Covid has revealed deep tensions within the medical community
n emergency-room consultant in his late 40s enters a treatment room. He’s wiry and watchful, like a pit boss in a casino. “Hi Ma’am. So, what’s going on?” he says, using the friendly, open voice he’s honed over the years. We’ll call him Dr Croc for anonymity, an alter ego derived from his nickname, “Doc Crocodile”, which, he says, refers to his own “cold, dead reptilian heart”.
Now he is treating a woman who has spent decades working hard to provide for her family but attributes her lack of vaccination to “laziness”.“My family,” she replies meekly. The daughter of the 60-something patient says that she is vaccinated. What about the rest of the family? “None of my three boys is vaccinated. Nine days ago, they all tested positive for covid. So did I. My father, he’s also got covid.”
Croc, who has never had covid, got the vaccine as soon as it became available to health-care workers in December 2020. Since California made the jab compulsory for all medical staff in September 2021, hospitals are reporting that staff inoculation rates are above 95%. The state was among the first to require its 2m health-care workers to get a booster by the start of February.
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