It came together within hours: They would have a Zoom meeting on Thursday, led by physician Jian’an Wang, president of the Second Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang University School of Medicine in Hangzhou. It had sent 123 nurses, 42 physicians, and six other staffers to run an ICU in Wuhan, about 500 miles away, soon after the city was locked down in January. Although the number of new cases there and in surrounding Hubei province has dropped to the single digits (and, on some days, zero), many of the Zhejiang staff are still there.
“When facing a global crisis, sharing of medical and scientific information is invaluable if we are to save lives and halt the pandemic as quickly as possible,” said physician Paul Auwaerter, director of Hopkins’ division of infectious diseases.
A U.S. physician not involved in the Hopkins effort said that more and more of her colleagues are reaching out to those on the front lines in China, South Korea, and Italy for advice, especially as their doubts about guidance from U.S. authorities grow. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention originally told physicians, nurses, and others caring for Covid-19 patients to use N95 masks, for instance, but earlier this month changed that to ordinary surgical masks for most needs.
