Covid-19 and healthcare workers (over 50)

[monte1022]

DW and I are moderately concerned about the potential for a pandemic and being in the healthcare profession. Each of us have health concerns that place us at an elevated risk of a bad outcome based on current information about Covid-19. To be honest, I am considering the possibility that we may have to resign if this thing turns serious. There is absolutely no way a hospital can stay clean if masses of patients inundate a facility. Neither of our employers have yet to present a plan to keep their employees safe. After asking around for more than a week, I am convinced that my fellow employees from physicians down to attendants, believe that everything is being blown out of proportion. Time will tell.

I really got concerned when I read the Bill Gates piece on CNBC. He cited the same death rate that I have been calculating. Even if the death rate turns out to be tiny, the burden on existing healthcare infrastructure for those with severe illness will be extreme. Those patients will need inpatient care thus increasing the chance of infecting hospital staff.

We are currently sitting on 1.26mil stock index funds/488k cash/526k stable value and bonds. This 2.274mil (-170k thanks to last week) was supposed to be 2.8-3mil in 4yrs, but now we have Covid-19. A separate account contains 202k college funds in cds and my oldest has one more semester of college, the youngest is 17.

Our expenses are holding steady at $4200/mo and debts are zero. A exit from the workforce will mean using the ACA until one of us decides to "get a j*b" after the danger passes. We can stay under the 400% fpl for a family of 4 only if we exit before the end of April. By the way, we are 53 and 50. Even though we have low expenses, I always target 7-8k/mo so we do not have to remain hermits the rest of our lives.

I will never get another job as nice as the one I have now. But then again, perhaps I will live a bit longer even though a bit poorer. DW was already considering a work from home job sometime this year.

I guess I am looking for opinions/advice beyond number crunching. This is certainly an unexpected turn of of events....

....all of our other numbers are posted elsewhere including ss estimates..

 

[Sunset]

Perhaps you could take a sabbatical for 9 months, and at the end evaluate whether to return to work or not. ?

 

[monte1022]

Perhaps you could take a sabbatical for 9 months, and at the end evaluate whether to return to work or not. ?

I am going going in the morning to ask about something similar. If my doc says that I have to be off then FMLA can be used up to 480hr. My current position on night shift 7on/7off may not be preserved though.

 

[luckydude]

DW and I are moderately concerned about the potential for a pandemic and being in the healthcare profession. Each of us have health concerns that place us at an elevated risk of a bad outcome based on current information about Covid-19. To be honest, I am considering the possibility that we may have to resign if this thing turns serious. There is absolutely no way a hospital can stay clean if masses of patients inundate a facility. Neither of our employers have yet to present a plan to keep their employees safe. After asking around for more than a week, I am convinced that my fellow employees from physicians down to attendants, believe that everything is being blown out of proportion. Time will tell.

I really got concerned when I read the Bill Gates piece on CNBC. He cited the same death rate that I have been calculating. Even if the death rate turns out to be tiny, the burden on existing healthcare infrastructure for those with severe illness will be extreme. Those patients will need inpatient care thus increasing the chance of infecting hospital staff.

We are currently sitting on 1.26mil stock index funds/488k cash/526k stable value and bonds. This 2.274mil (-170k thanks to last week) was supposed to be 2.8-3mil in 4yrs, but now we have Covid-19. A separate account contains 202k college funds in cds and my oldest has one more semester of college, the youngest is 17.

Our expenses are holding steady at $4200/mo and debts are zero. A exit from the workforce will mean using the ACA until one of us decides to "get a j*b" after the danger passes. We can stay under the 400% fpl for a family of 4 only if we exit before the end of April. By the way, we are 53 and 50. Even though we have low expenses, I always target 7-8k/mo so we do not have to remain hermits the rest of our lives.

I will never get another job as nice as the one I have now. But then again, perhaps I will live a bit longer even though a bit poorer. DW was already considering a work from home job sometime this year.

I guess I am looking for opinions/advice beyond number crunching. This is certainly an unexpected turn of of events....

....all of our other numbers are posted elsewhere including ss estimates..

Given the reportedly high infection rate for healthcare workers coming out of China and given your age (+50), your concern is understandable. You have a couple of months before the end of April, so you could just wait and see how the outbreak plays out in your area. In the meantime, you could use sick time/vacation time (if any) if covid-19 patients start showing up in your hospital. You could also have a frank discussion with your management to see if you could take some unpaid time off and wait for this thing to blow over. If all else fails, quit before end of April.

I can relate to your dilemma as DW (53) was asked to fly to S. Korea on business a few weeks ago. Her boss was insistent. I told DW to tell her boss that she would quit if forced to go. She has a nice job but it isn't worth risking her health (and by extension, the rest of the family) for it. Her boss backed down.

You have enough money such that you don't have to risk your health (and that of your family) to stay on the job. Good luck.

Lucky Dude

 

[W2R]

Good idea to take a leave of absence, if you can. That's what I'd try to do if I was in your situation. That way you can stay relatively safe, and yet still have a chance of getting your job back later on, if you change your mind once we find out how bad this is going to be, or not be.

 

[Ronstar]

I would take a leave of absence if possible as soon as possible. If not, resign when the first case is reported within 30-40 miles of you. With an elevated risk of bad outcome, do not take any risk of becoming exposed to the virus. Try not to go out in public until this goes away. FWIW - this is just my opinion, but I am not even close to being a doctor.

 

[GenXguy]

I wouldn't be concerned about being in your 50's, so am I, but the underlying health conditions that put you at an elevated risk is concerning.

Just be aware that it's going to be spreading out there in the community as well, so you will still need to take all the precautions. The virus can list on surfaces for hours to days, depending on the type of surface and environmental conditions. I got groceries yesterday, and it was obvious there are so many ways for there to be contamination and cross-contamination with people handling the groceries, sharing the same conveyor belt that many other customers have set their touched products on, checkouts/baggers touching all of these, then touching my products, putting them in a cart that was used with multiple checkout lanes prior to me using it. And who knows how might have coughed or sneezed around the products, cart, or checkout lanes. I bought quite a bit, so it seemed overwhelming to think of decontaminating all of these goods once I got home, and one missed spot, and it's all for not. I've got some ideas to reduce the risk of infection in the future, but I'm still thinking it through. I'm hoping it's early enough that it won't matter quite yet.

Anyway, overall, your concerns are legitimate. From what I read day to day, I have seen no evidence that this is being overblown, it's just so early in the whole ordeal that we haven't seen all the negative effects yet. I was thinking it would be a good time to FIRE to avoid going to a building with hundreds of workers everyday, but that's just not practical for me at this time. Maybe in another year to year and a half, when I hope to pull the trigger to FIRE, this will not be as much of an issue. It would be nice to enjoy retirement without having to be concerned about the novel corona virus.

 

[monte1022]

Our employee health CNP looked at me like I had a horn on my head when I asked about a medical leave should the virus hit hard. She said that it is not yet in our city and she was hoping that it would "miss" us. I said hoping is not how I live my life. I also discussed how the flu makes it all the way around the world every year even though we have a somewhat effective vaccination process. I then got a sarcastic comment to the tune of "I guess we'll just have to shut down."

Anyway, I see my doc this Thursday. I will get his opinion and go from there. There is always plan B.

 

[candrew]

You should be appropriately concerned about your own safety and well being along with the same for your loved ones and family. I'll provide a bit of a contrarian POV for the sake of consideration and discussion.

Prior to E.R. in 2016, I w*rked in a large, acute care hospital for 35 years. I had daily, regular inpatient contact. That alone is cause for appropriate concern about one's exposure to infectious illnesses. Can't tell you how many times I had to be tested for TB after patients I had contact with were undiagnosed at admission and had no contact precautions in place!

You probably recall some hair on fire public reaction to H1N1 about a decade ago. The same re: Ebola. I'm not at all attempting to minimize or dismiss your concerns regarding Covid-19. We know that it spreads rapidly. Actually, it is a good thing that you are giving serious consideration to an exit strategy. Be thankful that you are in a financial position to do so. Many of your colleagues are probably not.

I'm wondering - is your facility/system addressing the issue? I suspect that they probably are, especially from the standpoint of there being potential for a widespread outbreak (avoiding use of the "P" word ).

Each of us has to make our decisions based on what is best for ourselves and loved ones. At the same time, if healthcare workers were to take leave en masse - especially in the case of what could end up being undue public panic - the resulting vacuum could end up creating severe outcomes for those patients requiring care and make an undesirable situation much worse.

YMMV

 

[6miths]

Agree with candrew and not wanting to minimize the risks. My local university which is 5 minutes away announced its first case in a student last week. She took a Reading Week break in Milan. I volunteer teach there and have teaching scheduled this afternoon. I will be going in. I don't think it is likely that one will be able to avoid this virus if a true pandemic happens and it looks like it will (is) happening. Short of taking very drastic action. Mortality looks lower outside of China and initial mortality numbers are usually significantly over estimated. In some ways it might be good to get this one out of the way while there are still resources to manage bad cases - not a viable strategy of course but if one were looking at it from a straight numbers approach. This was a decent article on Ro and age specific mortality in China (copied from an MD forum) from a couple of weeks ago with links to the relevant resources cited.

Good luck with your decision making. Difficult times to be sure.

 

[monte1022]

All very good points. Thank you.

 

[ivinsfan]

I'm wondering why we aren't hearing more pushback from international flight crews. I'm expecting that to turn into an issues any day now.

How many countries do you think the crews that works the China, Korea, Italy routes have visited in the las 45 days or so. These very long haul flights often have layovers of 18-24 hours for the crews to reset their work hours clock.

Some crews fly domestic and international so what's going to happen if this keeps expanding.

 

[sengsational]

While there are many other groups of workers at risk, I thik it would be best if
we can keep the discussion here in this thread focused on only healthcare workers.

 

[ivinsfan]

While there are many other groups of workers at risk, I thik it would be best if
we can keep the discussion here in this thread focused on only healthcare workers.

Ok, you're the boss..I guess if workers in other professions have concerns they can start their own discussions.

 

[braumeister]

Ok, you're the boss..I guess if workers in other professions have concerns they can start their own discussions.

The OP has had his question dealt with, so let's continue discussion (regardless of which profession is involved) in the larger thread.
https://www.early-retirement.org/forums/f28/coronavirus-financial-impacts-ii-102347-11.html#post2379479