Twitter became the closest window to a covid hospital. And it was thanks to the medical personnel of the front line of battle that told thousands of tweeters what is going on in there. Day to day. With shortages and losses, but also with stories of success and hope.
In these months of the pandemic, nurses, doctors, doctors and specialists shared their experiences, analysis and contributions in this social network that made them the influencers of the pandemic.
Dr. Stefy: from Twitter and under my instructions, a patient came out of a covid box
For eight years, Dr. Estefanía Navarro has used her social networks to report on medical issues. With the pandemic, his followers tripled and from there, thanks to technology and without an office in between, he has saved lives.
“I never imagined that this could happen. I shared my experience and there were many people who looked for me, from basic doubts to moments of great despair. It was amazing to see how I could help not only in the hospital, but on Twitter or Instagram. See that under my instructions, a person came out of a very complicated picture. That they thank you is the most comforting because you saved a life, yes, from a social network ”.
Those patients have thanked her for the same social networks, which for her, she says “is fuel.”
“With my hand on my heart I want to thank Dr. @DamarisFany because she answered many questions about my recovery from covid with all the patience and human quality, I felt as if I had known her forever, beautiful doctor of the soul,” he wrote user Jacks Molina.
Doctor Ivette: they told me that they paid us to kill people; but also, the best protective equipment I have, they gave it to me for a tweet
Dr. Ivette did not know that due to the urgency of the pandemic and the lack of doctors, one day she would be assigned to the covid area. When her first day on duty ended, she was nervous, confused and of course, afraid, so she tweeted it without thinking about what that would unleash: 170,000 likes, 96,000 retweets and 2,900 comments.
“It was my first guard in a covid area in a hospital, and I feel that if I could have recorded a video of what it is like to be there as a patient, NOBODY would leave their homes. Neither on vacation, nor did he go to the friend’s house, nor to the sea market, ”he wrote on April 12.
Count to MILLENNIUM He didn’t even know how to make a thread, but that day he learned. And in 17 tuis, he explained step by step how the treatment of a patient is, from how once they enter there they do not have contact with anyone again, to how they spend the hours with patients who combine the virus with anxiety, sadness , the wait to have a mechanical ventilator and survive.
“It was something that I did not expect, I published that story that I did not know was going to even attract attention, I did not even know how to use Twitter well. My first covid watch at night just finished, I was moved by many things, going from what we saw to the news to how you live it was very shocking. I write, I go to sleep and at five hours I had thousands of notifications, my father had already sent it to me because his boss gave it to him, my family and friends sent it to me, it was on all the networks.
“I understood that it was one of the first stories they read of someone who had been inside and yes, that gave me a large number of followers, the most amazing thing is that most of them were health personnel, doctors, nurses, journalists, those people who I was curious to know more about the covid area ”.
In these months in the front line of battle, he has received everything, just as Twitter is. From those who accuse her of murdering patients who enter hospitals, to those who call her heroin and have given her the medical equipment that has allowed her to survive.
“In times of greatest ignorance, they told me it was a lie, that they paid us to kill people, there were many attacks, but at the same time when they defended us the most and considered us an important part of the battle, and I say they considered why with the time goes by they forget but we are still there.
“There were those who contacted me to donate masks, from April until now I have a full face mask that makes me feel very protected and they gave it to me as a result of a tweet, I was contacted by people who not only supported us by cheering us but with material and with team, they tried to help and saw us as people who should take care of us because we took care of them ”.
Lucero: she was a nurse X from a hospital X, who wanted to tell what really happens inside
Ana Lucero’s Twitter account went from being that space where she talked about her day to day, her family and her work, where a couple of friends or acquaintances read it, to the place where dozens of people go to find out what happens inside a covid hospital.
She is a nurse at the Fernando Quiroz Gutiérrez Hospital of the ISSSTE. Remember that nothing relevant was happening in his account, until one day, he confronted former President Felipe Calderón who criticized that in this government, medical personnel had to buy their own material and improvise in the face of covid-19. Reality that the nurse assures, exists since the expander was President,
“Sir, I have been working for the ISSSTE for 10 years and for 10 years we have to buy our material such as pleated masks, tegaderm, hypafix, transport, estericide… etc. Because there has NEVER been a budget to provide the staff with that material. So please don’t come suck on that right now. If he had been so interested in the health system during his tenure, he would have built hospitals and not a fucking trail of light that is useless, ”he wrote in April 2020 and his followers soared.
“I replied because I am on the front line of battle and we know the situation better than anyone else, with that tweet there were thousands of retweets, replies and I like it and it has been like a chain from that. We as health workers did not turn to see us and we as nurses much less because the doctors are always given credit, I said that I was going to tell what happens inside the hospital, not things that are not.
Since then, Lucero says, she would describe herself as “a nurse X who works in a hospital X, but who is content with what is happening from within.”
Lucero has seen her companions get sick and even die. To dozens of patients who cannot return home. And she has faced the polarization of Twitter, where she has found support, encouragement and good vibes, to those who accuse her of lying for some days to affect, and others, to benefit the government in turn.
“What I want is for them not to be fooled by people who are not inside a hospital, who have never stepped on a service converted to covid, we as nurses had to learn to live with this, I came to my house and told the situation he is like this, the disease is very clever, there are very young people who are dying and we have to learn to live with it. And I am not interested if those people believe me, I am interested in telling the truth, the truth of what we are living ”.
Doctor Erdely: To paraphrase the President, I said I had my own graphs, colleagues told me, “Enjoy your 15 minutes of fame”
Dr. Arturo Erdely, a mathematician from UNAM used to publish texts on LinkedIn that his students read, until the title “Arithmetic LopezGatelina” became a boom that led him to present the other reality, the other data, the other graphs that show a reality much harsher than that shown by official data.
He tells it with a certain grace. The doctor remembers that his followers did not exceed 500. They were his students and alumni, the only ones he believed could be interested in their contributions.
On April 19, he decided to publish what he had been analyzing for weeks: something did not add up to the federal government’s figures. He published the text like any other and the next day, it was a trend on Twitter with journalists, specialists and colleagues sharing it, and with almost five thousand followers interested in knowing what else he had to say.
“It was never a purpose, I thought it was going to be something ephemeral, in fact some colleagues who did not like what I published very much sent me messages that I enjoyed my 15 minutes of fame and that many doors were going to be closed for me; I thought it would be a week and the matter was going to turn off, the truth even scared me a little because I wrote for my limited circle of students and the fact that a text became massive took me out of the loop.
“As I did not agree with the figures as they were calculated and the graphs as they were made, it occurred to me to make my own graphs and as the President was famous with his phrase ‘I have other data’ as I decided to promote the ‘I have other graphs’, and since then I have not left, daily I publish my thread of graphs even if they are holidays ”.
His graphics were even debated and criticized by the Undersecretary of Health himself, Hugo López-Gatell, but he says that once they were published, he could not suspend them. Now, he intends to carry out an analysis of whether or not vaccination is really helping to reduce infections and deaths.
Doctor Tello: tell people complex things in a simple way so they know how to take care of themselves
Dr. Xavier Tello decided that his participation in this pandemic would be to explain to social network users what a pandemic and covid-19 is in the simplest way possible, so that without being experts or epidemiologists, they would know how to take care of themselves.
“What gives me the most satisfaction is being able to clarify things, I like being able to tell people how complex things are in a simple way. There is a lot of information that needs to be clarified.
“From normal people who are not obliged to know health matters and who have to explain them so that the message reaches them well, such as myths such as chlorine dioxide or messages that the authorities send in a confusing way such as why they cannot be buy vaccines ”.
He considers that there are still many things to be clarified, since the pandemic has come to change and to remain in the lives of all and all.
“We have had a pandemic for 40 years that is AIDS and what we have done is learn to live with it, we are going to have to learn to live with covid in the same way and people have to understand it.”
Doctor Mauricio: the pandemic on Twitter; among those who want to direct it from there to real chingones calming waters
Dr. Mauricio Rodríguez is the spokesman for the UNAM’s Commission for the Attention of the Covid-19 Emergency, and given the amount of misinformation and polarization on Twitter, he decided to share only scientific, technical and useful information. Without going into divisions or extremism.
“On Twitter there are people who are very intoxicated, very overloaded with information and people who are wanting to lead the world from Twitter, which in the pandemic seems to me to be delicate, those attitudes because the pandemic is not fought from Twitter, there are tweeters who are from there throwing its truths and it is very exhausting.
“I have also found real experts tweeting with technical neutrality and remarkable objectivity; some really cool molecular biologists trying to calm the waters from Twitter with really good threads ”.
His followers quadrupled and by representing the ONE, considers that his work focuses on “not falling into visceral or anonymous connections, nor betraying that trust by filling them with the banalities of my life.”
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