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The bottom strap of the N95 mask snapped in half as Harry pulled it over his head. Harry hissed a curse in a language he didn’t know – he had been learning a lot of them from his multilingual friends lately.
It was a new mask, only used once so far, and his nose had been running so profusely this week that he could not bring himself to wear yesterday’s mask. He turned around to scour the cabinet behind him for silk tape.
To the untrained eye, the doctors’ and nurses’ station in the emergency department today did not appear much different from the typical scene of clutter and clamor. Harry’s co-workers, nurses and other resident doctors, scurried between their 20th century computers and their newly arrived patients in the hallway. A command call from paramedics over the radio warned of an incoming octogenarian with oxygen saturations in the 60s. Jugs of room-temperature coffee sat abandoned at their desks, and yellow keyboards lay buried underneath sheets of EKGs and sticky notes. The most readily noticeable anomalies, however, were the metal tray tables blocking the doors to all the patient rooms. They were stacked with empty boxes.
Harry looked up from his art project in time to see Dr. Fudge, the ultrasound specialist of the department, sauntering down the walkway toward him, empty boxes cascading to the floor as he went.
“Oh, Harry, you just got here? Thank goodness.” Dr. Fudge had forgone his usual diarrhea-green scrubs for a pastel-pink polo and a pair of khakis. “I could use some help, if you have a moment.”
“Um, sure.” Harry turned away to wipe off a globule of snot from the inside of his N95. “What can I do for you?”
“Your colleague, Ron.” Dr. Fudge sighed before continuing. “This colleague of yours left the ultrasound machine in room 13. It’s a COVID room.”
He paused and gave Harry a piercing look. Harry blinked.
“Well, I have a meeting to go to at noon and I don’t have the time to put on the PPE myself. But the machine has some pictures stored that the cardiologist needs to see. Would you mind–”
“Sure, no problem,” Harry said quickly. His nose was starting to run again. All he could think of was the Sudafed hiding in his backpack.
“You’re the best, Harry.” Dr. Fudge reached forward as if he was about to pat Harry on the shoulder, had second thoughts, and turned on his heels to leave the department.
Harry started to don his protective gear. One week ago, all of the staff had been encouraged to follow Ebola-worthy precautions: first set of nitrile gloves, plastic gown with a belt tied around the waist, surgical hairnet, airtight N95 mask over nose and mouth, surgical mask with faceshield over the N95, and finally a second set of gloves. The process took about five minutes of preparation before each patient visit, and two minutes afterward to ungown safely. Harry struggled to breathe through the thick layers of fabric, and elderly patients struggled to hear him talk.
This week, however, was a different era in the coronavirus war. Protective gear was in critical shortage. Harry put on his repaired N95 mask, taped an oversized pair of gloves to his wrists, and opened the door to room 13. Behind the curtain, he stopped to knock on the wall beside him.
“Is it all right if I come in?”
There was no answer, and Harry threw the curtain aside. A pale, spindly, silver-haired old woman lay on the gurney, sleeping. Multiple layers of blankets were pulled up to her shoulders. The rest of the room resembled Harry’s apartment on a bad day, with plastic wrapping strewn across the floor, and trashcans overflowing with paper drapes and more plastic. The sharps basin looked like something out of a medieval torture chamber with six-inch needles protruding from the top. The ultrasound machine – a computer on wheels with a touchscreen keyboard, and four different-shaped probes hanging from side pockets – waited patiently on the other side of the patient’s bed.
Harry waded through the plastic and sidled between the resuscitation cart and the foot of the bed to reach the ultrasound machine. As he did so, he looked over his shoulder at the patient again.
There was something odd about the room, an eerie stillness. First of all, the cardiac monitor was turned off. Second – Harry felt a bead of sweat roll down his forehead as he realized – the patient wasn’t breathing.
Now Harry noticed the yellow tinge to the patient’s otherwise paperwhite skin. A touch of purple was starting to pool at the base of her neck. Dependent lividity. So the patient was dead.
Harry left the room with the rescued ultrasound machine in tow, careful not to collide with the resuscitation cart on the way out. Outside, he sprayed the entire machine with disinfectant, then found a second spray bottle and doused the outside of the first bottle with more disinfectant.
“Ron, why didn’t you tell me your patient was dead?” Harry asked. Ron had just returned from the trauma bay, and a line of red splotches stained the front of his pants.
“What, she’s still there?” Ron slapped his palm to his forehead. “Let me call the morgue again–”
“Nah, I’ll take care of it, Ron,” said Harry. “You look like you need a trip to the locker room.”
Ron laughed nervously before Harry picked up the receiver to dial the morgue’s number.
“Hi, this is Harry Potter, one of the ED residents. I’m calling regarding –”
“The patient in room 13? All cardiac arrests are being treated like potential COVID cases. We’re trying to figure out how to bring them down to the morgue safely.”
“But she died hours ago.”
There was a pause on the other end of the line. “We’ll be upstairs as soon as we can.”
Harry thanked the mortician and hung up the phone. Salty yellow mucus from his nose was streaming down over his lips. He looked behind him at the door to room 13, and then beside him at the pile of empty boxes. All the Kleenex, gowns, and masks were gone, and only the XX-Large nitrile gloves remained. He ripped off a long strip of cardboard from one of the boxes and blew his nose into it.
As for his N95 mask – he wiped it down with hand sanitizer, folded it in half, and slid it into his pocket for safekeeping. For all he knew, his life depended on it.