also with us is dr. vin gupta, a pulmonologist and global health policy expert. he's an affiliate to an assistant professor at the university of washington. also an msnbc medical contributor. jesse, you've been talking to nurses on the front line of this latest surge. what are they telling you? >> reporter: jose, some health care workers out here are questioning how much longer they can be doing this work. here in california, we continue to see hospitalizations go up. we've been seeing a seven-day average of more than 100,000 cases in california over the last two weeks. and here in southern california, the providence hospital system, including right here at st. joseph's, we are seeing according to the hospital system, a jump from about 400 covid patients to around 900 covid patients in their system over the last month. but thankfully, they are starting to see a little bit of a drop. but just to give you a sense of the distress that health care workers are seeing, a survey conducted last year of about 1,400 health care workers out here found that more than 70% of