By Joshua Huff, sports editor
TRUSSVILLE – Members of the Trussville City Schools community took time out their days to personally give thanks to health care workers battling the coronavirus, throughout the Birmingham metro area.
Students, faculty and staff of TCS wrote letters to health care workers diligently working night and day to save those who have been stricken by COVID-19 at UAB, St. Vincent’s Hospitals, the VA Hospital, Grandview Hospital and area nursing homes.
“Thank you for being selfless and brave during this hard time,” Jackson Frandsen wrote. “I hope all goes well, and for you and your family to be safe and healthy. Again, thank you for putting other’s lives first.”
The toll on health care workers throughout the nation and the world has been immense. In Alabama alone, 351 health care workers have tested positive for the coronavirus and 75 long-term care facility employees have tested positive.
Throughout the world, nearly 90,000 people have perished as a result of COVID-19 with 1,502,618 confirmed cases. In New York alone, there were more than 800 coronavirus-related deaths in a single day on Wednesday.
Health care workers are on the front lines of this pandemic. They suffer from fear, exhaustion and from lack of supplies. The threat of contracting COVID-19 is always there. The virus can easily spread through droplets during close interactions such as from coughing or even talking. The virus also clings to surfaces for days and can linger in rooms for long periods of time.
“I’ll spend the majority of my shift trying not to have a panic attack and then come home and fear going back to work,” Marie, a nurse practitioner in Los Angeles, told NPR. “If this goes on for weeks and weeks and things only get worse I just don’t know how I’m going to be able to handle it.”
The website Medspace has been attempting to list the names of health care workers who have succumbed to the coronavirus. As of Wednesday. Medscape has listed 47 with the very real possibility that the identities of hundreds of health care workers remain unknown.
“Thank you for everything you do and all that you have sacrificed to help people and we are praying for strength, wisdom and endurance for all of you during this difficult time. Thank you,” Taylor Calvin of Hewitt-Trussville Middle School wrote.
UAB Hospital released a video responding to all the thank you cards from people throughout the community. You can watch that here.