Health Care Workers Find Themselves on the Front Lines of COVID-19 Fight

On a typical day, pre-pandemic, physician assistant Emily Struebing might be checking on a sprained ankle, shining a light into a sore throat or prescribing a young woman birth control.

These days, she is washing her chapped hands with surgical precision. She is putting on a surgical gown, gloves, an N95 mask and goggles — a process that takes 5 to 7 minutes and must be repeated for each patient — and walking out to a car to swab the nose of an anxious person who may or may not have the novel coronavirus.

She and the other staff at the Methodist testing site will perform this same routine 20 to 25 times each day, answering questions, giving advice on what to do if symptoms worsen and inserting a long, thin piece of plastic called a nasopharyngeal swab up people’s noses so they can be tested for the virus.

Omaha World-Herald: Health care workers in Omaha find themselves on the front lines of COVID-19 fight

KETV: On the front lines: Methodist Physicians Clinic testing for COVID-19