I work in the Emergency Room as an RN and not too much has changed for us. My wife is an RN as well, but she's still on maternity leave (we had our 2nd child in Feb). We both work night shifts.
Being on the west coast it doesn't seem like we are hit nearly as hard as NY, in terms of COVID-19 related cases. Some food for thought, the virus related deaths in NY State account for almost half of the deaths in our entire country when talking about this virus. Nobody in America has it nearly as bad as NYC.
I've been contacted by multiple nurse travel agencies to get me to come to NYC. They aren't offering as much pay to do so as I thought they would; regardless, there's no way I'd leave my family for that. We don't have any other family in our state, so both me and my wife work opposite schedules (night shift for both of us, that is, we essentially work one week on and one week off, so one of us will be working while the other is essentially a single parent for that time).
Anyway, in my ER we've seen a number of potentially positive patients, but, our hospital system (and state) are still very limited on testing capacity. That said, we've discharged a number of patients who are most likely COVID-19 positive, but we don't know for sure because they don't meet qualifications to test them. The last time I looked at our numbers, I believe we had admitted close to 30 patients total that ended up being COVID-19 positive, and only one died. Our state's health authority (OHA) is now posting general information on the deaths associated with the virus.. When I looked yesterday I believe our death toll was at 44. Almost every single one of them had underlying health issues. Unfortunately, due to HIPPA, they can't disclose exactly how many and what kind of health issues these people had, but if it's anything like the people we've hospitalized at our hospital, then they've most likely had been in very poor health to begin with. Examples include (from patients I've seen hospitalized at my hospital) poorly managed diabetes, kidney failure, COPD, CHF, multiple cardiac stents and even bypass procedures done, along with a sedentary lifestyle and obesity.
Of course the above information is not based entirely on objective, statistical information; but, we can still see some basic trends. First, it doesn't seem like age, in and of itself, is a major factor. Is it a factor at all? I'm sure it is! But is a death sentence if you're old and become infected? Absolutely not. Second, virtually all deaths, at least in my state, have had at least one major underlying health problem to begin with. Some are very unhealthy in general, while others probably were relatively healthy but just had other problems, like a very weak immune system due to an organ transplant, or are having ongoing cancer treatment, etc.
Another interesting thing that my wife and I were discussing today is something our state government said. Kate Brown, Governor, recently stated that Oregon will only release the lock down/stay at home order when there have been zero COVID-19 related deaths for 10 consecutive days....
....I don't agree (neither does my wife) with her views on this. AFAIK, COVID-19 related deaths only means that someone has passed away, WHILE having tested positive for the virus. This doesn't necessarily mean that the virus itself caused their death (though I'm sure for the vast majority of cases it probably did), but more importantly, this is an unrealistic goal! People WILL die while being infected with this virus no matter what kind of social isolation is implemented. The only real hope for immunity is if at least half the population becomes infected at one time or another, so that we can build herd immunity, and/or a viable vaccination is produced (which won't happen for AT LEAST one year, bare minimum). On top of this, our state alone has a yearly death rate of over 37,000 in general - there is NO way that we will have 10 days of nobody dying that hasn't tested positive for COVID-19.
In my opinion, legislation like Kate Brown's will begin to put more and more strain on both local businesses, and even some large businesses. I think that the "solution" may end up causing more harm than the problem if it goes on for too long.
Anyway, going back to our personal lives. I do worry about becoming infected, not so much for my own wellbeing, but for my family's. My daughter is only 3.5 years old, and my son is only 2 months. So far, all of the data I've seen shows that my kids would be okay, as there haven't been any hospitalizations in my state for infants, or even pediatrics under 5 years old (last I checked, at least). But still, it would be very difficult to take care of my family if we got sick, primarily due to my and my wife's work schedule. We'd have to call in sick, but I am out of sick hours because I used it all up in order to afford paternity leave (Oregon does not offer paid leave for fathers).
At work my co-workers and I are all fastidious in keeping our work stations clean with antiviral wipes, along with donning and doffing PPE appropriately; but, we are getting very low on PPE, so we must re-use masks in-between patients. I use the same N95 mask for my entire shift, due to our hospital's ever changing policies on the matter. Keep in mind that these masks are supposed to be one time use, disposable masks. On top of that, no matter how perfectly you do what it takes to avoid transferring the virus somehow, you WILL miss something. 13 hours each night of constantly being weary of potential vectors for transmission is plenty of time to make mistakes.
So far I have not become sick, as far as I know. I can't even remember the last time I had a fever. Even so, I ordered a set of IGG COVID-19 testing kits to test myself and some of my co-workers to see if we've ever been infected and subsequently have antibodies. The tests I bought only have the emergency FDA approval, which means they haven't been verified thoroughly by the FDA, but as far as I know only one company has said verification, and I'm unable to buy test kits from them as they don't sell them to individuals. The kits I did buy are only able to be sold to health care providers, so even they aren't fully available to the average Joe.
Anyway, we've had two or our doctors become sick. Both have recovered and are back to work.
Hopefully our society has some long lasting changes after this is all over. Not only to be better prepared for the next outbreak of whatever comes, but also with an eye more focused on what is really important in life. We will certainly have plenty of time to reflect on that in the meantime.
