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Dancing Nurses: Too Much Fun In The Pandemic War Zone

Are dancing nurses sending the wrong message?
During the current COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, billions of people are worried about becoming infected. Like firefighters running into a blaze to save lives, doctors and nurses are risking their own health and safety by willingly working in hospitals.

They're heroes, working inside of buildings with high concentrations of infected patients. Indeed, many doctors, nurses and other hospital staff (let's not forget the janitors, technicians, cooks, and others) have themselves become infected.

The work they're doing is not only essential, it is also very stressful. Imagine watching the suffering and death that they see every day. Like other human beings, they need to relax and deal with their stress.

But they're not alone in that. There are many other jobs that are as stressful and, sometimes, more dangerous. Yet most people -- indeed, most healthcare workers -- don't "relax" by planning and choreographing elaborate dance videos, then recording them in their place of work while on the clock.

THE OPTICS ARE REALLY BAD


In short, the dancing nurses videos are a public relations nightmare. Not just for nurses, but for doctors and hospitals in general. And I'm not talking about how I feel. I'm talking about how millions around the globe feel when they watch the dancing nurse videos. The media keeps telling us that hospitals are "war zones." No doubt some are, but from appearances not all. Who choreographs and performs a dance video in the middle of a damned war zone?

The media and the authorities warned us for months that hospitals would be overflowing, with a shortage of beds. Yet there they are, nurses dancing in what appear to be non-crowded facilities. They told us that there wasn't enough PPE (personal protection equipment) for the nurses and doctors. But in many videos, the dancers not only wear their PPE but also use it and equipment as props, sometimes in what looks like empty examination rooms.

Healthcare staff -- nurses and doctors especially -- have a factor to consider in their occupation that the average worker does not. Mentioned above already, that factor is suffering and death. The dying aren't the only ones who suffer. There are their families and loved ones who feel the pain of loss. So when those people -- the ones left behind -- see the caretakers of those they've lost essentially make light of a nightmarish situation, some become understandably upset.

Nurse Practitioner Reacts to Dancing Nurse PPE Videos - Posted to YouTube by Nursejanx on April 21, 2020



DANCING WITHOUT MASKS


You and I have also been told to wear facemasks to keep from infecting other people -- just in case we're infected but don't know it yet. People can contract the virus and not have any symptoms, we're told, for up to two weeks. That can include nurses, of course, and they're exponentially more likely to become infected than the average American who does not work in a building where people known to be infected and infectious are actually encouraged to come in.

"While COVID-19 is believed to be spread mainly by inhaling droplets released when an infected person coughs or sneezes, these droplets can also land on surfaces. A healthy person can then unknowingly touch those surfaces and the next thing you know – the virus has gotten a free ride to wherever and whatever the person touches next."

You might assume that all the doctors and nurses in hospitals are not carrying COVID-19. You would be wrong, as shown in this Reuters report about infection risk to doctors and nurses:

"Many medical centers are testing only the workers with the most severe symptoms, according to the frontline workers and hospital officials. As a result, nurses and doctors risk infecting patients, colleagues and their families without knowing they are carrying the virus, medical experts say." The report also noted that, "While the infected workers represent just 2% of the system’s overall staff, the high percentage of positive tests in the initial round signals that further testing could reveal many more infections."

We know that a person can have no symptoms yet be infected without knowing it. This is just as true for a medical worker as it is for anyone else. As the Reuters report points out, many medical workers are not being tested. But consider this: Even if a staffer tested negative yesterday, that does not mean she couldn't have become infected after that test - and could now be contagious despite a lack of any symptoms.

Which brings us to the videos of dancing nurses who are not wearing face masks. Dancing is an aerobic exercise. It makes you breathe in and out deeply. Unavoidably, the dancer spews droplets of saliva and/or mucous.

As pointed out in an April 24 article by Cleveland Clinic, "these droplets can also land on surfaces." Many of the dancing nurses are doing their routines in examination rooms, hallways, and other areas used by fellow workers and even patients.The environments in which the dancing nurses' videos are made, therefore, are ideal for person-to-surface-to-person transmission of coronavirus. The Cleveland Clinic article continued:

"'The virus typically doesn’t like to live on surfaces that have a lot of holes or microscopic little grooves, nooks or crannies,' explains Dr. Esper. 'It likes surfaces that are very smooth, like doorknobs.' Early research has demonstrated that the virus’s survival depends on the type of surface it lands on. The live virus can survive anywhere between three hours and seven days, depending on the material."

During those dancing medical staff routines, potentially-infected spittle lands on hard surfaces. That includes anything nearby, from examination tables to equipment to doorknobs...all of which a patient or other staff can (and likely will) come in contact with.

The dancing nurses video is NOT unique to United States. Videos of dancing nurses -- with and without masks -- are being posted to TikTok and other social media from around the world. These dances are NOT spontaneous moments of joy. ALL of them are planned, some more than others. The dancers choose their music, they choreograph the dance routine, choose their props, stage the event, and then record it. All of that is time-consuming.

With all that said, let's watch some dancing maskless dancing nurses showing us all just how fun it can be to work the Global Pandemic War Zone:

Nurses spread joy during corona outbreak with TikTok dance videos | Nurse Kala Baker brings joy - Posted to YouTube on April 1, 2020 by Asad Empire



This is a repost of a segment from ABC's Good Morning America show. (No sound until 0:43) GMA interviewed Kala Baker, a nurse at Mercy Hospital in Springfield, Missouri. NOTE, at 2:26, that the chyron says "Nurse goes viral while fighting coronavirus." (I wanted to note that because in my Twitter post a few days ago, a lot of ignorant people too lazy to do their own Google searches questioned whether dancing nurses videos were actually made during the COVID-19 crisis.)

In her interview with GMA, she said this: "Obviously it's just been a little bit stressful around here, and it was just a good way, I saw a video and I thought we could do that. And so it was a good way just to step away from our work for a second and, ah, bring some joy to the people around us and just to my coworkers, that we could all get together and do something fun." That merits analysis.

Nurse Baker said "it's just been a little bit stressful around here." We'll assume that was understatement, and that the hospital has been very busy with many COVID-19 patients. She was inspired to make a video, which she said was "a good way just to step away from our work for a second." But was it really for "a second?" It was a well-choreographed dance routine, for which they carefully chose music. We've all been in stressul situations when we stepped away from work "for a second." But what Baker and her fellow dancers must have done was to have at least one planning meeting, then at least one more to choose the music and plan the choreography, probably at least one rehearsal, and then record the actual dance. "For a second?" Really?

These videos take time to plan and produce:
Nurse Baker further said that the dancing gave them an opportunity to "all get together and do something fun." Are they prisoners in the hospital? Has anybody heard reports of hospital staff not being allowed to go home? And why do nurses think that projecting a "fun" workplace - in a place of disease, suffering, and death - is a smart public relations strategy?

DOCTOR'S & NURSE'S DANCE WITH CORONAVIRUS IN THE HOSPITAL (Doktor Hemşire Korona Dansı) BEST DANCING  - Posted to YouTube on April 9, 2020 by Funny Videos Channel



This video, above, is especially interesting. It's a compilation from other videos. Let's break it down and highlight some of what we see here. At 0:28, we see staff WITHOUT MASKS about to dance. Granted, they put their facemasks on, but it only takes a second for virus-tainted particles to be expelled from one's mouth or nose. Following that, at 0:38, we see two staff with NO facemasks.

Notice that they do a weird handshake thing without gloves. Aren't we all supposed to avoid handshakes right now? At 1:06 we see two staff with no masks, no gloves, no PPE desperately trying to look cool. At 1:18, staff without masks do an unimaginative routine in what appears to be an examination room. After spewing COVID-19 into the room, will they fully sanitize everything in there? At 2:03, four staff without masks prance around. At 2:19 we see a child-sized bed. A female staffer runs into frame, wearing no mask, gloves or PPE, and collapses onto the bed. Suddenly, another female comes in and jumps onto the back of her still-slumping colleague. Then another female. None wear masks. At 2:44 we see the same staffer we saw earlier at 1:18, still maskless. At 3:06 a maskless female dances in front of what looks like an examination table. At 3:28, five maskless staffers dance.

At the end of their routine, a nurse does the splits and her ungloves hands go down on the floor. Those are nurses at Mercy Hospital in Springfield, Missouri, who you will see much more of in the Good Morning America segment in a video below.

Nurses spread joy during corona outbreak with TikTok dance videos | Nurse Kala Baker brings joy - Posted to YouTube on April 1, 2020 by Asad Empire



This is a repost of a segment from ABC's Good Morning America show (there's no sound until 0:43). GMA interviewed Kala Baker, a nurse at Mercy Hospital in Springfield, Missouri. NOTE, at 2:26, that the chyron says "Nurse goes viral while fighting coronavirus." In her interview with GMA, she said this: "Obviously it's just been a little bit stressful around here, and it was just a good way, I saw a video and I thought we could do that. And so it was a good way just to step away from our work for a second and, ah, bring some joy to the people around us and just to my coworkers, that we could all get together and do something fun." That merits analysis.

Nurse Baker said, "it's just been a little bit stressful around here." Perhaps that was a deliberate understatement, and that the hospital has actually been very busy with many COVID-19 patients. Stressed out, she was inspired to make a video, which she said was "a good way just to step away from our work for a second." But was it really for "a second?"

It was a well-choreographed dance routine, for which they carefully chose music. We've all been in stressful situations when we stepped away from work "for a second." But what Baker and her fellow dancers must have done was to have at least one planning meeting, then at least one more to choose the music and plan the choreography, probably at least one rehearsal, and then record the actual dance. "For a second?" Really?

Here's something interesting about Mercy Hospital: They're really not a "war zone." An April 10 report in the Springfield News-Leader says they recently "furloughed 283 employees, with 183 of those redeployed to other...positions." Not only that, but Mercy staff also get plenty of paid time off. The article quotes Dave Dillon, Missouri Hospital Association vice president for public relations as saying, "At the same time -- despite the fact that we may be in the calm before the (coronavirus) storm -- utilization is down in general." Translation: This is not a "war zone."

Mercy Hospital is in Christian County, Missouri and has a total of 914 beds. On April 27, the county reported 20 cases according the KY3 News. Let's repeat that. Mercy Hospital has 914 beds in a county that has reported just 20 cases of COVID-19 as of April 27. No wonder Kala Baker & Friends have so much time to produce dance extravaganzas in their "war zone."

Matt Walsh took a look at nurses dancing during the pandemic. Hospital Staff Records Tik Tok Dance Videos During Pandemic - Posted to YouTube on April 13, 2020 by The Daily Wire



Tik Tok Dancing Nurses? What Is This Garbage? Empty Hospitals? -  Posted to YouTube on April 13, 2020 by ShatterPoint TV



"Why are these nurses and doctors dancing around like clowns when we are being told people are dying by the thousands? All smiles not a care in the world. Something strange is going on." NOTICE that, again, we see dancers without masks.

This video not only shows maskless medical staff in New Zealand, but is one of the worst examples of poorly considered public relations ramifications ever.

Offensively bad Haka by UK hospital nursing team - Posted to YouTube on April 19, 2020 by Har



TikTok | Video NHS Nurses Across The UK Dance To Keep Thier [sic] Spirits Up - Posted to YouTube on April 24, 2020 by Caelan Walker



Pakistani & Turkish Doctors Dance With Coronavirus Patient in Hospital.COVID-19.....2020 - Posted to YouTube on April 12, 2020 by sultan ke Dunya

How disappointing. The first half of this video shows doctors dancing among patients, but all are wearing masks. But then, about halfway through, we see doctors wearing NO masks dancing very close to patients. They high-five patients (hand contact!), coming to almost face to face with them.



REACTION ON TWITTER

You may or may not agree with these tweets. But that's not the point, which is that the "dancing nurses" videos are terrible public relations. Even if you like the videos, you must see that there is public disapproval of them. It's not helping the cause of medical workers; many of them are also critics of the videos. Right or wrong, the videos give a lot of people the impression that hospitals are not in the crisis mode we've been told they are in. There are certainly many tweets favorable to the dancing nurses. But here are a few samples of negative reactions.








No facemasks. No social distancing. Bare hands on the floor. Bad example.


And finally, here is an example of hospital staff taking a break without wasting time, PPE or terrabytes of TikTok server space.
Twitter: @chinewsbench (twitter.com/chinewsbench)


This post first appeared on Chicago News Bench, please read the originial post: here

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Dancing Nurses: Too Much Fun In The Pandemic War Zone

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