WAVE OF COVID FEARS
Frontline city nurses recall dark days of pandemic as Adams nixes mask mandate
Aretha Morgan spent spring 2020 on the front lines of the COVID pandemic — and it has taken its toll.
The pediatric emergency nurse now awakens at the slightest noise, her head is full of gray hairs and she goes to church more often. Memories of the days when ICUs overflowed, personal protective equipment was scarce and more than 700 New Yorkers died every day remain fresh for her and other frontline nurses.
Now, as the city endures another surge in infections, Mayor Adams’ decision not to reinstate an indoor mask mandate as cases rise has helped bring back those dark memories. In a pandemic clouded by uncertainty and unpredictability, nurses worry that abandoning seemingly triedand-true methods to limit virus spread will strain hospitals amid an ongoing staffing crisis and as new variants develop.
“Honestly, I am burnt out,” said Morgan, 52, a nurse at New York-Presbyterian and single mother of two teens. “A lot of nurses feel that way. We talk about it almost every day . ... We always hear there’s another surge, another surge, another surge, and you get this lump in your chest because it’s like, ‘Oh God, are we going back to that?’ Because that was a very desolate time. It was a scary time.”
New York City upgraded its COVID-19 alert status in mid-May to “high,” triggered by an uptick in people testing positive and being hospitalized for the virus. However, Adams announced he would not reinstate the city’s indoor face mask mandate despite a city Health Department recommendation to mask up inside. This came at the chagrin of some public officials, who called on the mayor to restore the requirement.
Although the fallout from COVID-19 is generally less severe now than during the early days of the pandemic, the number of people being hospitalized in the city has increased over the past two months. On average, 70 people have been hospitalized in the past week as of Sunday, and there has been an average of 4,153 cases a day in the same time period, according to Health Department data. That’s up from an average of 26 hospitalizations and 1,162 cases two months ago.
“When we start relaxing our protocols for COVID, I think that’s when we’ll get more cases,” Morgan said. “And if we don’t have enough nurses working in the hospitals, then there’s no way we can really be ready for another surge. No way . ... This is something that I never want to relive, nor should anyone have to relive. So if it can be avoided, avoid it as best as possible.”
During the first surge two years ago, Janette Huang, an emergency room nurse, felt helpless as she watched patient after patient gasp their last breath. She talked to her husband about putting a will together and made arrangements in case she died. She texted her friends that she loved them, and that she didn’t know if she would survive. More than 40,000 people have died of COVID-19 in New York City.
“It was a little dramatic,” said Huang, 46, a nurse at Mount Sinai Queens hospital. “For our hospital, I think the peak was April 7. I remember because that day I was on, and there were seven codes in the ER. Seven people died . ... It was one after another. It got to the point where ... we started with one person, and it wasn’t working, so we would just leave them . ... I had no emotion. I couldn’t feel happy, I couldn’t feel sad, I couldn’t feel pain, emotional pain. It was like I was on autopilot.
“I almost feel like people don’t want to remember because the reality is, it was mentally stressful, emotionally stressful, and having to be constantly reminded of the bad things, like you can’t do this, you can’t do that,” Huang said. “So many limits to daily activities, like even shopping. It seems like people were so fed up.”
Huang will never forget. And with the
virus mutating and vaccinated people getting sick, she’s not sure others should either. “I still don’t know what’s going around and I don’t know how it’s going to affect me and my family,” Huang said.
The pandemic still feels unpredictable. It’s hard for Huang not to picture worstcase scenarios when outbreaks happen at her asthmatic daughter’s school or she contracts a respiratory illness, she said.
Nancy Hagans, president of the New York State Nurses Association, said she’s alarmed by areas with poor airflow.
“The trauma for me is when I see a whole big unmasked crowd in an unventilated area,” Hagans said. “I think to myself, ‘How many of them are going to go home and see vulnerable family members? ... With the risk of COVID transmission so high, masking is a basic step that we know will help keep us safe.”
Hagans is also troubled by depleted staffing levels that she said give hospitals less capacity to handle a new surge.
Others argue that the mayor’s decision shows an evolved approach to the pandemic that helps a return to a semblance of normal for the public.
“Masking, it was only going to do so much. The bang for the buck is vaccination to prevent those hospitalizations,” said Dr. Jennifer Lighter, infectious diseases specialist and hospital epidemiologist at NYU Langone Health. “That’s where the money is, that’s where we need to go.”
But for some nurses, the potential cost of going mask-free far outweighs what they say is the small price of wearing a mask.
Michael Richards, 63, a nurse at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx, is also anxious about rising cases. “We’ve seen an uptick, so definitely, it’s a bit of a concern,” he said. “I still hope it won’t be as bad as the first time around ... We were overwhelmed, we were devastated, we were wiped out. I don’t even know what adjective to use. It was petrifying.”