I am very proud of my medical colleagues and their dogged attempts to understand this new virus.

Despite public thinking, there is no roadmap to the present treatment plan. For critically ill patients in an ICU setting, every day brings new challenges in trying to save a patient’s life.

Many doctors and nurses are exhausted, but I go online with them in meetings, gathering information from around the world. Even countries like China and Italy, which initially saw the first wave of ill patients, are sharing data, trying to grasp how coronavirus behaves.

Continuing to have the mental fortitude amazes me as these discussions take place daily, supplementing our scientific knowledge. Lower the PEEP or tidal volume, fluids or not, add anticoagulants or steroids? Technical questions without easy answers.

When you see doctors, nurses and other healthcare professions saving lives on TV, please remember they simultaneously cognate, observe and digest information later used to bring treatment to the battlefield.

Indeed, we are lucky to have so many gifted and heroic people in the world networking. It is a part of our human spirit.

Thank you!

Gene Uzawa Dorio, M.D., is a geriatric house-call physician who serves as president of the Los Angeles County Commission for Older Adults and Assemblyman to the California Senior Legislature. He has practiced in the Santa Clarita Valley for 32 years.