Those of us in the field of anesthesia have witnessed this in our post operative patients for years. Patients who were older (+60), extremely ill in the first place, or badly injured patients who needed to be on a ventilator for an extended period of time are prone to this type of delirium. Advances have been made trying to minimize these types of reactions, but no one could anticipate what we as practitioners, and the volume of extremely ill patients could experience if they make it out of the hospital alive. What a terrible situation, +1000 deaths a day, no PPE, drug shortages, bad advice, bad leadership, leaves us with a shattered economy, and a long road home!

The mental price of this pandemic is just starting for both patients and practitioners. There is no amount of money that will change what has happened and what is going to happen if we ignore science. The best we can do is try not to get ill ourselves, and hope our federal government recognizes the help that states need financially to protect their health care systems from the ground up, keep garbage off the streets, food on the shelves, and testing, testing, testing! We are just getting started! 70,000 and counting!