Inside STAT: Bracing for the onslaught

PROJECT MANAGER KAITLYN LECLAIR PUTS UP TEMPORARY SIGNS TO TRANSFORM A SPORTS MEDICINE CLINIC INTO ONE FOR POTENTIAL CORONAVIRUS PATIENTS. (ERIC BOODMAN/STAT)

The doctor had treated patients in Liberia during the Ebola outbreak, in Saipan after a super typhoon, in the cholera-ravaged encampments of Haiti — and now she stood training a team for her next mission. “I don’t like to refer to Mass. General as a disaster setting, but this is a disaster we’re dealing with,” Lynn Black said, referring to the oncoming surge of Covid-19 cases. She and her colleagues would operate at the deliberate pace of primary care with the knowledge that at any moment it might turn into an emergency, watching a crisis unfold exam by exam, test by test. STAT’s Eric Boodman brings us the first in a series of reports from hospitals responding to the Covid-19 pandemic.