Diary of a Pandemic Pt. 2
An ongoing chronicle of first-hand experiences from real people living through difficult days.
Voices from the front lines as COVID-19 tightens its grip on America and the world
By Jorge Melchor, Cora Cervantes and Ricardo Sandoval-Palos
Editor’s Note: As the coronavirus infects more than a million people in the United States, professional and frontline workers are feeling the impact, facing exposure and illness yet staying on the job. We reached out to first responders, service industry workers and members of marginalized communities. The goal: An ongoing chronicle of first-hand experiences from real people living through difficult days.
From bad to worse
Teresa Guzmán, owner, Toro Loco restaurant, South Orange, NJ
President Donald Trump recently signed a bill authorizing another $250 billion to help small and medium-sized businesses with payroll, rent and other expenses.
Most of that aid will go out as low-interest loans, in particular to those who continue to pay workers throughout the coronavirus crisis may qualify to have their loans forgiven.
For Teresa Guzmán, owner of the Toro Loco restaurant in South Orange, New Jersey, the aid is too little, too late. She had to lay off most of her workforce weeks ago. Revenue at her once-packed Mexican restaurant and bar slowed to a trickle and she had to cut costs to survive. She has since been selling take-out meals a few hours daily, and community members have rallied around her restaurant, calling in orders worth several hundred dollars each day. It all helps, but it doesn’t make up for the revenue she used to make when people packed her restaurant for lunch and dinner.
“If the local authorities would let us open the bar and sell liquor along with the food, this would help us a little bit more … I’m not asking for millions. I just need to pay my monthly expenses.”
She has tried repeatedly to apply for federal aid, but the Small Business Administration site is confusing and constantly crashes. She doesn’t have any faith that she will be able to tap any of the new aid approved this week.
Her son-in-law and bartender, Oscar Morales, has been helping clean the restaurant and take phone orders. He misses the carefree days when people dropped by the restaurant for a drink, dinner and conversation. As the father of two young girls, he mostly worries that he may not have a job to return to when the virus is over.
“I don’t know when we will be back to normal and able to reopen the bar and continue the way we did before the virus” he said. ”Even if the government is planning to reopen the bars little by little, I don’t know if this would help bartenders like me.”
Caption: Tomas is a Los Angeles-area firefighter.
When first responders have to call 911
Tomás, fireman, Los Angeles County
Tomás, a fireman in a predominantly Latino community near Los Angeles, told us in his first diary entry that he and his colleagues were prepared to take on the coronavirus as it spread throughout the region. His battalion had constantly drilled on handling hazardous chemical and medical incidents.
But this crisis is proving to be a different, unprecedented challenge for first responders. Thousands have been infected around the country, and hundreds have died.
The fear of COVID-19 even struck Tomas’ fire house:
As this coronavirus pandemic has risen, our response procedures have changed. We’ve changed how we approach medical calls. Our dispatching personnel have also had to adjust and have gone through new training to determine if the 911 emergency calls are possible COVID-19 positive (for infection) calls: If it’s a positive response, we are now required to wear a full gown, goggles, mask, and gloves. We’re now supposed to attempt to treat our patients in a well-ventilated area. And, we’ve been advised to treat ALL calls as potential coronavirus calls.
Then came the curve ball: Fire personnel responded to a traffic collision and found a single motorcycle rider down. This type of response normally requires turnout gear -- gloves and a helmet -- just in case we have to extricate a patient. Because of this standard, some of our personnel did not treat this particular call as a potential coronavirus call. They attacked it as a run-of-the-mill traffic collision. After treating and transporting the patient we continued our day with no thoughts of possible exposure.
We then got the call that the person in the accident was a possible coronavirus patient. The result: any personnel who went on the call, not wearing full personal protective equipment, were potentially exposed. Through the assistance of Los Angeles County emergency management services, our fire personnel were able to quarantine in a facility, completely isolated.
After a few days, a medical team was able to run a test on our original patient, from the accident. it was determined that he did not have the coronavirus and was cleared, which in turn cleared our personal.
That’s when it hit me: this is our new normal. Among the many threats we live with every day as firefighters, we now have to add potential exposure and isolation and being required to be away from families.
I walked away from this incident with a new perspective. Unfortunately, I now see ALL patients, fire and accident victims as potentially infected. It is a shame because we not only have to have that mentality with the public, but we need to watch out for our own fellow first responders due to the lack of knowledge about the need for the new coronavirus procedures.
Read more from our Diary of a Pandemic here.
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Ricardo Sandoval-Palos is palabra. managing editor.
Cervantes is a freelance journalist in Los Angeles who focuses on immigration and diversity, equality and inclusion issues. She has produced stories for multimedia outlets, including NBC News, Al-Jazeera, NPR’s Latino USA, and Narratively.
is a freelance visual and data journalist whose video, online, print and broadcast work has appeared on outlets including NBC News, The New York Times, the History Channel, and the Financial Times. He has worked as a freelance journalist in Mexico and the U.S. and currently lives just outside New York City.