patients in isolation rooms.

Every surface is dangerous and so

is the air, especially during an intubation.

“Every day, you're thinking, am I going to get really sick?

Am I going to recover? Am I going to be

one of those young people that, for whatever reason,

dies from this?”

The history of this pandemic

will be remembered not for briefings at the White House.

But for the heartache in the hot zone.

We journalists haven't been able to cover

coronavirus the way we normally cover wars

from the front lines.

“Good morning.” “Good morning.”

But I was able to spend two days inside two hard-hit

hospitals in the Bronx.

To witness the toll on frontline workers trying

to keep Americans alive.

“So we're entering a Covid area.

And so everybody who goes in wears these protective gowns.

And this gentleman is helping me get it on correctly.”

Because I don't know what I'm doing.

“I'm the P.P.E. monitor.”

“They're pulling out another one.”

“Find that patient now.”

“We need the patient to go upstairs please.”

Dr. Deborah White reminds me of a general commanding

a battlefield.

“I mean, this is what we train for.

This is the moment in our career

because it's a once in a lifetime thing.”

She's trying to save lives,

“Yeah, for upstairs, for upstairs.”

while also keeping up morale.

On this day almost 800 New Yorkers died.

“Many of the people here are clearly

in their 70s or 80s, but they're also,

I'm struck that there are a lot

of young and middle aged adults here.”

“Yeah, absolutely.”

“We range from 26 all the way up to 59.”

She's constantly counting beds keeping

track of every patient.

“We're just rounding want to know how

you're feeling.”

“Sometimes, you know, that human interaction

helps them. So the bus is here?

Oh so let's go upstairs quickly because

the M.E.T.U. bus is here.

Let's walk rapidly.”

Dr. White has a problem. Too many patients, not enough

beds. Unless they make room,

more people will die.

“This is a medical evacuation bus

to take people from this hospital

to make some space here.

The bus is unlike any bus you've ever seen.

It has oxygen. It has E.M.T. people there

to support the patients

as they make that ride.”

But as this bus frantically shuttles overflow

to a nearby hospital, new patients continue to pour in.

The red phone rings constantly

signaling the arrival of yet another critical patient.

So many that there is a traffic jam

of stretchers leading to a small army of doctors

and nurses.

They are about to attempt a last desperate step.

An intubation.

“I need a vent. I need a vent.”

“I need a ventilator.”

“So what we're going to do is intubate her right

now to support her oxygen level so that we can

improve the oxygen exchange.”

This procedure spews virus into the air leaving staff

at enormous risk as they try to save the patient's life.

“Take some deep breaths.

You're okay.”

“She's attached to the vent.”

While intubated patients can't speak

and what everybody knows is that they probably will never

speak again. Ventilators may be lifesaving

but most patients still die.

Death here has no dignity.

Patients can't have visitors.

They're scared. They can't even see their nurse's eyes.

I've reported on lots of deaths in my career.

And this feels particularly brutal.

“Someone codes, someones dies. You go onto the next patient.

Someone codes, someone dies, you got onto the next patient.

And you don't have time to process those emotions before you

go home. I like, I have cried just, at home thinking about it all.

Or just, when you get home, you finally take a breather

and that's when you let it all out.

Because you don't have time to process those emotions here.”

These doctors and nurses are risking their lives

and we're failing them.

Some told me of their deep frustration

with the government's response.

We catastrophically bungled testing.

The president dithered.

Americans kept on partying.

The result, thousands of needless deaths.

“I was in the Intensive Care Unit,

the second patient who came in was tested positive,

was a 27-year-old.

I'm 29 right now. I'm just as

healthy as this patient.

It just often times feels like a roll of the dice.”

“I spent twelve hours

by his bedside with all my P.P.E. on.

He would grab my hand and I just kept telling him

everything is going to be okay, that we're doing the best we could,

but I could see the fear in his eyes.

It was heartbreaking.

Because this is still so new to us that we're just doing what we can

and we don't know what's going to happen.”

As I see it, the triumph here lies

in the courage and humanity of the health workers.

This may not be enough to defeat the virus,

but it's magnificent to witness.