key: cord-0919933-8fozmdpn authors: Singh, Abhishek; Khanna, Punnet title: Anesthetist and pandemic: Past and present date: 2020-08-10 journal: nan DOI: 10.1016/j.tacc.2020.07.011 sha: 85cebdee6c4de05f5b650a4f7feab2027c803be4 doc_id: 919933 cord_uid: 8fozmdpn nan Pandemics have ravaged human civilization at regular intervals for the past 2000 years killing millions of people worldwide. (1) With each pandemic, healthcare workers and hospital systems have borne the brunt of these outbreaks fulfilling their moral responsibility to treat and give a healing touch to already distressed situations. Each outbreak has tested the exceptionally very high level of skill, expertise as well as the professional commitment of healthcare workers. Many were exposed to infection while fighting at the frontline and some of our healthcare workers even died from the infection. Data from the Chinese center of disease control and prevention on COVID-19 showed that out of 44672 laboratory-confirmed cases, 1716 were healthcare workers. (2) Data from Italy showed that by April 7, 2020, there were 12680 documented cases of COVID-19 among healthcare workers, and approximately 100 physicians and 26 nurses have died from COVID -19. (3) Pandemics have exposed the vulnerabilities of our current health care systems and governance structures but our doctors and healthcare professionals have given their best in the time of crisis. The risks faced during the pandemic by the various healthcare professionals of different specialties was not the same. Those who volunteered to work at the frontline were greatly exposed and the anaesthetist was always at the frontline dealing with the most severe cases. (4) Many anaesthetists fulfill the responsibility and assume this level of risk without any consideration for their own care, or of friends and family members. It has now become evident that anaesthetists are the crucial component of the response against any lethal respiratory pandemic. During each pandemic, the major cause of death was firstly the disease itself and secondly due to the disruption of public healthcare infrastructure. (5) To understand the severity of pandemics in the past, one must go through the effect of the plague that happened during middle age. The European population was almost reduced by half following this plague. (6) John Snow was known for his systematic work on inhalational anaesthetics mainly chloroform. 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