Wake up. Eat breakfast. Put my mask on and walk to work in the brisk, early morning sunlight of New Jersey. My shift starts at 07:00. As I walk into the hospital, like every day, I am stopped for a forehead temperature scan and asked if I have any flu-like symptoms before proceeding to the ICU. I gather my one N95 mask for the day, a single hair net, shoe covers if available, a plastic gown and a pair of hospital issued scrubs. I reuse my face shield everyday.

I head down two floors to the makeshift ICU. The entrance is blocked off with heavy-duty construction plastic as an attempt to make the OR and PACU ‘negative-pressure’. [COVID can stay airborne for several hours with aerosolization and the negative pressure means particles will flow into the COVID area, not into other surrounding hallways]. This area is filled people, each crammed…