Local ER doctor on why hospital workers are upset about the public’s behavior during COVID

Many people are feeling COVID fatigue. They’re fed up with having to stay inside and perhaps giving up their holidays with friends and family. People working in hospitals have a different kind of fatigue.

Mark Morocco, an LA-based physician and professor of emergency medicine, recently penned an LA Times op-ed titled “On the COVID frontlines, we’re tired of hearing lame excuses for risky behavior.”

He tells KCRW, “If you don’t have a bed to land in an ICU unit, you’re going to be in big trouble. And that’s why we need to get a handle on this and keep it down below the levels until our treatments and vaccines can kick in. And the next six weeks, we think, is going to be a critical moment.”