Lessons from the military for Covid-19 health care workers - STAT

If not me, then who?”

That was the answer Marine Corps First Lieutenant Travis Manion gave when asked why he decided to serve in the military. He was killed by a sniper in 2007 while serving in Iraq as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Thirteen years later, Manion’s words resonate with a new group of fighters: health care workers. As the Covid-19 pandemic continues to burden health care systems across the globe, health care workers find themselves in harm’s way while confronting an unseen enemy: SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19. Thousands of health care workers have already been infected by the virus, and many have died. These numbers will likely grow larger as we move into new phases of the outbreak.