Safe house.

They continue, continue to make runs.

Nurses don't go the other way.

They go into the disaster with Covet 19.

Case is continuing to climb around the nation first responders bracing for an influx of patients and the reality that some of them are becoming headlines themselves.

Health care workers air now Also starting to test positive It's an emergency room.

Doctor Tested positive Just days after attending a conference off hundreds of E.

R doctors in New York City, hospitals all across the country are battling this virus and preparing for it to get worse.

New York's Governor Cuomo urging President Trump to take action and deploy the Army Corps of Engineers to help construct temporary hospitals, citing the impending shortage of hospital bets.

I know what the Army Corps of Engineers can do.

They have a capacity that we simply do not have, I said to the president, who is in New Yorker.

I need your help.

I want your help today, the president promising to work with the governor.

We're dealing with the Army Corps of Engineers.

Should that be necessary, We have them working in some cases on standby.

In other cases, the Pentagon releasing from its Strategic military reserve five million respirator masks and 2000 ventilators with confirmed cases of covert 19 exceeding 6000 and deaths in the U.

S.

Surpassing 100 were with critical first responders around the country fighting this pandemic.

We know that it's only a matter of time before one of us is a patient here.

My team and I have taken care about 5 to 6 Cove it 19 confirmed patients, some sicker than others.

We are facing an absolute crisis on our hands.

We are being asked to take care of patients with a novel virus, so we don't know how that virus reacts without what we need to be safe.

Though medical professionals get priority for testing, the total number who've contracted Covert 19 is unknown.

In New York and Connecticut, 200 nurses have already been sent home because of potential exposure to the virus.

Jane Jane AB and E.

R.

Doctor in Colorado is worried about that exposure to I have asthma.

When I tend to get even a common cold or the flu I'm sometimes compromise for for two or three months.

So I'm one of those people who is quite honestly at risk Every time I go into work.

There's a great deal of anxiety that nurses are experiencing right now.

Bonnie Castillo runs the National nurses union.

They don't have the adequate protections that they need to deliver the care, and they know that they are in current significant exposure and don't want to bring that home to their family.

The stakes could not be higher if the's responders fall ill.

There's one less person in the fight.

But it's not just staffing.

Key medical equipment is dwindling.

Our suppliers tell us we're within potentially two weeks of not being able to receive new supplies from them.

That may start to be a critical issue for us and health care workers across the country.

People are actually going into the wall units and taking out the bags of hand sanitizer that we use any protective equipment.

We're stuffing stockings, gowns.

All these things are disappearing from hospitals.

P p ease or personal protective equipment is the precious armor for medical providers.

They need to be covered just to administer a test.

Nurses are working with inadequate protections, and that ranges from head coverings, respirators, eye shields, appropriate gowns, the American Red Cross also facing a severe blood shortages.

Blood drives across the country are canceled, but medical professionals worry that staff and supplies aren't the only assets in high demand.

Probably the most critical issue is the issue of hospital space.

Every day in the hospital, we get patients with heart attacks and strokes.

And if we now add to this a crisis, we're gonna outstripped the ability to handle.

And we're already seeing that in Italy.

Of course, staying ahead of a potential outbreak is exactly what this team in Wake County, North Carolina, is prepping for conducting drill after drill to make sure they can handle any scenario.

There is a set of questions that are No.

11 call takers will will pass.

And if the call taking process triggers a concern for a A any infectious disease process going on and the first responders and professional will receive a pre alert the computers that they have to consider dawning or putting on a personal equipment as they go in what we're gonna do, we're gonna check your temperature, and then we're gonna go ahead and put this mask on you.

It's just because we don't want you to be called everywhere, all right, you're gonna feel some pressure in your ears and then check your temperature.

For paramedic Josh Reeves, this training is essential as fears about the contagion grow.

It's always in the back of my mind.

I'm not terribly worried, However, um, it's always smart to just where your gloves, where your proper equipment and just wash your hands.

Thorough training and precautions proving critical After last month in Kirkland, Washington, 1/4 of the town's firefighters were forced into quarantine in Carmel, Indiana, a suburb of Indianapolis.

Firefighters here stepping up their defenses inside of our analysts, are getting completely disinfected every morning and then, after each of each run, with long shifts and potential for contact.

Their schedule now includes daily disinfecting and twice a day health checks.

We're getting close to 7 p.m. So they're gonna go ahead and take their temperatures and just kind of re check things pra protocol.

If we do run on a patient that meets the criteria, then we're not going to send in the normal six firefighters that we would on that run, we're gonna drop that back to two firefighters, and we'll make sure that they're wearing the correct PP, which is protective gear.

So we're gonna have gown.

Skakel's love and and 95 mask on those individuals is a regular thing, but now it's taken more of a high end precaution of the virus going on right now and in Barstow, California a stopover between Los Angeles and Las Vegas.

For many travelers, that same spirit of precaution has become the new normal.

I want to make sure talk me, because I know if it was my mom or my dad, I wouldn't want to make sure it's all clean.

So every call this is all cleaned out.

So many first responders facing the difficult quandary.

How do you do your job while keeping yourself and others say, from infection?

Jessica Chan, a nurse in New York City now physically separating herself from her husband and her two daughters, sending them to stay with their grand parents until the outbreak goes down?

I could not risk getting them sick, also, because Big will also interact with their grand parents, given Jessica's know relatively high risk of exposure seemed like the right thing to do.

You know, it was it was difficult and joining us.

Now Dr Randall Curtis, who's just coming off of nine straight days of grueling 12 hour shifts in the I.

C.

U at Seattle's Harborview Medical Center, which is at the front lines of battling the crisis in Washington.

First Fault.

Thanks for your service, Doctor Curtis.

And thanks for joining us.

How are you holding up?

Thanks.

I'm holding up.

Well, I think that this is a challenging time, but the staff at Harborview are an amazing group of people that work with honor, providing outstanding care.

And so that's, Ah, pleasure to watch and be a part of.

And I think we're doing okay.

We know that your hospital has canceled already elective surgeries in order to free up personnel and protective equipment.

What's the morale like aside, I think the morale is is very good.

I will say that the deaths are hard on people.

It's very unusual for us to have to keep visitors out and tow, have these issues around quarantine.

And so that's very hard on families, obviously on.

It's also hard on the staff.

How do you tell them that they can't visit grandma or grandpa or answer uncles, that must be very difficult for you.

It's very difficult.

We d'oh, you know, allow people to come in and look at their loved ones through the glass.

That's been very helpful because people can see that their loved ones, they're comfortable, Um, and when when they are dying, we make an exception and allow one or two family members in in personal protective equipment.

But this, you know, this is so different usually were completely open with no visiting hours.

Families can come.

Families can stay so that that part of this is is extremely difficult.

Your area in Seattle has been, in many ways, the tip of the iceberg.

What would you say to other regions?

Other hot spots that may be seeing what you're seeing in a week or two?

I think the biggest issues are to prepare.

Make sure that you have plans for staffing plans for personal protective equipment, those air probably that the top priorities for hospitals and particularly critical care units.

Andi, I think implementing these public health measures toe reduce the risk of the spread is just so important Dr Curtis, Our thanks to you.

Not just for being with us today, but also for all the help to your patients.

Great.

Thanks very much.

Hi, everyone.

George Stephanopoulos here.

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