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WILKES-BARRE &mdash; Stephanie Rarig said she&rsquo;s been struggling with how to make COVID-19 feel real to the people who have managed to avoid having a personal connection to it.
				&ldquo;I ask myself that question over and over again,&rdquo; Rarig said.
				Rarig is the operations manager of both the intensive care unit and observation unit at Geisinger Wyoming Valley, and from the pain that&rsquo;s evident in her voice as she spoke with a reporter over the phone, it&rsquo;s clear that she&rsquo;s never had a year like this one.
				None of us have. But Rarig told an emotional story of endless bad days in the hospital, and she pleaded with members of the public to begin to take the pandemic more seriously.
				&ldquo;As you know, we&rsquo;re facing unprecedented capacity demands,&rdquo; Rarig said, adding that there are more patients in intensive care currently then there were at the height of the first surge.
				According to Rarig, it&rsquo;s exhausting, emotionally intense work, work that demands ICU nurses work long hours and often more than they were scheduled to work.
				&ldquo;We&rsquo;re facing a hard day every day that we come in, knowing that all we want to do is provide our guests the best care possible,&rdquo; Rarig said.
				And she said that, everyday in which people choose to flout the guidelines suggested by the CDC, is another day that becomes harder for Rarig and her team.
				&ldquo;We still need you right now to act,&rdquo; she said, clearly choking back tears. &ldquo;Please do what you can.&rdquo;
				Rarig thinks that part of the struggle with combating the virus is the challenge in making people understand its severity. She said she is frustrated by a perception that only elderly and sickly people can succumb to COVID-19.
				&ldquo;That&rsquo;s not what I see everyday,&rdquo; Rarig said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve seen younger people with no comorbidities pass away from this disease&#8230; I don&rsquo;t know how we can stress it enough.&rdquo;
				Rarig said that misinformation abounds about the virus, with some of it coming from people who have had it themselves, saying things like, &ldquo;For me, it just felt like a cold or a headache.&rdquo;
				&ldquo;They diminish what is happening,&rdquo; she said of people like this. &ldquo;They don&rsquo;t understand&#8230; We&rsquo;ve had people who come in who are OK and then an hour later, they&rsquo;re not OK.&rdquo;
				Rarig said that the things she&rsquo;s seen this disease do to people are absolutely horrific.
				&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve seen nurses sitting in rooms, holding the hands of people who are passing away whose family can&rsquo;t come see them,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;Someone passed away the other day with Christmas music playing, because that&rsquo;s their favorite holiday and their favorite kind of music.&rdquo;
				Rarig is pleading with the public to turn to credible information sources, and stop relying on information they see on Facebook.
				&ldquo;There are so many avenues for people who want to provide information or their perception alone,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;Please go to credible sources. Please go to our Geisinger site, or the CDC. Go to a known source to get your information.&rdquo;
				Thankfully, Rarig said she&rsquo;s been able to avoid contracting COVID-19 herself, saying that it&rsquo;s because of the intense protective material she wears at work and the precautions she takes when not there.
				&ldquo;I use grocery pick-up. I don&rsquo;t go into the grocery store. I wear a mask all the time,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I had Thanksgiving only with my household, like we were recommended to, and Christmas will be the same.&rdquo;
				Rarig said she had had to pick nurses up off the ground, nurses who have become overcome with emotion after losing yet another patient to this disease. Because of this, she emphasizes the importance of doing the simple things like wearing a mask, washing your hands, not having large gatherings, things that are so easy to do, yet so many people are not doing.
				She said her team is made up of some of the strongest people she knows, and that she can&rsquo;t imagine going through a pandemic with anyone else.
				&ldquo;There&rsquo;s something that I heard from my team that&rsquo;s so powerful,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;All they&rsquo;re asking is to feel safe again. They wanna feel safe again.
				&ldquo;I ask them what that looks like, and they say, &lsquo;I wanna go out and see people wearing their masks and washing their hands. I want to know that it matters. I want to feel like the community cares and genuinely appreciates what we&rsquo;re doing,&rsquo;&rdquo; she went on.
				&ldquo;It&rsquo;s hard for them to continuously hear &lsquo;healthcare hero.&rsquo; If you genuinely believe that, help us stop the spread,&rdquo; she asked. &ldquo;What we want is to feel safe.&rdquo;

‘I want to know it matters’: local healthcare professional pleads with public to take COVID seriously