COVID-19 Part 3 with George Chiampas: Protecting our Front Lines and Looking Ahead

The video starts with a title screen. A maroon and orange gradient aura shifts in the upper right corner of the screen as words appear. They read “Understanding COVID-19 Pt. 3: Protecting our Front Lines and Looking Ahead” and appear over a short resume blurb. The blurb reads: “George Chiampas: Chief Medical Officer US Soccer.”

After a few seconds the words pan up the screen as a question fades in from below. The question reads: “How has the virus impacted the men and women serving on the front lines?”

George Chiampas:

In Chicago, up until a couple of weeks ago, we had nearly 600, 800 of our police officers test positive for COVID. We have had a few deaths, unfortunately, as well, and those are difficult when a police officer dies and you can't honor them the way that they should be honored.

As George talks, words appear on the right side of the screen emphasizing his points. The text only serves to clarify what is being said and does not add any new information that isn’t already present in what George has to say.

George Chiampas:

 In law enforcement, as well as all frontline workers, we go to work exposed to the highest levels of COVID. We can't get tested. So we don't know if we've been exposed, if we're COVID-positive or not, unless we have symptoms and we keep going to work. 

Within the police department, it's been more about securing PPE, establishing some protocols to align them with Chicago Fire Department and to prepare for the things that I spoke about earlier, is making some tough decisions early on. Fortunately, we haven't gotten there. Now It's really about assuring that the stay-in-shelter's in place, that the communities are really being responsible. 

But within our Chicago Police Department, especially with our SWAT team, health and wellness is core to how they operate. They look at their model as similar to an elite sports team model. Believe it or not, even in SWAT, if you think about it, we've talked about, they get hunkered down for hours on hours, and they don't have access to nutrition. So we've made sure that we've been able to secure some healthy nutritional components that they can have on them. So that if they're locked down for 6, 8, 10 hours that, cognitively and nutritionally, they're at a good space during some of the most difficult challenges they have.

A new question appears reading: “What is the role of rest and recovery in immunity and overall wellness?”

George Chiampas:

It's huge. I mean, obviously, we know that if you're fatigued, if you're not recovered, if you're not sleeping at least seven, eight hours a night, that your immunity is decreased and that you're prone to getting sick. So those are elements that we touch upon, and we reference the sports world to the police officers. We reference that it's important that when you go home, when you're not on duty is that you're basically on duty 24/7. That includes them having access to gyms, them having access to good nutrition, going home. And they can lean on each other from a mental health side. 

If you've watched over the past several years, mental health in law enforcement is something that is first and foremost. In Chicago, we've had, unfortunately, too many suicides within the Chicago Police Department, and over the last 12 to 18 months, there's been several programs that have been implemented to support those police officers. It's a difficult job, and the mental health side, the ability for them to be able to cope with their job is got to be paramount. And we reference the sports world and the elite level quite frequently, especially with the SWAT team. 

A new question appears reading: “What is the role of rest and recovery in immunity and overall wellness?”

George Chiampas:

I think some of the unique things that have evolved at Northwestern and other institutions is when this initially came about, there was this feeling of putting people on ventilators and making those decisions fairly rapidly or based on a protocol. What we've, without question, learned is if we can avoid putting individuals on ventilators and exhaust all efforts before we place someone on a ventilator, that's what we should do. 

Things like securing rooms that we can use nebulizers. In the past, we couldn't use nebulizers because the concern of spreading the virus, meaning aerosolizing it into these rooms. We've taken the spaces, have given us more rooms that we can be creative in that way. But also being able to turn patients on their stomach, get them up and about to expand their lungs, so that they're not just getting infected in part of their lung and we're just waiting for them to get worse, is if we prone them, meaning putting them on their stomach and back on their back, to buy time to see if we can avoid intubating them. That has without question across the country and around the world save lives. 

So it's interesting. Sometimes we think medications, technology, and some of these things are just the basic things of life. And it goes back to basic simple things. Get up, walk around in your daily routine, expand your lungs, be fit, eat well, sleep well. And in the end, even in this COVID response, it's some of those basic things that are making the biggest difference in saving people's lives. 

A new question appears reading: “What is the role of rest and recovery in immunity and overall wellness?”

We don't have an answer as of yet. We've had to cancel the Shamrock Shuffle, which was a 25,000 person race, and our half marathon. The Berlin Marathon, which is in September, has already canceled. The reality of these types of events are, these are massive public private partnerships, meaning that we work very closely with our federal agents at FEMA, our state public partners, our city partners, police, and fire. And so, in order to be able to manage an event like that, we have to be very sensitive to all of those. 

So that's something that we're currently assessing right now. I'm on several task force, including one at NCS4 that looks at sports and entertainment across the United States, and we're basically putting risk assessment trees in place to be able to support all of these large-scale events, from the NFL to the NCAA. And I think those questions are still on an answered. I think 2020 is going to be a very challenging and difficult year to be able to implement a lot of these large-scale events. 

However, what I will say is I think what we're going to learn in 2020, you're going to see a lot of that in '21. So that large scale events, whether it be in stadiums, whether it be running events, whether it be large concerts, what we're going to learn in these next three to five months, you're going to see the implementation of that in '21.

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