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Scientists in China are

trying to determine if
a new virus strain is

responsible for a pneumonia outbreak

in the city of Wuhan.

China ordering a quarantine

for the entire city of Wuhan.

11 million people, no travel in or out.

Wuhan, ground
zero for this mysterious virus,

and it's also showing up in other cities.

An update now

on the coronavirus outbreak in Italy.

The government's racing to
contain the biggest outbreak of

the virus in Europe, imposing
restrictions on about 100,000

people and shutting down
public gatherings.

The World Health
Organization's decision

to declare the 2019 novel
coronavirus a "public health

emergency of
international concern."

We instituted
sweeping travel restrictions

on China, and put in place the first

federally mandated quarantine
in over 50 years.

Governor Cuomo
just announced the first

confirmed case in New York City.

The World
Health Organization calling

COVID-19 a pandemic
for the first time.

Tonight, the death
toll mounting in the US.

Now, at least 100 dead
as the number of cases

of coronavirus tops 5,800.

New Yorkers
should be prepared right now

for the possibility

of a shelter-in-place order.

When I first heard of COVID-19,

I really didn't think much of it.

It was another one of those
viruses like Ebola or H1N1 or,

or even the flu that
we're going to read about,

it's going to have some effect
on... in China or in Africa or

in Europe or somewhere else.

- I knew that it was
going to be a problem,

I just did not understand at all
how big of a problem

it really would be.

- When I realized that
things were gonna change,

in all honesty, was when...
no St. Patty's Day parade,

baseball shut down, NBA shut down,

my kids' schools shut down.

- My first real experience
with COVID was

looking at a Facebook post

and it was an Italian nurse who
looked exhausted and worn

and wearing the mask and
saying, publicly to all of us,

"We had no idea what
was coming."

- I think when it started to hit
Italy really hard is when I was

in meetings and in the hospital
and just really starting to

contemplate, "Well, this
is definitely coming here.

And is it already here?"

- I got a call from the CEO
that he wanted me

to come to a meeting,

that they were
developing a task force.

- My birthday was that
Tuesday, March 17th,

St. Patrick's Day.

And that was really the first
day things started

to change for me.

I went home, I
Face-timed with my parents,

and I realized it was the first
birthday I could remember

that I spent alone.

That afternoon, we met,

and it was the, you know,

what, what I call
the "top brass."

You know, I'm new in administration,

so here were all the VPs
sitting around the table.

- The announcement came over
telling New Yorkers:

"Remember to wash your hands
for 20 seconds

and keep your distance."

The whole thing seemed
almost Orwellian.

That's when we
started thinking, you know,

"What are we going to do?

How are we going to prepare the hospital?

What do we have to do?"

Fortunately, our chief medical
officer happens to be trained

in infectious disease, so
the first thing he said was,

"We need to know how many
isolation rooms we have

and how many we can make.

We need to divide our emergency room

into a clean emergency room

and a dirty emergency room.

We need to be able to separate

these patients from
the beginning."

- Even to the last day
before, like,

they closed bars and clubs,

everybody was, like,

"Okay, like, it's not that bad.

You know, we'll,
we'll... we just gotta

like, tackle this down and..."

No, people are dying

and it's very real.

- I actually recall
that same night,

my second son, my younger son,
texting me and saying,

"Is this something we
have to worry about?"

And I said...

Sorry...

Um...

"You don't have to worry about it

unless you're going to China."

Boy, was I wrong.

Governor
Andrew Cuomo has declared a

state of emergency in New York as dozens of

new cases of coronavirus
are determined each day.

The first case
of coronavirus hitting Queens.

There are cases in Brooklyn as well.

State officials are still insisting

the public health risk is low,

and for now, the only thing
worse than the virus

is the fear and anxiety.

- There was a very serious
moment when this all clicked.

My whole plan, my whole
routine changed immediately.

- The situation started to get a
little bit more real for me as

the window for screening
started to widen.

- Mid-March is when we got the
notification that half of

the unit was going to
become a full adult ICU,

and that was going to be
staffed by pediatric ICU nurses.

- It started with, "We're gonna
screen these patients with a

influenza-like illness from
Wuhan, China, specifically,

who were traveling within
the last two weeks,"

to Mainland China, to now the countries of

China, South Korea, Iran, and Italy.

- We had to empty out all
of the operating rooms,

all the equipment, all the
supplies and transition into a

fully-operating ICU in
less than three days.

- Towards the end of
the month, you know,

if you just came in with a cough or fever,

we were isolating you.

- Because we were
getting direction

from the Department of Health
that we needed to

prepare ourselves
from a 24-bed ICU

to a 75-bed ICU.

- I gave every one of my
employees the option,

if they were frightened
or concerned,

that they did not have
to attend work.

Environmental
started coming in and, and

and putting, you know,
the plastic up, and

it was like a scene out of a movie.

Remember the movie 'Outbreak'
with Dustin Hoffman?

I'm telling ya, it's, it's like that.

Our life changed

within a span of a week
as pediatricians.

We started initially taking
up to 25-year-olds.

And then the next day,
it was 30,

and then the next day,
it was 35.

And then the number just kinda
kept going up until age 50.

We're going to need
massive medical capacity on

a scale we have never seen in

the history of New York City
before.

The Mayor is sounding the alarm

about the city's medical supplies.

He says, "Hospitals have
what they need right now,

but that will be a
different story next month."

With the biggest challenge:

Critical care facilities.

There are only 45,000 ICU beds in America

and about 160,000 ventilators.

And doctors say many are
currently occupied

by other patients.

- The first thing that I realized
was different was waking into

the hospital and being handed
a surgical mask from

a security guard.

And I remember pausing,
because usually,

you swipe your badge and you walk in.

It's something that made it
more real and made it more

like it's here and it's, it's serious.

- The way we answered
the phone changed,

the way we treated patients changed.

My office looks totally transformed,

with plastic covers over everything.

How are we going
to expand the hospital?

What areas of the hospital are
viable to place patients in?

So we took the plans out and we looked.

"These rooms have electricity,
these rooms have plumbing,

these rooms have this,
this is our first plan,

this is what we're going to
do when we have 20 patients,

when we have 40 patients,
when we have 60 patients."

- I began unrolling PPE,
personal protection equipment,

in my office, teaching
every member of my staff,

no matter what their role,
how to use an N95 mask,

how to remove the mask.

March 23rd was the day
we officially started to bring

patients into our operating rooms,

not as surgical patients
but as ICU patients.

I remember, like,

watching the news and you would see, like,

an exponential rise in cases, and then

you got to work and it was just like,

"Okay, we're doing this
this day.

This is how it's gonna work out,"

and we just had to adjust to changes.

- Our first patient came
March 3rd.

I remember the day because
I remember the fear

in everyone's eyes.

We are today
issuing an emergency order

that says to all hospitals:

You must increase your capacity by 50%.

You must.

- We prepared for it and
we had our PPE,

but I think the patient
was just as scared as we were.

"What's gonna happen to me?"
You know,

behind this wall, this
frosted plastic curtain that,

you know, we unzip with all
our gear on and go in

and say hello to the patient.

- We went from one patient
that first Sunday to

over 50 patients by the
end of that week.

- I had a call to go into
my manager's office,

and she said she had some bad news for us.

One of the patients we operated
on tested positive for COVID.

- We had heard children
weren't really getting it,

so when we got the first
positive result,

everyone sort of looked around.

"Okay, now what?

What's our policy?

What are we supposed to do?

Is a nurse able to take care
of this patient

and another patient?"

- I was kind of shocked.

I came home.

My husband told me,
"God knows his children"

and I'm not gonna get it,
so we prayed.

And then the following
day, I went to work.

- I think the thing that's really
specific to emergency medicine

is you never know what's
gonna walk through your door

at any given moment, day or night.

And so you're trained to be
ready for anything

that comes through the door.

Overnight, our, our heart attacks,

our strokes, our GI bleeds,
our psychiatric patients...

they disappeared and they were replaced

with a flood of patients in
respiratory distress.

- I've never seen us or myself
change directions

twice or three times a day,
totally 180, and now,

we're doing it this way.

And when I say
"respiratory distress,"

I mean I have never seen oxygen levels

as low as I have seen in this,

um, population of patients before.

And just one after another after another.

- It was stressful.

It was very stressful because
the last thing that you wanted

to do was make a wrong move
and expose a certain person,

and above all,
like, y... you know,

you, you wanted to protect yourself.

As a physician,
I think that's what we do.

The patients come into the room,

we talk to them, we develop
a rapport with them,

we ask them questions so
that we can develop a,

uh, solution to their problem.

COVID is completely different.

There is no solution.

And it's not one patient,
it's many patients.

We're not ready for COVID.

I dealt with a couple of patients,

and then I got COVID.

And my children got COVID.

I am a Brooklyn girl, born and raised.

I moved to Manhattan and that's
where I began my nursing career.

I have five wonderful children,
four girls and a prince,

and it made this so much more real.

I think I was scared for myself
because of my history of cancer.

I'm a survivor now of five years,

so I think a lot of the
skills that I learned

during the cancer...

is helping me cope with
this a little bit better.

I was out of work for 11
days, and the whole time,

hearing from my colleagues
on a daily basis

of what was going on there.

And, um, I felt guilty that
I wasn't there with them.

I feel blessed that I got through it.

I feel like I was a survivor again.

Finally, in the beginning of April,

I went back.

And it was just...
thrown right into it.

There were makeshift ICUs
throughout the hospital.

COVID units were made in
numerous areas of the hospital

to try and just...

deal with the, the load.

- On a bad day, up to four
intubated patients...

patients on medicines that are
keeping their blood pressure up,

keeping them alive, basically
having them on life support,

and you're talking about within
a 24 to 48 hour period,

almost your entire
emergency department is,

is full of those kind of patients.

It shook all of us to our core.

- We were running out
of room fast.

- It was the volume,
it was the acuity,

these people were so sick.

- The standards that we were used
to of making sure our patients

were bathed and turned and
comfortable were kind of thrown

out the window, it was just,
"Keep these patients alive for

your 12-hour shift so that
you can go home,

sleep, and, and come back
and do it all over again."

- You're wondering which ones
are gonna do well,

which ones aren't going to do well,

which ones are gonna qualify
for some of the protocols,

which ones aren't going to...

and we really don't have an answer.

We still don't
fully understand this virus,

and it's taking
characteristics over time

that we're learning more about,
something else pops up.

- It was like a crash course
in ICU nursing for me,

but for a lot of my peers,

it was a crash course in
bedside nursing.

Our patient
load was double to triple.

This is the most hardworking,
smartest group of doctors

I've been around, but they're exhausted,

utterly exhausted.

We were tired.

I had never...

seen so many sick patients before.

It wears on ya.

Um...

I would, you know,
get dressed in the morning,

go to work, change into my scrubs,

and, and be ready to go.

But now, there's a whole routine.

I get to work, I have to change,

I make sure that my clean
clothes are put away

so that I can wear them out
clean when I go home.

You gotta, you know, get on your PPE,

wear your face mask, your hairnet,

your shoe covers.

So I was in my room when I heard,

like, a lot of noise and
commotion in the hallway.

I came in and one girl
told me that

one of the girls is put
in there and she's crying.

You know, she doesn't want to be
in there because she's scared.

So I went to the managers and I said,

"I wouldn't mind."

And the manager said,
"No, her name is first."

So I'm like, "I wouldn't
mind doing it.

And maybe, if I do it,
she will get the courage

to do it the next time."

- It's not... it becomes
not about me anymore.

I can take care of however
many people, you know?

And...

if I'm not there,
who else is gonna do it, right?

And I think all of my co-workers
felt that way, you know?

It's just, like, we have
to be there.

They need us.

Medical
professionals on the frontlines

of the coronavirus crisis in
America are facing a shortage of

personal protective equipment.

The demand for these medical
supplies is especially high in

New York City, the epicenter of
America's coronavirus crisis.

I became a nurse in the
'80s during the AIDS epidemic,

and I worked in Manhattan.

And I remember all the isolation and,

and, and the gowns.

But it was nothing to the level this is.

Nothing could have prepared us.

- It would take maybe five to
seven days before we'd actually

get an official positive
or negative result,

so in that time, we had to treat
them as if they were positive.

It turned out that a lot of
those patients were negative,

and we've gone through
thousands of N95 masks.

And then, we started getting
the positives

and we were low on PPE.

- So when we got our N95s, we
were told to hold onto them

until they were broken
or visibly soiled,

which was very different
from everything

you've ever learned in medicine.

- The first policy change was
"surgical masks are good for

four hours, N95s are
good for a whole day."

We didn't understand how are we
keeping our patients safe if

the masks that I'm wearing
in one room,

I'm wearing again in the next
room for four hours straight.

- I was wearing PPE, but
still, in the back of your head,

you wonder "Is that enough?

Are the people I love safe?

Is my family safe?"

And I remember, at that point,
knowing I couldn't go home.

- I think we all knew by that
time that the virus itself

is actually smaller than the
filter diameter on the N95s,

and the nature of the N95
just means it filters out 90%

of particles of a
certain size and above.

Truth be told, I certainly
didn't feel 100%

confident in that level of protection.

- And I called home and
said, "I, I don't know when,

but I can't come home anymore."

I did five night shifts
at one of our hospitals.

We must have intubated and put
on life support at least

30 to 40% of the patients
who walked through the door.

During that five-day period, I
realized I was scared to death

of getting anybody else sick around me,

because we didn't know and we
still don't know so much

about this disease.

- Eventually, N95s were a week,
surgical masks were a day.

Then, N95s were indefinitely.

- So it's something that you
would never even think of before

this, and now, it was
something that you had with you

at all times and you knew
where your N95 was.

Our hospital didn't have enough,

and they still don't have enough.

- Now, we're collecting them so
that they can be decontaminated

and perhaps used in the future
if we need them again because

you can't find them anywhere.

Can you imagine the nurses who leave

their homes in the morning,
who kiss their children goodbye,

go to a hospital, deal with
people who have the coronavirus?

They're worried and they're
going out there every day,

despite their fear.

And not for their family,

they're doing it for your family.

- You know, we took this on,
we made this choice to take on

this profession and
whatever comes with that.

Our children didn't.
Our families didn't.

- I just kept thinking, "I have
to, I have to remove myself

from them or I have to
get them to a safe place.

This is, this is really bad."

And it meant sending my husband
and kids and my in-laws...

who wonderfully live in the
same building we do...

um, sending them away.

- This is the first time that I
can think of in history where

the danger is brought home.

I have a son in, in the Army.

It's, again, a risk,

but that stays on the battlefield.

We're bringing this home
to our families,

and we've never had to
deal with that.

- I decided to live in the hotel

and go home only on my last day.

I go to the hotel,

bathe, change everything,
and my husband will pick me up,

and then I'll go home for my days off.

And then, I do the same thing
again the following week.

- Mommy!

Yes!

- Mommy!

Yes, you want a hand?

Okay!

One, two, three!

The first couple of weeks that
I was working in the hospital,

I had so much anxiety
that I would kill my family.

And I have a toddler, you know?

She's so innocent.

And every single day that
I walk home from work,

that little girl runs up and hugs me,

like, all over my body.

And she gives
open-mouth kisses and,

like, you know, she's licked my face.

All the, all the gross little
two-year-old things.

I strip on our front porch and
literally nothing from

the hospital goes into
our house.

- No matter what happened
during the day,

she gets in the tub,
we play with her ducks,

we play with the fish...

and I just have to be
a regular-old mom,

which is the best.

My kids are my peace.

I do everything I do in this life for them.

I, I said to myself at the start of this,

this is my job and if I get sick,

that's one thing, I'll deal with it.

But I, I couldn't deal with
harming my, my own family.

- The day I kissed
my kids goodbye,

I... it's... I,

I almost can't say it
out loud but I, um...

I definitely...

thought, um, that might be
the last time

I was ever seeing them again.

Uh, and that, that is
probably my lowest low

and my greatest fear,

is leaving my family behind.

I had no idea that
it would come here like this.

I don't think anyone could.

I, I'm still in shock.

I think all of us are still in shock.

- There's this novel virus.

We don't know how contagious
or deadly it is or why it's

affecting people a certain way
and why it's being,

you know, asymptomatic
in other people.

Just the unknown factor
created a lot of fear for us.

- Early into this, I started
writing things down

in my journal.

I go back and look through it

and every entry I wrote,
it kinda seemed like,

"Okay, this is our peak,
this is how bad it is.

Look, it's finally gotten here."

And then, I write another entry
and it's even worse

and even worse.

- You saw the ranges of
severity with the patients

that were coming in, and
they were, you know...

yes, there were old people
who were coming in

and they were near-death,

but there were also young people who were

coming in who were near-death.

- I have a 93-year-old woman who
came into my practice who

has been home ever since this started.

She came to my office and said,
"I want to be tested and

I want to see if I have antibodies,

because if I do, I would like
to donate my antibodies

to help people."

And what we found out is that she indeed

had had the virus.

And she had it
right then... also.

So she was developing the
two types of antibodies

that we develop.

Didn't have one symptom.

She has so many comorbidities.

And then, I have people that are
in their twenties and

in the hospital and just...

near death's door.

- What made me the most
nervous was the fact that

these brilliant doctors
that I work for,

you know, day in and day out and,

um, the team that I was, uh, working with,

I think we were all scared
and we all didn't really know

how to approach it.

- We were starting to see
our colleagues,

um, and the nurses and doctors
throughout the city

who were becoming
patients due to this virus,

so we knew that, like, we
weren't invincible ourselves.

And I wrote, "This is, this is bad,

they're increasing
their age limit."

But each time one of
these changes happened,

I wrote this journal entry, like,

"This is it, we're here, this
is the peak of COVID,"

and then, just the next thing.

- There was no training...
not in medical school,

not in residency, not in
fellowship... for what I termed,

uh, before as a "mass casualty event"

that doesn't happen at once.

You have two or three patients today,

five patients the next day, seven,

then 10, then 20, then 50.

Um, and it doesn't stop and you
don't know when it's gonna stop.

- As ICU nurses, we, we kinda
strive on being challenged,

but the emotional aspect,
we were not ready for.

We take a patient and we do
everything for that patient.

All levels, we deal with.

From the care to the families
to education...

Um, we weren't able to do that this time.

In terms of lives lost,

that this situation should
exceed 9/11 is still beyond

my capacity to fully appreciate,
to tell you the truth.

Medical staff
struggle to keep people alive.

In one 24-hour period, 13
people died from COVID-19.

The crisis in New York

reaching a critical mass.

Paramedics now empowered to
make life and death decisions

that were once
considered unthinkable.

The planning starts from the moment

you wake up.

You grab your clothes,
you're in your car,

you, you know, grab
whatever it is to drink,

sometimes you get there,
you're parking your car,

and you don't remember if you
passed any red lights or not,

you know?

Because your mind is somewhere else.

It's affecting all
hospitals and it's on the news

and it's, it's spreading and
it's, it's spreading fast and

these people will keep
coming in.

And there was many times where
it may have been the family's

last time seeing the patient
as they dropped them off,

and a lot of the times, it was
also patients who were dying

up front and we had to rush them back.

- When somebody comes in
in respiratory distress,

meaning their oxygen levels
are anywhere below 90%,

the first thing we'll try
is just putting a little

two-pronged nasal cannula
on you and giving you

a little bit of oxygen.

- They'd come in and
you'd see that,

you know, maybe their
fingertips were blue or

they had this grey color to them.

Then, you had those other
people that came in

and they were starving for air.

- If they need more than that,
we'll go and put a full...

what we call
"non-rebreather mask" on.

It covers their nose and their
face and it allows us to give

them a higher
concentration of oxygen.

When that doesn't work,
you have a couple of

tools in your toolkit.

One is called "CPAP" or "BiPAP",

and that's a mask with a seal on it,

and that gives you air with pressure.

That type of respiratory
support has be shown to

aerosolize the virus immensely.

The other type of intervention
is something called

"high-flow oxygen"
and that, too,

is a highly-aerosolizing
intervention.

Two of the things that we try
our best to use to allow us to

not have to intubate somebody,
allow us to not put somebody in

a medically-induced coma, we did
not have at our disposal early

on because of the great fear
of aerosolizing the virus.

Startling new numbers

from the New York City
Health Department

showing a 110% increase in
coronavirus deaths

just in the past 36 hours.

Authorities are
also considering whether

to use Manhattan hotels
to help treat the sick.

The healthcare workers in

coronavirus hotspots are exhausted.

Hundreds are sick themselves.

- I try and put things together:

How many patients were
admitted the night before?

Um, how many patients were in isolation?

How many required ventilators?

Um, how many patients we lost?

- They have feeding tubes.

You're cleaning them.

And they go to the bathroom a lot.

We are turning them so
that they don't get bedsores.

- A bedsore is terrible.

A central line infection
is terrible.

But that's not this patient's
biggest issue and we need to

keep them alive at the
end of the 12-hour shift,

and I need to keep myself healthy

so I can keep helping people.

We started with
the focus being pneumonia,

then we went into coagulation.

It's just so evolving and we're
trying to keep up with that.

- The whole 13 hours, there's
no rest until you go on lunch.

And if you go on lunch, you
don't even feel like eating.

- We're all experimenting with
different medications that

the FDA approves and then
changes over time.

Some of them are helpful,
some of them not so much.

- We've had some people in
their twenties on ventilators

and it really hits home
and it's scary.

You don't have a magic bullet.

You don't tell that first person that,

"Don't worry, you're going
to do well," because

we don't know that they are
or that they won't.

A rare syndrome in
children linked to COVID-19.

New York State just revealed
64 children now have it.

64 children,

coming as a surprise, I'm told,

even to some senior State
Health Department officials.

- This kid was just over
a week old and

these were brand-new parents.

We were all very surprised
by it because there was

no sick contacts, they
hadn't left the house.

They were like, "H...
how did he get it?

Where did he get it from?"

And then, they wanted to know if
they were safe holding the baby.

Did they have it?

Could we test them?

And she was like,
"Well, what can happen?"

And standing there
and feeling...

scared too and trying not

to portray that to her,
but I, I had no idea.

To be the physician who's
supposed to give guidance and,

and help and to just stand there
and say "I don't know" was...

not a good feeling.

I know what it's like to
be the family

and not understand what's going on

and have a thousand questions
when the doctor

comes in for what
seemed like 30 seconds.

My little sister and I have
always been extremely close.

Um, the day after her 16th birthday,

she suffered a hypoxic brain injury

where you don't get enough
oxygen to your brain.

We spent 14 months as a
family in the hospital...

me, my two sisters, and my
mom... and we just rotated,

and it's part of what
drew me to pediatrics,

and it really shaped who I want to be

and how I want to practice.

In nursing, we
have policies and procedures

to prevent any sort of
hospital-acquired condition.

That's your job, is to
prevent these patients

from getting worse.

With the COVID patients,

that all went out the window.

I was told, "You don't
go in there to

turn them every few hours,"

which is what we do to prevent bedsores.

"You go in there
only when necessary."

There's no emergency

during a pandemic, right?

You see somebody who's in a
room behind that plastic

and they need you.

Before this pandemic, I would
just open that door and run in.

Now, I'm saying to myself,

"Okay, slow down.

Is my gown on?

My mask on?

My eye shield?"

It was eerie.

- We were trying to
deal with the PPE,

which was a new experience
for us to this level,

and still render the same level of care.

When you went in these rooms,

which now were plastic
zipper rooms,

we tried our best to coordinate our care

so we weren't in and out,
in and out.

- We would have patients come in

when they were satting out
in the field at 50 or 60%...

and I'm talking about a
normal oxygen saturation

being really 94 and above...

so these were profound
levels of hypoxia.

And if they didn't come up to 90 or,

you know, 88 to 90, 92,

we were making the really hard decision

to intubate these patients.

- That was when I
had to tell myself,

"This is wartime.

This is...

not a normal situation."

When I say "intubate a patient,"

you're talking about paralyzing them,

sedating them

and putting them in a
medically-induced coma,

and placing a breathing
tube down into their lungs,

and putting them on, on a machine,

and up to 90% of these patients

never can come off a ventilator.

We're listening to their lungs,

we're changing the vent settings

so that we can maximize the air.

Like a balloon, you want
to put enough air in to

get it to inflate, but you
don't want it to pop.

It was almost as if

these people were trying to die on you,

and it's not their fault.

No matter what we did, we
could not oxygenate them.

- There have been patients
who are on a ventilator,

comatose, and then their
cell phone might,

you know, ding, and they got
a text message from someone.

A few days ago, they
were a member of society,

walking around, and now,
they're on their deathbed.

- For a while, we were proning
these patients

who were in very acute
respiratory distress,

and it would take four to five people

and we would actually have to
take these vented patients

and put them on their bellies facedown,

and it helped with their oxygenation.

- If you've ever turned someone

who is, like, dead weight, it...

I mean, it's very hard
and physically difficult,

so we're, like, turning these
patients and cleaning them,

so we're drenched in sweat

by the time we get out
of the room.

- We have a certain number of
negative pressure rooms

in the emergency department
which suck air out,

and those types of rooms
are very limited,

so you really have to make some
hard decisions and basically

decide about rationing
those kind of interventions.

- You're not ready for that.

The idea that we may have
to make a decision

to take somebody off a ventilator

so we can use it
for someone else...

no one's ready for that.

- I think one of the things

that impacted on me most
was the sounds.

I don't even know how to describe them.

The numerous, numerous
rapid responses,

code 64s, that we
would hear all day long,

to the volume we never heard before.

Somebody was crashing.

Another COVID bed needed to be filled.

You'd hear it and you'd
just have to keep working.

We hear
these vents in our sleep.

All of us can hear these
tiny little vent alarms go off

when we're barely paying attention.

So they're just... they're...
it's overflowing the hospital.

- There's a problem here,
there's a problem there,

we're running out of equipment here,

we don't have enough
tests in the emergency room,

um, we're running out of antibiotics,

we're running out of sedatives,

we're running out of paralytics,

we're running out of...

stuff.

The stuff that we need
to take care of our patients.

We're running out of staff.

At my hospital, a
lot of my co-workers got sick.

We've actually had two, two
co-workers of mine

pass away from COVID-19:

One nurse and one nursing assistant.

The nurse who passed away,
I knew well

and I worked with him in
the emergency room.

He was in his early fourties,
had children.

He fought for his life.

I remember the day that he passed,

I was working in the emergency room,

and, and, and the news
made its way

downstairs from the ICU that

our friend had passed away.

That was the one day I went
home and cried after work.

Um...

it was just... it was like the
wind was taken out of our sails.

That day stunk.

- There's a lot of catastrophe
all around us,

there's a lot of death
and dying around us,

and there's a lot of isolation
that we're just sitting in.

And you go home...

and you think...

"Maybe tomorrow
won't be so bad."

- As we are trying to
get ready for the body,

I realize that I was so overwhelmed,

I, I didn't even finish
feeding one of my patients.

So I went in, fed him...

and then went to get my
vital signs machine

to take his vital signs.

So I went in, tried to
take his blood pressure,

and then the blood pressure keeps,

like, making noise.

Like, pim-pim, pim-pim.

And then, the nurse over in tha
section walk around and came in

and, and heard the, you know, the noise.

So she walked in
and she's like...

"But he's dead."

- When we're giving
post-mortem care,

you know, do we have to
double-bag the patient, right?

Or single-bag them?

Um, what do we do with
their personal belongings?

We send them downstairs to the
morgue and the morgue got full,

so they had to bring in
a refrigerator truck.

And they literally were having
to put these, these people

in this refrigerator truck
because our morgue was full.

So then, I have three patients

out of the seven patients dead.

It was tough.

But what really
struck me was, um...

the last one had, uh, belongings,

so the lady who transport the
body said she cannot take the,

the belongings with the patient.

Her words was, "Oh, his son said
keep it with the body because

he's gonna burn the whole thing,

you know, with the body."

I know he's in his nineties,

but he's also a human being.

At the end of the day,
I went home,

I went to the hotel,
sat in my tub...

for like an hour...

just thinking about all these, you know,

patients.

And I realized that, my God...

we are nothing.

Human beings are nothing.

The Mount Sinai Health System

restricting access to visitors
at all of their hospital and

ambulatory sites in Manhattan,
Brooklyn, and Queens.

Mayor de Blasio
stresses the demand for

15,000 more ventilators
for April and May.

New York's stockpile currently
won't last another week.

The number of
deaths is so staggering,

funeral homes can't keep up.

More than 5,000 dead this week.

New York State alone has more
coronavirus cases than

any country on Earth.

- I remember probably
the darkest night

was getting a call from
the intensive care unit...

and them telling me that...

we just used our last ventilator.

And what do we do now?

There's four or five
more hours until the morning

and we don't know how many
more patients are gonna come

because they don't announce themselves.

They don't say "Hey, we have five more

coming from the field,"
they just...

land in the emergency room.

I was the ambulance triage nurse that day

and I think like seven
ambulances showed up at once.

And I just had nowhere to
put the people.

We, we were filled up inside already,

and it was a cold March day...

I literally had stretchers with
elderly women on them

outside in the cold, and I just
kept thinking to myself,

"This is someone's mother,
this is someone's grandmother."

- I've certainly had moments
where I'm at the head of

the bed, I'm getting ready
to intubate a patient...

and intubation is maybe the
most aerosolizing procedure...

doing so with my limited PPE.

And I've definitely
wondered, "Is this...

is this the moment
that I get infected?"

- My biggest fear out of
all of this was potentially

seeing one of my family
members, um, in the hospital

in a very dire situation,

and unfortunately, that fear
came into play when

my grandfather was sick.

I remember the day very vividly because I

was on the phone with my mother
and sister trying to coordinate,

so I had said, "Whatever
it is that we have to do,

just make sure that we
get Grandpa here

because I'll be able
to watch him."

My low point was
probably when I was caring for

a 17-year-old that came in.

She was doing really terribly.

I came into the shift and
ICU doctor just looked at me

and just kinda said,
"Okay, she's gonna code."

- We got him in-house.

I was able to see him.

And I said to my
co-workers at the time,

"Do what you have to do for him

and I'll come see him at
the end of the shift."

I barely had looked
at her labs at this point.

I hadn't done the things that I
normally do before I...

you know, to start the day.

And I just stood outside
her room watching her.

- He needed a little bit
more oxygen,

eventually being on
intermittent non-rebreather,

so now, we're talking about, like,

the maximum amount of oxygen
that we can provide via mask.

- The biggest difficulty for me
was when I started seeing

my loved ones in my patients.

- I have a grandmother who is
not in good health and

I called my dad and said,

"If she gets diagnosed
with COVID-19,

you really need to
consider signing a DNR."

- I knew that if my grandpa was
gonna be put on a ventilator,

there was no chance that he would survive,

so I, I opted out for that.

I had a discussion with my
family members to see why

I opted out for that, and we all
were having this discussion.

And I remember at this point,
I had called my grandmother

and I put her on speakerphone so
they can, you know, communicate

because I wasn't at work
the next day, so

I wanted to make sure that they
had a conversation in place.

- So I'm looking through
the window,

she's right there, and I see
she's wearing her purple cap

on her hair to try and
keep her hair nice.

But I did talk to the mom
that night and she said,

"Can you put her on speakerphone?

I'm really close with my daughter.

It'll, it'll help me."

And I said, "I'll get you
on speakerphone

so you can talk to her."

We had another patient who
got really sick that night.

And I got involved with that patient,

so I never put her on speakerphone.

- And she was saying
in Spanish to him,

"Fight for your life,

fight for your life so
you can come back."

And at that point, I remember
holding the phone up,

like, while I was holding his
hand and I just started crying.

My grandpa might die in the
hospital and I might be

the only person who sees him.

- So the next morning,
I signed out to my team...

it was a couple hours
later... and I said,

"Please call Mom and
put her on speaker."

So my buddy said,
"I will do it, I will do it."

So my friend texts me the
next day and she was like,

"I called Mom.

Don't worry."

Sorry.

But, um...

she died.

- A lot of my co-workers were
just pulling me to the side and

they were just like, "Are you okay?

Do you need to step away?"
And I was just like...

"Nah, like... I need
to be here.

Like, this will
help me, being here."

With the following week, he had
needed less and less oxygen

and had actually recovered on his own.

I was in shock.

To this day now, he's, uh,
he's back at home and

he's hangin' fine, COVID-free.

My patient is still intubated

and on a respirator.

I was the only one that she was

able to speak to before this happened.

I was sitting with her,
holding her hand and trying to

soothe her fears about what
may or may not happen.

This might be the last
conversation that they are

able to have with anybody for
the rest of their lives.

- I'd say the
"no visitor" policy,

although completely
necessary and understandable,

was probably one of the most
difficult parts to navigate.

We had a couple of
pediatric patients that died.

I cared for both of them, um,
and the awful thing was I'd be

on the phone with the mom
and she'd, you know,

she'd be like, "Can I talk to her?

Can I come in?"

The answer was, "No."

- The component of social
isolation during all of this

has been profound, and that
meant leaving family members

out in the ambulance bay, even
just outside in the hospital,

um, in the driveway.

- Seeing people who die and
they die alone because of

these restrictions and not
having visitors and

no one deserves that.

- And before any of
our intubations,

if there is even a
five-minute window of time,

I think we've all taken
that time to even use our own

personal devices, work phones,
whatever we have to try to

Facetime in a loved one, because
I think we really recognize that

those may be the last five
minutes any family member gets

with their loved one.

I want my
patients as comfortable

as possible,

even if they're making
decisions for end-of-life.

So I sit and I speak
with them face-to-face,

eye-to-eye, and talk
about very real situations.

So it's very important that you
make that conversation count.

Unfortunately, some people
come in and it's rapid-fire and

they're intubated
before they even know it.

- Knowing we don't have a
definitive treatment for this...

is just trying so hard
for loved ones to connect.

- As the weeks went on, we did
start Facetiming with families.

We brought the phones and
the tablets into the rooms,

we held them up for the
families to see the patients,

and I'll never forget the sounds
that I heard when these people

walked into the room to say goodbye.

It's just like nothing...

you're ready for in your life,
it's nothing anyone

should ever have to go through.

There's nothing that I
can say to make it better.

You really became one
with these family members.

- I've even run down the road
trying to catch a loved one

who's gotten in their car just to

try to have that
eye-to-eye contact,

so that they really know
I'm gonna do

everything I can for their loved one.

- No one should ever
leave this Earth alone,

and we do that in this crisis or not.

If someone is passing and
their family's not there,

we all make sure someone is in there,

and I, I feel blessed to be able to do it.

- We're not their family, but
we can at least be supportive,

we can hold their hand
as they're dying

and be with them so intimately.

- At its core, it's
heartbreaking, but we

owe it to them and we owe
it to ourselves to do

that and just remind all of
ourselves that we're human.

We...

tried our best to let them
know that they were...

cared for...

and... leaving this world
with some level of dignity.

The largest
study of frontline medical

workers at the height of the
pandemic in New York City

found 57% of them had acute stress,

48% saw depressive symptoms,

and nearly 75% experienced insomnia.

- There's frustration at
every turn.

There's guilt at every turn.

- You always wonder "Could I
have done something

a little different?

Could I have done this better?"

- We sort of feel like
we're doing a crappy job,

honestly, a lot of the time.

It's a virus, we're giving these
meds that don't always work,

people are dying.

Every patient, I feel
like I've missed things.

- I was mad at myself
because I couldn't...

I, personally, couldn't give
them the quality of care that

I strive to give.

- I just felt like a bad nurse.

I knew what I needed to
do and I couldn't do it.

- I don't let myself
feel a lot of feelings,

but the one I do, because I
think it's motivating for me,

is...

anger.

- This is just the basic
standards to make sure that

being in the hospital
doesn't get them sicker,

and I wasn't allowed to do that,

and I wasn't doing what I was
supposed to be doing.

- Just angry about why
this had to happen,

why we don't know
more about this disease,

why we don't have a definitive treatment,

and why, despite years of
investment in training and

school and putting yourself
around the most talented

individuals, it's still...

it's still not enough to save your patient.

We didn't even care about ourselves.

Some of us do also get easily irritated.

Sometimes, people don't
even talk to each other.

It's like, I have my break,
I'm just quiet and

focusing on myself.

I worry about physicians
in general and the extent to

which it's a culture of sort of
martyring yourselves for your

patients and for the healthcare system.

- When the numbers got
better in the city,

our pop-up ICU closed and we
returned to a full pediatric

ICU, no longer taking
care of patients up to 35.

And I, surprisingly, really
struggled with that because...

my city was still struggling.

It's survivor's guilt,
looking at the colleagues

that we've lost and the
patients we've lost.

It's guilt when you are
sick and you've come down

with coronavirus and you
are sort of sidelined.

- There were still nurses on the
frontlines dealing with COVID,

and I was still getting
applauded at seven o'clock,

but now, I was in my
safe, pediatric bubble.

And I felt like I wasn't
doing my part in COVID-19.

- Losing patient after patient,
signing death certificate after

death certificate is a, uh... a
new low point in my career and

my life, I would say.

- An opportunity came
to volunteer with the

family liaison program,
so I've been doing that,

where I go into the patient's
room with an iPad so the

family members can
Facetime their patients.

- Anecdotally, patient
comes into the hospital,

a patient that is, uh... has
declared them self what we call

"do not resuscitate," they're
not gonna be resuscitated,

they're not gonna go on a ventilator,

on the verge of respiratory failure.

Can we give them this medicine?

No.

They're not gonna benefit
and someone else might,

so I can't give you that medicine.

You feel guilty.

You rely on the fact that
you hope you made

the right decision and that,
that medicine you have is now

gonna be used appropriately
so that, um,

you are helping somebody rather
than just throwing it away.

- We've lost colleagues to this
disease and to the emotional

toll that this disease
has had on the community.

I can see myself in that suffering,

and I see a lot of my
colleagues in that suffering.

And that breaks my
heart and it scares me.

- Here we are with limited
tests, limited medications...

medications that
don't work anyway...

and patients that we need to care for.

Frustrating.

The nurses are extremely, uh,

extended.

The work they're doing
is, is nothing short of heroic.

A life saved
from COVID-19 requires others

accepting the risk
of self-sacrifice.

I do not see myself as a hero.

I realize that what I'm doing is important

right now, but I'm doing my job.

- "Hero" is a hard
word for me to...

take on.

My husband, being in the Army,
gets called that all the time.

He gets clapped for.

Someone will come up and be like,

"Thank you for your service."

And he's always like, like,
"I have buddies who are,

you know, infantry."

It never sits well with him.

I feel how he feels in that, like,

"Not me, like,

you should see what my
friends are doing."

If you have a job, do it...

and do it well.

This is exactly why we do what we do.

I had felt purpose because I
knew that I was here to do this.

Like, to, to help, you know,
protect the city that

I was born in.

- I was raised in a family that
really focused on service

and volunteer work.

I chose to go into healthcare,
and specifically nursing,

just because I realized when I
was pre-med in college that...

the human side of it fell
more towards the nurse

than the doctor.

Nurses are the ones right there
with the patient every day on

the hardest day of their life,
trying to comfort them

and make them feel better.

While I don't consider
myself a hero,

a lot of people have been
saying, "We signed up for this."

I also don't agree with that.

I signed up to work grueling hours,

to work an extremely
high-emotion job,

I signed up to give myself fully
to patients on the worst day of

their life and to their families,

but I didn't sign up to
not be safe at work,

I didn't sign up to feel like
I couldn't do my best job

as a nurse.

- I see my office staff
as my heroes,

coming to work even though they
know it's going to be risky.

I think the
better question to ask is,

you know, have, have we always been heroes?

And I think is it just
being shed light now?

I don't wake up every day and think,

"I'm this hero," it's "No,

I'm a registered nurse in
an emergency department."

I just did what I needed to do so that

other people can do what
they need to do.

No.

I'm not the hero.

- Growing up, my grandfather
was my role model

from almost day one.

Um, he was a general surgeon.

He actually encouraged me for
years to not go into medicine

because I think he really saw
the sacrifice it took

to be a great clinician.

He was the one who said, "You know,

if you really think you'd want

to do this, try it out."

He encouraged me to join my
ambulance squad in high school,

which I did.

Um, and I fell in love with it.

When I finally called him and told him I,

you know... I have
to do this, he, um...

he actually got tearful
on the phone.

He was so happy.

Um...

and that meant the world to me.

He is my favorite person
in the whole world, hands down,

and I hope I can be half
the doctor he is.

I don't have a cure for my patients.

I, I've lost a lot of my patients.

I don't... I don't
feel like a hero.

Doctors across
the country are dealing with

unprecedented levels of traumatic stress,

not only from the sheer pressure
from their jobs but also

the moral decisions they're
forced to make in split seconds.

- In terms of coping with
this, I think right now,

none of us can answer that question.

- We haven't been trained
to compartmentalize

this many deaths.

That's the reality.

Stress on the job is something, um,

you talk about in med school,
but this was different

in the sense that it was constant

and it was all-encompassing.

- It takes me a long time to
really come to terms with

a lot of the things that I
see in the hospital.

Um, a lot of the difficult situations,

I ponder for months and months.

- I think that we are
in the midst of, of...

trauma, and you can't heal
until you're past the trauma.

- We saw so much death
and dying quickly...

it was...
I don't know.

I just usually gave myself
a sign of the cross

and...

stepped out of the room.

You know, tried to forget.

And I think I've probably
suppressed a lot of it...

which is not good.

- I get a sense of... well-being
when I'm able to call a family

who has lost someone and just
talk to them for a little bit.

- We all chatter about
PTSD right now.

We also don't talk about
the hard stuff often

at the hospital.

Sometimes, if you're
caught up in your emotions,

you're not doing your job,

you're not caring for the next patient.

- I really flip a switch in my
head when I walk

through the door and I,
I go into work mode.

I'm focused on keeping my team safe,

doing the best things
I can for the patient,

and then moving on.

And in emergency medicine,
things move so quickly,

I'm almost thankful that there's
not too much time to sit

and process, in the heat of the moment,

the emotional toll that this
ultimately does take on

all of us.

I cry pretty much every car
ride home after every shift,

and I think that's
important for me to do.

To just be feeling the
horrendous feelings that we

need to feel after witnessing
something like this.

Mental health
experts say an entire generation

of medical workers will likely
suffer prolonged psychological

effects from working through this pandemic.

There is a, a real barrier,

especially in the field of medicine,

to asking for help.

- My preceptor was like, "Why
don't you just go take a break?"

And it... having someone be like,
"Take a break" and then,

"Just take time for you."

And I just left clinic and
just started crying,

I called my husband and I was like,

"I don't know if I can
go back to work,"

He's like, "Just go sit somewhere"

I just sat outside and I just...

like, cried for a little
and just had a release,

like, just really, like, "Turn it off.

Take care of yourself."

Okay, now I need a tissue.

I don't like to cry
in front of my family because...

I don't like to bring them into it.

'Cause they don't get
to move on the way I do.

- I try not to talk about it
too much. Um...

my children ask me,

they say, "Daddy, um, are,
are you working with the

coronavirus people?"

And I just tell them,
"Yeah, Daddy's taking care

of people that have
the coronavirus."

And I kind of give very brief answers.

- My program has started
doing weekly check-ins,

so they do a Zoom check-in
with our chiefs and our program

director, just as a space just
to talk amongst each other about

what's going on and how you're coping,

how you're handling.

- I think that prior
to the pandemic,

I tried not to wear my
emotions on my sleeves,

and I kind of tried to, uh, be very stoic.

There was plenty of times
where I would find myself just,

like, you know, I'm not okay

and that's okay.

It's okay to not be okay.

Once you start to internalize
all these situations that are

going on, uh, especially
as a healthcare provider,

I think that's when people
are kinda set up for failure.

'Cause you're not gonna save everybody.

- And I can't really verbalize
what those mechanisms are

for me.

I am able, to an extent,
compartmentalize what I see

and do at work everyday, and
it makes me worry about our

interns, um, people who haven't
done this for a long time

and don't have those mechanisms in place.

- So I think we just get up and
go to work and give it our all

and come home and pray
that this will end soon and,

um, just keep doing the best we can.

- I'm gonna go up in the shower.

Okay.

There are signs of some progress in this

daily battle that the
tri-state is facing in this

coronavirus pandemic.

New York recording the fewest
number of daily deaths in

nearly two weeks.

Promising news in
the battle against COVID-19:

For three days in a row,

the number of hospitalizations,
ICU admissions,

and intubations in
New York have all gone down.

By the data, we
could be either very near

the apex or the apex could be
a plateau and we could be

on that plateau right now.

We've experienced a lot of darkness,

but there's been also a lot of
light and just a lot of hope

around everywhere you looked.

When a patient died, I die.

The fact is, if the patients get better,

it makes me feel good, so it
pushes me to help and do the

best that I can, 'cause that's
the reason why we are there.

We are there to save lives.

- I was caring for a
patient who was very young,

he was in his fourties, I knew
that he had young children.

I spoke to his mother
and his wife on the phone.

He rapidly declined and, all of a sudden,

his numbers were way off,

he wasn't ventilating appropriately,

he wasn't responding to the medications

in the way that he should.

- I'll never forget this
26-year-old female

who came in walking in,
and within half an hour,

we had intubated her.

I'm looking
at this guy, he's grey.

He's like the greyest of grey,

and he makes this
sound that you...

oof, it was awful.

- I was talking to him because
his family asked me to.

His wife said, "Please tell him
'You need to get through this,

you need to pull through.'"

- And I remember
speaking to her mom,

who was primarily Spanish-
speaking, just saying, you know,

"What's gonna happen to my daughter?

What's gonna happen
to my daughter?"

- Trying to get the board
under his back

so we can give compression's
so it's on a hard surface

so that they'll work...
I think this guy's about to die.

- I was like, "You have
to get through this,

you have to pull through,
come on, you can do this."

- We were doing everything
that we can to keep her alive.

And we
delayed compression's for...

maybe 15, 30 seconds

because we were putting sheets on our

COVID patients, on top of them,

so that when we gave them compression's,

their secretions weren't
being spewed onto us.

- One of my patients, he
would squeeze my hand...

and seem to be aware
when I was in the room.

And then
his heart rate popped up,

and we didn't give him compression's.

And... he was fine.

He came back.

- A couple weeks ago, we
just had found out that

she was discharged and
on her way home.

- I can't even describe
how good it felt

to just have that wave of relief,

knowing that he was gonna pull through.

- I would play for him these
relaxation videos we have

of the beaches of Hawaii
or the Grecian islands,

and I would tell him, "All right, sir,

today, we're going to Santorini,"

and play the videos.

- And I think that
idea of, like, you know,

she's coming home and she's
reuniting with her mother

and, um...

it kinda put my mind at ease.

- He had five kids,
um, and he's fine.

He went home.

And I don't think he knows who I am

'cause he was intubated and
sedated when I cared for him,

but he literally died
in front of me and...

then he went home, so...

that's pretty good.

- He's finally taken off
sedation and extubated.

He woke up and asked if he was in Hawaii.

And I guess
if you have to have...

COVID-19 and be
intubated in an ICU,

it's not too bad if you think

you're on a beach in Hawaii.

- Some of the patients
also give me the strength,

because some patients gets better.

And, um...

they get extubated, and then,
we rejoice and scream and yell.

- And when you pull
that tube out, and you

hear them cough, it is like the best thing

in the world.

- Our hospital started a new
protocol where patients who

recover from COVID-19
get a clap-out.

- Just to know that these people
are gonna start

to, like, begin their journey
towards a somewhat normal life

again, and just to be in those
very first moments of that is

something special.

Play a little song,
and everybody knows that

somebody's going home.

And when you hear that once, it's great.

When you hear it twice and
three times and four times and

you start hearing it five, six times a day,

um, each one is special,
each one means something.

That's what gives us hope: When
we see somebody getting better,

when we feel that we've done the
right thing at the right time

for long enough that...

they're going home.

I can't save everybody,
but I will be able

to save somebody.

That gives me strength.

People do
recover from this disease,

and a lot of people don't have
catastrophic illness with

this disease, and I have to
remind myself of that

sort of every day.

I have a weird and unique
existence right now where I live

in the thick of only seeing
the sickest patients

with this disease.

And that can warp my reality sometimes.

- Especially my co-workers
that I work with,

I think everyone's kind of
finding their own way of

achieving this, like, perfect
state of mental health and

being able to rely on each
other, confide in each other.

Like, that workplace camaraderie
has been probably at its

highest point that it's ever been.

- I work with the
most amazing people,

which is why I have been in
this hospital for 24 years.

We're a family.

- There were doctors who kind of
took that hat off and, and did

anything and everything to help
the nurses and explain things

and start from the
beginning and the basics.

The level of teamwork was really amazing.

- The wonderful thing about
emergency medicine: At its core,

it's a team sport.

You rely on your fellow residents,

physicians, nurses, techs, everybody,

to get a job done.

- We vent to each other,
uh, we blow off steam,

we'll, like, curse to each
other if it's a really difficult

situation, and we're really
there for each other,

which I think has been
absolutely essential.

You find that, like
most of your social interactions

are with your residents
right now.

There is a sense of unity at
the hospital that... it's unique.

I've never felt that true bond.

You have a tough time relating
with your outside-of-medicine

friends because they're
just having such a different

experience than we are.

- There really isn't anybody else
who can ever understand what it

is we've just gone through,
except for the people I worked

shoulder-to-shoulder with every
day in the emergency department.

I feel bonded to them for life.

Our healthcare workers,

who are doing God's work,
when you see them on the street,

when you see them in a hospital, please,

just say "Thank you" and smile
and say "I know what

you're doing."

Cheering, clapping,

banging pots and pans,
all around the city,

New Yorkers are giving a
round of applause to healthcare

workers out their windows.

- We've seen awful,
terrible things,

but we've seen people come
together and some

amazing parts of humanity.

I think that seven o'clock cheer is

very reminiscent of that feeling
of, of running the marathon.

Um, that, like, goosebumps,
chills feeling that,

you know... this city is so big
and there are so many of us but

we're really all here for each other.

I grew up here in East Elmhurst.

I think I take full pride
in being a born-and-bred

New Yorker.

It's... it, it feels good.

It feels like, you know,
the city's got your back.

Like, they... like, New
York is thanking you.

Thank you guys!

Thank you so much!

Wow.

- This one couple,
um, that every night,

seven o'clock, are outside the hospital,

um, with signs... "Thank
you" signs... and cheering.

Um, it's been night after night.

I don't know who they are.
I need to find out.

- Just driving home, I
passed our local hospital.

Um, people sitting outside with, um,

pom-poms and
streamers screaming,

uh, "Thank you,
healthcare workers."

Uh, and I, of course,
started crying driving home

so I had to pull over.

I love New York.

The other day, my
11-year-old called me and said,

"Mom, somebody knock on our
door and just brought us food."

I thought that was amazing, how
everybody is trying to help each

other, you know, to fight this.

Someone pulled up
and rolled down their window.

Being a New Yorker, immediately
got a little scared that

I cut them off or something,

and she just started clapping
and cheering and was saying,

"Thank you, God bless you,
thank you for all you do."

- Someone had come and put
a rose on everybody's car.

At first, I though maybe
my husband came by

and did it for me.

But looking around, I saw all the roses.

And it just gave you a sense of
"We're doing this for a reason."

My grandfather was a member of the

Air National Guard, and he
was really my role model.

I lost him, um, early on in life to,

you know... to his having cancer.

He used to fly in
C-130s, and sure enough,

on May 15th, which was the
anniversary of my grandfather's

passing, what flies over my hospital?

A C-130 with the
Air National Guard.

My mother was like, "That's
your grandfather looking

down on you."

The support that we
received from the community

was just overwhelming and...

meant so much.

- I try to leave work at
work, and when I come home,

it's really just, you
know, time with the kids.

My daughter, she's my angel.

My daughter knows that when
Daddy's having a rough day,

if I say, "Sophia, come give
Daddy a little medicine,"

that means she has to give Daddy a hug.

- My inspiration every
day were my children,

because I think I've learned
they truly look up to me

and respect me.

- My passion that's driving me
day in and day out is to,

one day soon, to be able
to hold my niece.

I don't want her to forget me
and I want her to

be able to recognize my
face and my voice.

- My family is always
by hugest support and,

um, gives me my, my greatest strength.

- My boyfriend has definitely
taken on the role

of cheerleader for me.

I think his words of affirmation
have really kept me

going and made me see things in
myself that maybe in that moment

I wasn't capable of seeing.

- My husband is a Staff
Sergeant in the Army.

Thinking about seeing my husband again

is what I think about every night.

- My cope and my strength...

comes from my husband,

'cause every night,
he'll call me at the hotel,

and then we will pray.

This necklace was given
to me by my husband on

my 20th wedding anniversary.

Any time I put it on, I
feel like it's my lucky charm.

- Mommy!

- Getting to see my
family again was the best,

and it was the first moment I
felt any semblance of normalcy

in almost two months,
um, and it was much needed.

I just tried my best to be in that moment.

Oh my God, just hugging my
kids and seeing them excited

and smile... it was the best.

This has been hard.

It's put everyone under pressure.

The beauty you see and
the strength that you see

compensates and
balances for the weakness.

And I get inspired by the strength,

so I can tolerate the
heartbreak of the weakness.

And it's that generosity
of spirit,

for me, makes up for all
the ugliness that you see.

- We're fragile, humans, and I
think I've learned the fragility

of humans during this pandemic.

- If this pandemic
showed me anything...

there's still so much to
learn in nursing for me,

there's still so much out there.

- I'll always look back on these
moments and, and remember the

difficult times but also
remember the strength that it

took us as healthcare workers to
get through it and the support

of my colleagues and of my
friends that I work with.

- I see...

how people are blissfully
unaware of what's going on in

the hospital, and I'm grateful
for that because I don't think

everybody should have to see what we see.

But just appreciate being home,
appreciate that you have the

opportunity to stay home and to stay safe.

- I hope it doesn't take you
having to see how bad

this disease can be for
you to, you know...

love your family, hold them tight,

and, um, not take anything for granted.

- I wish all those out there
could come into the floor

or the operating room and
see people dying.

It shut down your organs.

They can't breathe.

This is a deadly disease.

We see the numbers as if it's,

you know, lottery winnings or
if it's how many hours to

the next debate.

Look at those numbers and,
uh, see them as real people,

people that had lives,
that woke up,

that went to work, that have families,

that have children, that thought
that they were going to maybe

achieve something, or maybe
they were getting ready

for retirement or maybe they
were retired but they

had lives, they have families.

Um...

and my advice is to sometimes
just take a step back and

think about... think about that.

Cherish life.

The challenge is,
and I say this very sadly,

that the coronavirus is alive
and well and living in

New York City.

Yes, there's been real
important progress and

we can and will make more,

but we're still very much in this fight.

We cannot forget what we're up against and

the power of this disease,

but if we find our own power,
if we act on our own power,

I'm also convinced we will prevail.

- The future's pretty
far aware for us.

I don't think we can see it so clearly yet.

I think I'm
still gonna be anxious about it.

Anxious that maybe I saw a kid
with COVID three days prior and

I have no symptoms
and suddenly, you know,

my little daughter has it
and she's hugging Nanny.

You know, that's, that's a fear.

Professionally, I'm saying, "Okay,

so we need to not get lax,

we need to stay prepared,
stay ready."

I would think naturally, we're
gonna see an uptick in cases.

- I'm not sure what
the solution is.

We can get into politics but I
don't wanna go there.

I think that, uh, if there's anything

that's gonna destroy
science, it's politics.

- We still have quite a few
patients and we're still working

very hard and we're still
living the same realities

we did weeks ago.

- If this virus were to
hit at peak flu season,

at a point when hospital was
closer to capacity and there

were more sick
people, I, I fear that.

- I hope we move in
the right direction.

I pray that we move in the
right direction, because if

we don't...
we've lost everything.

- Questions are
definitely gonna be...

need to be addressed and
conversations need to be had...

above and beyond how much is
expected of our profession.

- This is different,
this is a marathon,

and we're gonna have moments
where we're lulled into thinking

it's over, and I'm sure we're
gonna get pummeled again at

points, and I think it's just
trying to be easy on all of

ourselves and be kind to ourselves.

- Even with the SARS
outbreak, the MERS outbreak,

the Ebola, Hantavirus,
all of those,

they've all been difficult
viruses to maintain and treat,

but never have we
seen anything that...

mimics what we're seeing now.

I think we like to
all think we're really tough,

that we can sort of handle
anything that comes our way.

When you're the helper,

it feels odd, it doesn't feel natural,

it doesn't feel right to ask for help.

And I really do worry about that
part of us and... as a community

and what that will mean
for us down the road

and in the thick of this.

There will be an end in sight.

At some point, there will be a vaccine.

This isn't the end of humanity.

Um, we'll get through this, it's
just a... it's really more of a

question of how much more
damage will we do before we

get to that point?

And I don't think anybody knows.

- I mean, I know there's
such a divide right now.

And I, I try and
be understanding...

because I don't understand
the other side of the world.

I still have my job.

Financially, I haven't been hit.

And I try and understand because
they don't understand our side.

So we need to bridge this divide
and we need to see each other's

side and be a
little bit more patient.

And the bottom line is I, I
think we did do a good thing.

I think we did stop this
from getting so much worse.

Uh, the curve is coming down
and I pray it stays that way.

I pray there's not another
wave of this in the future.

The pandemic has
shown us that there is no health

without health workers.

More than kindness, more than love,

compassion is the emotion
that most makes us human.

The healthcare industry,
I think, is

a different group, it's a
different set of people.

They are the ones that
wanna learn a little bit more

so that we can do a little bit
better for our patients.

- I know, when I leave work, I
try my absolute hardest for

every patient I see.

And I have to continue on that
kind of work and I have to rely

on that work ethic and try to help them.

It's a deep-seated
calling and a call to help.

- You know, I figure if I
can get through this...

then I can get through
anything, 'cause this is

one of the toughest things
I've ever experienced.

- What I've seen is a, uh...
an evolution of our staff.

You see people who start with
that fear that I talked about

to, to just kind of morphing
into these, these warriors,

really just going up, uh, and
beyond what they usually do.

I had offered my
staff the ability to either stay

home or come to work.

I did have a group that
wished to stay to help me.

And I, I can't even form
words to say how grateful I am.

That selfless act...
I'm just in awe of them.

- The satisfaction...

in seeing somebody getting
better makes me feel good.

I love my family...

but I love my job.

The nurses are, are the backbone of,

of medicine.

They're the ones who deliver what we order.

I can type in an order
and say "This patient

needs that" but, you know, that's simple.

The nurses take care of the human part.

Um, and they, they really do
that in a way that you know

they care for them.

They care for them as people,
as human beings.

- It's a lot about setting
aside that level of comfort,

because my, my
comfort doesn't matter.

What exactly can we do to
save this person's life?

It's not about my comfort level.

- I think going to work
has... it's been hard but...

I wish this wasn't happening,
I wish people weren't

going through this, but if given
a choice to stay home or go to

the hospital and be a nurse, I
wouldn't change anything.

Before this pandemic, I was...

uncertain if I should be a nurse.

Nursing is exhausting, it
has a very high burn-out rate,

especially when you're
working night shift.

But this pandemic kind of changed that.

I am very grateful to be a nurse right now.

I have a skill-set that
gives me a sense of purpose,

and I get to go to work every
day and do something to try and

make it better.

- There is no one there
who doesn't deserve thanks.

No one.

Uh, how do you thank them?

How do you thank somebody for
devoting their life to

someone else's?

There's no way of thanking them.

Um, we can't afford to give
them raises and,

and that's no thanks either.
Um, it's not enough.

You can give them food,
you can give them

bottles of wine, you can
give them the day off,

but...

you really can't thank
them for what they're doing.

- We're trying to make a
difference and we're hoping we

did, um...

big or small.

And it's, it's, it's... it really
is an honor to do what

we're doing.

- Just don't thank me.

Just wear the mask, social distancing,

and wash your hands and stay safe.

That's the "thank you" I want.

- Why did I come
here tonight to talk?

Um, to chat with you, to, to do this film,

this documentary?

Um...

- When Sarah told me
about the project,

all I asked Sarah was...

"Would it reach an audience?"

And I think even if somebody
hear what I have to say,

at least I did something good.

Just to at least save one person.

- I think it's important to
see... the human side

of all of this.

Um, to hear about what it
was like in the hospital.

- I think it's important to know
about the individual and why

they do what they do and who are they,

as opposed to, you know,
what's going on just at work,

because before this
pandemic, prior... uh,

after this pandemic,
we... we are people

and we have our own lives.

- Um, and I think it's really
important to get that word out

and that perspective out so that
the community can continue to

rally around that, even when we
all get really tired of having

to stay home and having to do
the things that we don't

wanna do anymore,
like socially distance,

wear a mask, um, not go
see our older loved ones.

- I want to get the message
out there and put

some meaning behind those
numbers that we see on TV,

put some meaning behind,
um, the success stories,

and put some meaning behind what
we normally do on a day-to-day

basis, how we help each other,
how humanity is supposed to be.

- I wanted to be a part of this
project so people remembered the

positive parts about this,
that people came together,

and that we saw goodness.

- I was just hoping to...

be a voice for the
amazing people I work with,

and to shine a light on what we
do and just how important

this is, what we're fighting for in there,

what we're fighting for in that unit.

- Um, long after this is over...

we can't forget the things that
we learned from this pandemic.

- If I can... in just a small
way... get people to think about...

their neighbors, their friends,
or even people they don't know

in a, in a, in a lighter manner,

in a, in a more pleasant manner,

then I've probably accomplished
more with coming out here

than I did in the last three
months.