Your COVID-19 Emergency Bag If You Need to Go to the Hospital

What to pack in your COVID-19 emergency bag

If there’s one thing we’ve learned from this entire coronavirus experience, is that everything can change in the blink of an eye. One day you’re planning your next barbeque with friends and the next day you find yourself stuck at home for an indefinite period of time (or worse, in a hospital room, infected with a new virus that doctors know nothing about).

That’s why it’s best to be prepared in every situation. Just like we have preparedness kits for all sorts of emergency situations, like earthquakes and hurricanes, and the most recent situation, a lockdown, we also need to be prepared for an unexpected stay in the hospital amid the coronavirus pandemic.

If you need to pay a casual visit to the doctor’s office, experts recommend preparing a bag with essential items, in case your things take a bad turn, as it happened to a Reddit user’s friend who ended up in the A&E for an unplanned Covid-19 test.

“If you have most of the things you need in a medical bag — or even just a list — you won’t have to stop and think when you are panicking,” said Dr. Rebecca Sudore, a geriatrician, palliative caregiver, and the creator and director of Prepare for Your Care, a community outreach program funded by the University of California San Francisco.

Here’s what your COVID-19 “emergency bag” should include:

• Identity card
• Cash
• Phone
• List of your medications, allergies, prescriptions, even diet-related information
• Emergency contact list. Write it down in case you don’t remember the numbers or doctors can’t get into the phone to find the contacts you’ve labeled.
• Toothpaste and toothbrush
• Other personal toiletries
• Jacket

In a worst-case scenario, in which you won’t be able to return home for a longer period of time, you should also bring these items with you:

• Extra set of clothes
• Snacks
• Water
• Phone charger
• Cable
• Extra masks, sanitizer, gloves
• Denture cleaner
• Hearing aid
• Hair tie (in case you need to tie your hair for X-rays)
• Tissues (COVID-19 test involves a nasal swab which might cause runny nose and watery eyes for a few moments after the testing)
• A book (to help you pass the time)

It might seem a bit far-fetched to prepare for something that may never happen. But it very well could happen, so why not take care of things beforehand? Since we’re on the subject of preparedness, see also this Coronavirus Pandemic Safety Kit: We Made the List for You (Updated!). With the way things are going in several states across the United States, we might need the safety kit all over again.

What else would you include in your COVID-19 emergency bag? Tell us in the comments section below and let’s help each other out?