From students on the front lines to pilots delivering medical supplies ****************************************************************************************** * How people have helped during the pandemic: ****************************************************************************************** ****************************************************************************************** * From students on the front lines to pilots delivering medical supplies ****************************************************************************************** The COVID-19 pandemic has brought out large numbers of volunteers across the country, offe time of unprecedented crisis. Many offer skills as medical students, others sew the much-n have been required ever since the country went into lockdown. Still others volunteer to wo and even pilots have joined in an online initiative to deliver medical equipment across th needed. FROM MEDICAL STUDENTS TO EXPATS At Charles University, med students got involved early on when the first cases began to ap into the crisis we spoke to organiser David Kulišiak from the First Faculty of Medicine wh can read in the Forum archives. Students at the First Faculty were not alone: Vitaly Fetis in his sixth year at the Third Faculty of Medicine. Offering to help organise foreign medi Moldova-born American founded Prague Volunteering [ URL "https://praguevolunteering.cz/"] expanded to include the broader expat community. He explains how the situation came togeth When the government put out the call for fifth and sixth year medical students to help, th an organisational team to put students in places where they were needed. That was directly the Charles University medical faculties and primarily within the Czech curriculum. I offe English-speaking students. But after about a week I realised that even though the faculty’ large with many students, there was a possibility to expand to the larger expat community. made it independent; it seemed like the logical next step in the chain. Volunteers signing up at the website are directed to areas where they can best help. Medic within the broader faculty organisation. We have forms that are specific for the school and jobs that are specific for medical stud are entitled to do and citizen volunteers cannot. Medical students can volunteer and help in making masks, running a help line (most often t people who are displaying symptoms and are worried what to do next), doing research, or he work. Citizen volunteers can also help in making masks or collecting fabric or in other wa expansion. Small businesses have also gotten involved, providing support that also makes a one donates fresh-brewed coffee to help volunteers get through the day. Vitaly Fetissov sa interest has been nothing short of great: I did not expect so many people would join and with so much enthusiasm. Many people really get involved. Just on the ground level, with the way things are going in the Czech Republi actually slowing down a little bit: it’s still early to say, but the crisis here seems to control. That said, we are continuing all our activities – including research and compilin the virus - and staffing the helpline. The help from professional sectors was also most welcome: The donated coffee shows the specific kind of drive and mentality that I really respect. M contacted us who want to help on a larger scale, and we had help from graphic designers wh create a more aesthetically pleasing website. It has really made a difference. There is no question that the pandemic - as it spread in Europe – brought out the best in brought many people together; Vitaly says whether one is a med student helping in the fron someone working from home, it is inspiring how many people chose to get involved. This is an historic crisis, one that our professor on infectious diseases says we as medic lucky to witness in real time; that is not to say that it is a good thing but it does prov valuable insight into this kind of virus in real time as opposed to historical records and Will the world change? I think it already has: I am seeing more comradery between people, people are starting to take a more human outlook instead of just thinking about themselves is over, people are going to realise that the work that they did that mattered the most wa for others, not for themselves. THE FRONT LINES Clara Boettcher Mallmann is a fellow volunteer and second-year med student from Brazil res public outreach at Prague Volunteering [ URL "https://praguevolunteering.cz/"] . She told involved: I originally got in touch and asked Vitaly if he could help me with a video for my hometow because I had been so amazed with what he had done. I wanted to provide people in my homet about how to set up a similar initiative there. And from him I learned that he still neede in the project here to help with the website and organising duties. So I came in about fou began. They were very busy and there was lots to be done. Boettcher Mallmann suffers from asthma so has been working from home as opposed to being o lines. She says that balancing work and distance learning has worked and is now on track, confusing at first. Now she balances her time between distance learning, reading study mat volunteer work according to a daily schedule. Meanwhile, she has been hearing back from st field: I have some friends in the third year who have been in the very front line: most of the ho tents before the hospitals themselves where they do a triage, checking temperatures and so check people outside so they don’t continue into the facility and raise the risk of infect has been collecting data for the National Health Institute every day from 8 am to 5 pm. Th I hear the most is that it is an exhausting job but everyone is glad to be involved. It al things seem to be working in the Czech Republic as well. Clara Boettcher Mallmann is concerned about how the situation is developing at home: but s things unfold in Brazil may be different. Steps that appear to have largely worked in the with the early lockdown, masks and social distancing, will be more difficult or even impos implement there for social, economic and demographic reasons. Brazil is also a country of million people compared to the Czech Republic’s 10.6 million. They are still behind the Czech Republic in terms of the peak. Sao Paolo I heard was alrea capacity in terms of hospitals, so I fear we are going to hear bad news about Brazil in th am afraid it will get worse before it gets better. Boettcher Mallmann, like Vitaly Fetissov, nevertheless says it is inspiring that so many p to help in the face of crisis, to try and do their part. She says it is an indication the brighter, once the crisis is over. With many of us thinking more collectively, I think this pandemic will change the way huma forward, in a way that was needed. (the article continues below) SOME OF THE MANY PLACES WHERE THIRD FACULTY STUDENTS ARE HELPING - A CLOSER LOOK Lukáš Kaňka, a student from the Third Medical Faculty, has become the first member of the positivity! Recently, special sites for testing patients using rapidtests for detecting antibodies aga sent to follow-up with a PCR test, whereas if the test for both categories of antibodies i The testing itself takes place outside of the practitioners’ offices in specially equipped Students are also helping at The Institute for the Care of Mother and Child. Currently alm helping at individual departments as well. Jakub Heřman, a volunteer from the Third Faculty of Medicine, told us about his up to now “We are well aware that we are not able to fully substitute the work of nurses and midwive as possible in case the staff crisis worsens. Our work consists of taking history, measuri administrative support which allows the midwives to do other work which is now much more i - written by Veronika Viktoria Matraszek, 3rd year student at the Third Faculty of Medicin (cont'd) THE SKY'S THE LIMIT The mix of students and citizen volunteers involved in Prague Volunteering at Charles Univ is inspiring and shows how well schools and the broader public intersect to help; it is no alone. Another initiative, that has made international headlines [ URL "https://twitter.co status/1248528645259321347"] , also brought universities and members of the public togethe pilotilidem [ URL "https://pilotilidem.cz/"] . Like students, an extensive number of priva their help early on in the crisis to deliver medical equipment and other supplies around t One example is the delivery of 3D printed masks designed by covmask.cz connected with the University (ČVUT). Tomáš Cáp, a pilot and one of the members of the organisational team, told Forum it began post, where an online group member floated the idea of using private planes. The idea caug immediately: within days there were hundreds of volunteers coming forward who were willing most - if not all - of the costs themselves. It all started with a single facebook post. It was an aviation-related group. Our founding Miloslav Chlan, asked if anybody had thought about using private planes to deliver medical Zahradníček replied. Together they built a website and began assembling a team. Cáp says that pilots come from different backgrounds, some of them are former airline pilo military, while others are recreational. All of them share one thing in common: What we share is that – under normal circumstances - most of the time we fly for fun. The love for flying, in this case, provided a bigger opportunity: to do something to make not be grounded at home, but to help. The response was significant. We now have almost 400 pilots, some former airline pilots, some former military, a few who professional, and others who are recreational. We fly Cesnas, Pipers, usually two- or four ultralights. I think many of us were thinking about doing something like this, you know, t and flying… but it always takes that special individual who gets things in motion for it t So when those two guys published the initial challenge, it got a response from pilots acro So we began and have been delivering supplies for example from Prague to Most, to Ostrava, are needed. Jan Bradáč is a private pilot who got involved and flew with 3D printed masks from the Cze University to the ARO section of a hospital in Most and also volunteers in dispatching for well-known figure in the Czech film industry, he says he is glad he could get involved: Everything these days has become more personal. Because there is not anyone who in some wa by the crisis so my feeling is if I can do something, I will. Here you have a bunch of guy come from different parts of the country and most of us have never even met face-to-face. Everything is being done through electronic media: we have a person from the railways, ano teacher, some are younger while some are a little older like me (laughs). It’s great to wa like this come together, something I could never imagine, and I am proud to be a part of i forget my job of course (laughs) and I hope that a return to business is really not that f future; but of course the health situation takes precedence. Beginning this week, the Czech government has eased some restrictions in place preparing b a nationwide smart quarantine (to use contact tracing and testing) and will introduce step reopen businesses as well as other workplaces. Some measures – the requirement of masks and social distancing are likely to remain in pla perhaps the course of the summer. Questions over how long the country’s borders will remai is up in the air for the time being: no doubt there are plenty of divergent and downright on how quickly to reopen the country in the effort to restart the economy and return life There are questions if that is even possible or if there will be a new “normal” but this i overall number of COVID-19 cases in the country remains low as well as the number of fatal No one knows what the future will bring but if there is a “silver lining”, it is this: tha people have come out to help. Taking inspiration from each other in both the public and pr Individuals can come together and the one thing almost everyone says in this period, in th they hope this spirit will continue. Even after the crisis has passed.