rooms safer, our schedules lighter, so that we can, in fact, see fewer people. You don't have that stereotypical waiting room of a doctor's office where everyone's leafing through the same magazines and coughing on each other. That's not going to happen again," she said.
Even with the new setup, having patients come into an office might become a last resort for doctors.
"I can see you by telemedicine and then say, 'You know what? I want to do this treatment. And if you're not feeling better when we meet again by telemedicine, I really do need you to come in and because you are elderly or have an underlying disease, you're gonna be the 8:00 patient.' So you're going to get in, get out and leave," she said.
She already has a plan for her Wayne, New Jersey, office if she needs to be in the room with a patient.
"You're going to wait in your car and we're going to call you in your car and tell you when to come upstairs. You're even just going to race through the waiting room and get right into the exam room and then race back out and do all the paperwork. All the front desk work can be done remotely. Frankly, I think we're going to go through a full cycle of this, which means we're going to go through essentially a year of this," she said.
All across the country, we see people having more empathy for their fellow citizens, whether it’s by wearing a mask to protect someone on the street, or reaching out to someone alone and isolated. Chandrashaker thinks this needs to continue, especially for the health care workers fighting the virus.
"I think we have to know that there's going to be a lot of recovery. ... I will tell you, I mean, the clapping for the health care workers, it's really wonderful. We will need help for a long time. None of us signed up for a constant flow of death and destruction. I think the fact that we are seeing such positive outpouring of affection from people is really helping the health care workers, the front-line workers," she said.
What to know about coronavirus:
- How it started and how to protect yourself: Coronavirus explained
- What to do if you have symptoms: Coronavirus symptoms
- Tracking the spread in the U.S. and worldwide: Coronavirus map
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