Montana Nurses Association calls on Montanans to flatten the curve

The Montana Nurses Association is asking Montanans to take advantage of the holiday season and use it as an opportunity to slow the spread of COVID-19 throughout the state.

“If everyone would just stay home and adhere to the guidelines, you know, we just recommend trying to go above and beyond just because our numbers are so high here in Montana,” MNA Chief Executive Officer Vicky Byrd said.

A release written by Byrd lists a number of suggestions that she says will help to flatten the curve and save lives.

The release said MNA is asking all Montanans to embrace science, data, and public health experts and work together on every possible safety precaution.

It said mitigation efforts will not see results for at least four weeks from implementation. The holidays are an opportunity to significantly decrease the number of infections, hospitalizations, and deaths the state is seeing.

One suggestion was to stay home as much as possible and only go out for essential needs. She said gatherings, even small ones, will continue to fuel the current surge that has put Montana in a terrible position in terms of COVID-19 spread with 116.4 new cases per day per 100,000 residents.

“That’s horrendous and it’s put us in the top 10 (states),“ she said.

Byrd said gathering irresponsibly, though tempting over the holidays, will continue to make the COVID-19 situation worse.

“That’s the only way it survives and thrives,” she said.

Threats from opening schools

The final recommendation was to keep schools closed until after the New Year by taking advantage of the holiday breaks.

The release cited Dr. Benjamin Linas, an associate professor of medicine and epidemiology at Boston University, who said, “You can only open your school safely if you have COVID under control in your community.”

While COVID-19’s light impact on K-12 schools so far has spurred calls to fill classrooms, the release said, coronavirus infection surges in many parts of Montana and poses a growing threat and in recent weeks, outbreaks have forced some schools to close and revert to distance learning.

“The goal of having children attend school in person — which is how they learn best — will only be safe when our communities have the virus spread under control,” the release says, “And then, when it is possible to reopen a school for in-person learning, a layered approach is needed to keep students, teachers and staff safe.”

Wearing masks

The release recommends that everyone wear masks at all times when leaving the house, socially distance and wash their hands throughly.

It also said people who want to support local food-related businesses should utilize takeout, drive-through, or delivery and avoid dining in, which can easily create super-spreader events if the group is large enough or the dinning room is crowded.

Masks, the release says, help stop the spread of respiratory droplets that carry the virus and see it spread to other people which is especially important because many carriers of the disease never show symptoms, or are capable of transmission before they show up.

Byrd said recent data indicates that 50 percent of all transmissions can be traced back to someone who is asymptomatic or presymptomatic, and the nation and state can’t rely solely on the vaccine, which is still some time away for most people.

“To wear a mask and socially distance and not get the virus, that’s our only defense,” she said. “The vaccine isn’t going to come in and magically save us, that’s still gonna take weeks to months to distribute for it to be effective, and we could lose a lot of lives between now and then.”

She said the refusal by so many to wear masks is extremely disheartening.

“When nurses are putting their lives on the line to help us to protect us, and we’re too selfish to put on masks it’s really not OK,” Byrd said.

Problems for the health care system

Byrd said the COVID-19 situation in Montana has become a source of considerable stress for her and her colleagues and has made it harder for them to do their jobs.

“It is frustrating, because it’s taxing our nurses and health care providers, it’s got the majority of our facilities across the state at or near capacity,” she said. “When nurses are overworked and not getting vacation time, and get called in for overtime, that affects the quality of patient care and we want to take care of everybody.”

Byrd said she and her fellow nurses need Montanans, including elected officials, to take a breath and use the holidays to flatten the curve, and action now can save lives.

“We have to take this seriously,” she said, “we’ve got to make this happen.”