Working Through L.A.’s COVID Nightmare
What Next | Daily News and Analysis
Slate Podcasts
4.3 • 2.4K Ratings
🗓️ 13 January 2021
⏱️ 23 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The coronavirus crisis has risen to new levels in California. Even as vaccines get distributed, hospitals are maxing out their ICU capacity, and sick people in ambulances wait outside for a bed to open up. Amidst the nightmare, one first responder explains how he’s making it through.
Guest: Dr. Clayton Kazan, an emergency physician in Torrance, CA, and the medical director at the L.A. County Fire Department.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The first thing I need you to understand about Dr. Clayton Kazan is that he's got this almost alarming PEP. |
| 0:11.8 | That's what one of our producers called it, anyway. I think you need PEP to do what he does. |
| 0:17.8 | He works in emergency services. So if you call 911 in L.A. County, there's a pretty good |
| 0:23.0 | chance you'll reach someone he manages. The coronavirus means he's busy, really busy. |
| 0:30.0 | From about 8 o'clock on, I'm usually in and out of Zoom calls. Sometimes I've done what I call the hitting for the cycle where you do like a Zoom, |
| 0:40.1 | a WebEx, a Teams, an actual conference call, and I'll hit all the different platforms. |
| 0:47.3 | And I think my record for a day is like 10 Zooms. |
| 0:51.7 | Dr. Kazan can rattle off the coronavirus statistics in L.A. One COVID patient is |
| 0:57.9 | dying there every 10 minutes. But Dr. Kazan, he also feels this crisis from a couple of different |
| 1:05.6 | perspectives. When he works his emergency room shifts a few times a month, he treats patients who are unlikely to live. |
| 1:14.7 | And then when he comes back to work at the L.A. County Fire Department, he can plot out the way his firefighters and EMTs are actually part of community spread. |
| 1:25.7 | There's one day at the beginning of this surge where, you know, the numbers come |
| 1:31.0 | into me every day. |
| 1:32.1 | How many new pauses do we have? |
| 1:33.6 | How many are out sick? |
| 1:35.1 | Just in our department. |
| 1:36.5 | And I'm looking at it. |
| 1:37.5 | And I started sending out GIF files of from Titanic where the captain is standing at the bridge. |
| 1:44.0 | As you can see that the ship is going |
| 1:45.6 | underwater. And I said, this is how I feel at this moment. I like this story, because I think |
| 1:52.8 | it explains something important about the doctor. Even when he's feeling his darkest, he's still |
| 1:59.4 | got that energy, that sense of humor. He's sending |
... |
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