professionals on the frontlines with this pandemic

every single day.

Take a look at this group of nurses

from Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia.

[MUSIC - CIARA, "LEVEL UP"]

Five, four, three, two, one.

Leggo!

Level up, level up, level up, level up, level up.

Level up, level up, level up, level up, level up.

All this on me, so yummy.

All this, oh so yummy.

You know you want this yummy.

They call themselves the Swab Squad.

Hey, you guys.

[CLAPPING]

[CHEERING]

Hi.

I am so excited to see you.

I bet you're excited, too.

I just can't see through the masks.

But I hope you're smiling behind those masks.

All right.

Swab Squad, I think I know what it is, but explain

what that means exactly.

Yes.

Hey, Ellen.

I'm Jeff Doucette.

I'm the chief nurse here at Thomas Jefferson University

Hospital.

And I get the privilege of representing

these amazing nurses.

[CHEERING]

And they affectionately become known as the Swab Squad

because we were the first drive-through testing site here

in Philadelphia for COVID-19.

And this amazing team of people, who

are trained nurses that go all over the hospital,

depending on what the need are, never

really get to work together as a team.

And one of the most important things that you've heard about

is people staying at home when they're not feeling well.

And so what this team has been able to do

is test over 2000 people and get them at home

where they need to recover.

And so this team has come together

and formed this amazing family that has really

kept this community safe.

And we are so incredibly proud of them and everything

that they're doing.

[APPLAUSE]

I am proud and amazed by what you're doing.

You're testing people every day.

That must be so scary.

I know it's your job, but this is like nothing anybody

has ever experienced.

How scary is that for y'all to do that?

Hi, Ellen.

My name's JoAnn.

I'm one of the critical care nurses here at Jefferson.

It's very scary.

We go out, we don't know which patients are positive,

which aren't.

They're coughing in our faces.

We're trying to stay safe.

But on the other hand, we're nurses.

We're here to inform our anxious patients, let them know

what to do, what steps to take.

And that we're reassuring them all the time

that it's going to be OK.

[APPLAUSE]

You know how much we all are appreciative of nurses anyway,

but I think this is really making

everyone aware of what a heroic job this is

at a time like this.

And you have each other to lean on,

and I know that's important.

But I want to talk about the dance.

So Level Up, first of all, I love that song.

I love Ciara.

But why did y'all pick that?

Hi, Ellen.

I'm Jeff Salvatore.

I am the site coordinator for the drive-through testing.

And I think the nurses can say that I kind of hold them

to a high standard--

[LAUGHTER]

And this is a very scary time, and we're

all nervous and feeling a bunch of different emotions.

But at 8:00 when we open, I need you to level up,

and I need you to get out there and test our patients.

So every morning we kind of come together

and we talk and boost ourselves up

on how we're going to be able to 8-5 stay focused,

and do our job and take care of these patients.

And Level Up just has that message

and we listen to it often in the morning to boost ourselves up.

And the response has been amazing, right?

Yes.

And Ciara reposting us was just absolutely unbelievable.

We were closing up shop that day and one of the M.A.s

told us that Ciara posted us, and we just lost our miinds.

[LAUGHTER]

And then everybody that's been commenting or reposting it,

it's just been really keeping our morale high

and helping us get through these times.

You know, it is something like that.

Just a little bit of joy, a little bit of lightness

that you all came together and put that

together spreads it out.

And everybody responded to it.

Obviously, that's why I'm talking to you

and you're on my show today.

But Ciara--

[APPLAUSE]

And Ciara has a little something to say, so she, she sent this.

Hey, guys.

What's up?

It's Ciara here, and I just want to say thank you

so much from the bottom of my heart

to the nurses at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital,

the original Swab Squad.

You guys are doing something so amazing and so special.

You are giving the world joy in a time when we need it

by dancing and leveling up.

Your Level Up challenge was amazing,

and I want to encourage you guys to keep

on going strong because we're all in this together.

And I have someone else here who wants to say thank you

so much as well.

What's up squad?

You guys keep leveling up, and keep doing your thing.

Keep making a difference. [? Y'all ?] are the true,

true heroes.

My mom's helping out in Seattle too as well.

So I'm grateful for you all, to every nurse, every doctor.

To everybody who's helping.

Everyone.

We love you all.

We love you all.

Keep it going.

Keep leveling up.

Keep it going.

Keep leveling up.

Level up.

Ellen, love you too.

Ellen, love you.

Level up.

Bye, guys.

[APPLAUSE]

Oh my god.

How great was that?

[CHEERING]

All right.

We're going to take a little break,

and then I'm going to come back more with Swab Squad

after this.

All right.

We're back with the incredible nurses

from Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia.

You're on the frontlines every single day.

And some of you, I know--

what I'm hearing, like the shifts are so long,

and it's exhausting anyway without them being even

longer than they normally are.

And you're not even getting to see your families because

of this quarantine.

What is that like?

Hi, I'm Mary.

It's hard.

But with them being part of my family

and helping me support through this,

it's very even slowly going.

But I do miss my kids, but they make me work every day.

And they push me, and they comfort me.

When we have a moment, we sit down and talk.

It's about to make me cry.

Without them, I don't think I could make it.

They're my new family, and I would never change anything.

Aw.

We love you.

Hey, Ellen.

I'm Leslie.

I'm also one of the critical care nurses,

and I just want to touch on that a little bit about this family

that we have made in each other.

I had an experience last week when I found out

that the day had come that I was back

in the medical ICU, basically the epicenter

of the COVID positive patients needing ICU level of care.

I was scared, and I just reached out in our group chat and said,

hey, guys, I'm going to the M.I.C.U. today, and I'm scared.

And every single one of them responded immediately, and just

giving me words of encouragement.

Jill, and Olga, and Meredith, who I tease and call

my older sister now.

They all just lifted me up and helped

me just get through my day.

And I knew I could take it on, and I

could do what we were here for is

to take care of these patients.

So it just meant so much.

We love you.

[APPLAUSE]

Well, you've formed a brand new--

not that you didn't have a bond before,

but you've formed a brand new family.

And you're all soldiers, and you're

doing things that all of us would be scared to death to do.

But you're like, well, this is my job and I'm doing it.

And it's incredible, so I wanted to just talk to you

and tell you how much you mean to all of us.

I'm just one voice that's going to say everyone

feels this way about you.

We appreciate you.

We love you.

Don't think that there's not a minute and a day of what you're

doing with those people that you don't have millions of people

grateful for you and every single thing.

Just know how we feel about you, and how grateful we are.

One thing I want to do is, I don't know if you've heard,

I have a thing on my show we call 12 Days of Giveaways.

It's a little thing we do at Christmas,

and we give stuff away.

Anyway, you may have heard about it.

So when we're able to get back into the studio,

I'm going to dedicate one of the 12 Days of Giveaways

to all the people on the front lines.

And I'm inviting each of you to come to California

to be at that show for 12 Days of Giveaways.

[CHEERING]

All right.

One more thing that I want to give the hospital.

I know you set up a COVID-19 Better Together

fund to help employees struggling financially.

Our friends at Shutterfly love what you're doing,

and they want to donate $50,000 to that fund.

[CHEERING]

I am sending you so much love.

And again, just know when you're there,

and it's the hardest moment, the hardest day,

you haven't seen your family, know

how many people are thinking of you

and thanking you and sending you love.

All right?

[APPLAUSE]

All right.

We'll be right back.

Hi, I'm Andy.

Ellen asked me to remind you to subscribe to her channel

so you can see more awesome videos,

like videos of me getting scared or saying embarrassing things,

like ball peen hammer, and also some videos of Ellen

and other celebrities if you're into that sort of thing.

Ha!

[BLEEP] God [BLEEP]