All the media is talking about today is the novel coronavirus and its spread around the globe. We can safely say that it is causing mass hysteria and because of that it is affecting all aspects of our everyday lives. People are emptying shelves at the supermarket and preparing for “an apocalypse”.
The media every day is reporting about people locking themselves at home with month-worth of food and hygiene supplies and waiting for the epidemic to pass. This is also affecting medical supplies such as face masks, gloves, one-use-only surgical gowns, and even medicine. AVMA is giving regular updates about the coronavirus,you can check out their article.
Medication shortage
People working in the veterinary field are reporting that they experience a shortage of medications such as antibiotics, anesthetics, and analgesics just because they are shipped out of China. Some reports say that all the orders are so backlogged that they have to wait several months for their shipments to arrive.
Soaps and hand sanitizers are at a shortage too. This is alarming especially for the medical and veterinary centers where there is a lot of traffic of sick people and animals.
Shortage of face masks and gloves
Because of the high demand, face masks are becoming the one most wanted and important product on the planet. All medical centers and veterinary clinics are facing the shortage of face masks and all pharmacies are upping their price because of their high demand.
Some veterinarians are reporting that at their clinics they are obligated to reuse their face masks as long as they do not have any blood or other bodily fluids on them.
Veterinary clinics are stocking masks and gloves as the prices are going up and the suppliers aren’t sure when the backlog will end.
Veterinary professionals, especially at high traffic clinics, see hundreds of patients a day. These patients come with owners with unknown or questionable health status. Veterinarians and veterinary technicians do not know if the owner of that sweet Labrador traveled in the past week to an area where the virus has been reported. Veterinary professionals cannot know if one of their clients is in the incubation phase of the coronavirus.
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