Vega. I tested positive for covid19. I have been in the hospital for about a week and a half. And today i get to go home. I am so excited. When i first got here, trouble breathing, coughing, everything. I feel so much better now. And i am happy. Thank you to the doctors, to the nurses, thank you to everybody who helped me get better. Youre looking good. Thank you. So i just made it home. First time being back home, after being in the hospital for so many days. Im excited to be back with my family. Theyre happy to have me home. Im happy to be home. And one of the things im looking forward to doing first is having a good night sleep. It has been a while. So i think a good night sleep is well deserved. My name is raymond sangster. Im a covid survivor. I was admitted to mount sinai hospital on the fifth of april. Just prior to being hospitalized, for three days prior to hospitalized, my mom died of covid. And then i was hospitalized here on the fifth. I came in here, i spent almost, a little more than 72 hours on the ventilators, and now ill be able to go home to my family, just after coming out of icu after one week, and now ready to go home to my wife and my kids. Whoo bye. Take care. Love you guys. Love you too. Love you guys. Love you too. Thats warnell vegga, the first gentleman there and raymond sangster, whose mom died from coronavirus three days before he was hospitalized with it himself, and was eventually put in the icu and himself intubated, but now, has gone home. Godspeed to you both. You know, we keep asking Front Line Health Care workers across the country to send us their thoughts, send us things in their own words, send us their own view on their own work right now, what theyre going through, i think it is an interesting peak into the mind set of these Front Line Health Workers who are risking so much for all of the rest of us, that a lot of what they keep sending us is portraits of their patients, their parents who are surviving it and making it out of the, their patients who are surviving and making it out of the hospital. And i think it is also rel relevatory for us civilians on the outside, to see how important those successes are, and not just for the patients and their families but also for those working themselves to death, trying to help save people who from a disease that is very unpredictable and very cruel and just relentless in terms of the number of americans it has sickened and killed and today celebrate these moments which i think is important for us to know about them. This is another one we just got from indiana, watch this one. Chrg chrg chr. The gentleman was discharged today after april 24th, and spent time in critical care, and discharged today joyfully after spending about two weeks in the hospital. 300 patients, it an enormous number. His discharge speaks to all of the patients who have been cared for. You think about the number of hours of care that have been involved getting to the number 300, that is an incredible number. Its not just his discharge. Its everybody who has come before him as well. For the nurses on our unit, it is an incredible sense of pride, rising to this occasion, to take on the biggest understakitakingy lifetime and we continually adjust to all of the needs that are required of us. I could not be more proud. I could not be more proud. Thats tracy davis, shes an rn in indianapolis, at Indiana UniversityHealth Methodist hospital which has been a really hardhit hospital in indiana. The Indianapolis Star today profiling what they call the slow disaster of a covid crush at that particular hospital in indiana. And so darn right, you know, they are going to celebrate when their 300th patient survives, and is able to leave the hospital, after all it takes from all of these Health Care Workers, to try to keep people alive once this thing has gotten a hold of them. Because we keep just hearing, over and over again, especially as this thing has sprawled and grown, into this enormous epidemic, that weve got in our country, its grown from march, and has stretched on all the way through april and is now stretching on through may, it just keeps going, and the people who are doing the physical medical work to try to keep americans alive, who are worst hit by this, they just keep telling us, i feel like they need us to know what it is that they need to keep going, but also, just how hard this work is. Its been a very, its been a very difficult experience. Ive been a nurse for years. Ive never experienced anything like this. Ive never experienced this much emotion. I find it difficult to talk still. I think the one good thing that ive had so far is knowing, that i talk about my nursing staff and how its very helpful to talk to them, and theyve been a great support, but its been more than that. You know, i think that we help each other get through this, because we share the same experiences. You know, we all have families that we have to go to, we all make sacrifices, by not seeing them, for long periods of time, its been, its been very difficult and i dont think that, i hope that nobody has to experience like what weve been experiencing, but im going to to go home, im going to listen to some music, like i said earlier, im going to zoom with some of my friends, for just, to look forward to seeing my son tomorrow. Lyn is an icu nurse at mount sinai west in new york. She herself got infected and got sick with coronavirus early on in early march. She has now recovered and she is back on the job. I also want you to meet josephine stevens. Josephine stevens works in port jefferson, louisiana, she actually works in a dental clinic, in port jefferson, louisiana. But with the epidemic descending with particular ferocity, upon louisiana, josephine moved over to do something entirely different, at Saint Charles hospital, in port jefferson. She trained to work with Covid Patients who cant have their families with them. They cant have their families with them, they cant have any visitors, josephine is now the one who sits with them, and facilitates face time conversations, conversations via phone and ipad between these very ill patients and their families at home. She is the one who helps them bedside to connect and communicate their last wishes in some cases and to say goodbye, if that time has come, if that time comes. That is josephines job now, because everybodys job has changed in the epidemic. Three north. And everybodys been very different since covid19 came into play. About five weeks ago. Everybodys working very hard to save as many lives as they can. And its really scary. Its just heartbreaking, and it is really hard. Its just very, very different. Youll definitely look at life in a different way. Youll appreciate every breath you take, and every Family Member that you have. Very hard i just finished working a 16hour shift. I came in at 7 00 a. M. And it is approximately 11 00 p. M. Now. The day started off pretty rough. Came in running. Ran to a patients code. Realized that the day starts unknown every single day. Im very grateful for the team i work beside. We all work really hard. We look out for one another. And were very grateful for one another. It is kind of the family that i built, especially since my entire family lives out of state. I havent been able to spend much time in the last two months with them. I keep coming back though. I keep coming back because the patients need us. But the biggest thing is, the patients who need us, they need us to also stay hea you. The biggest concern for the public is reopening our cities and getting things open, for all of us, including me and i want to, go i want to be able to go out to dinner and do something, but unfortunately, we cant right now. We really have to get this virus under control. To prevent it from spreading out, even further than what it has. 7 45. The end of a 12hour shift. Today was definitely busier. We will to intubate a few patients with suspected covid disease. It seemed like the volume is ticking up again a bit, although not as bad as it was a few weeks ago. You can hear the noise, it is still somewhat lower than it was when i last reported a few weeks ago. So im hopeful of keeping things under control, although we still have to maintain our vigilance and not let our guard down, because these sick people are still coming in. Just not to the same degree. Stay safe. Stay healthy. Stay strong. Stay home. Dr. Ernest patti from the Saint Barnabus Medical Center from the bronx. You recognize him. We have been checking in with dr. Patti every week for a few weeks now. He is the emergency medicine chief at the very hardhit emergency room at saint barnabus in new york and that dispatch was the past week and you can hear from him the sort of mix of hope and worry, you know, hope that the numbers wont tick back up to be as bad as they were, but also some worry from him, as what he describes as the noises, he said the noises from all of the ventilators, start to ping again, scon tantly in the background, constantly in the background in his emergency room as they continue to get new patient who are in acute distress. In addition to sending us that dispatch from the saint barnabus emergency room this week you will want to see what else he sent us this week. He sent us a big multipart bundle of hope. First of all, he, too, sent us one of these videos. This video shows the release of the 500th coronavirus patient from st. Barnabus, the 500th patient who had beaten the virus and released from the hospital. Patient number 500 gets to go home and get out of the hospital alive and you can see the Health Workers are so proud, right . Even the firefighters came out for the 500th patient to celebrate his milestone. So dr. Patti sent us that. Dr. Patti sense these pictures of his coworkers from st. Barnabus outside after sending off that 500th patient, trying to encourage everyone with signs that say keep calm and think positively. We will overcome this. Dr. Patti also sent us pictures of the stuff that he and his colleagues have been sent from all over america, by just regular americans, trying to lend support, to try to bolster and support and show a desire to help the st. Barnabus doctors and nurses and what theyre doing and it is an amazing collection of stuff from all sorts of people who perceive all sorts of needs a woman named marge in silver springs, maryland, sent in respiratory equipment, a respirator, and masks. Dr. Patti received what he called an enormous box of hawaiianthemed gifts, and treats, from darlene in honolulu, who used to live in new york city and wanted to send that. Iris who works at planned parenthood in ohio, sent the st. Barnabus emergency room some masks. Beth in chicago sent what she called her own personal supply of masks. So you see the appreciation, both of people sending that stuff, to st. Barnabus but also the appreciation of this physician, saying do you believe people are being so kind . Its nice, i mean that mutualaity i think is nice to see, but i mean, honestly, big picture, in the news, things are terrible, 1. 3 million cases in this country, we are over 77,000 american deaths at this point. The Unemployment Rate today hit 14. 7 , which is the worst level of unemployment in this country, since the great depression. We do not need to qualify it any other way. The Associated Press tonight reporting that the highest levels of the white house, there was political intervention to block the cdc from issuing practical guidance about how businesses and services could safely reopen, without risking people getting infected there. The white house at the highest levels intervened, to block the cdc from releasing that guidance to the american people, which would save lives, because the white house is encouraging all sorts of states to open up. The cdc produced guidelines on how to do that safely. The white house blocked it. And then the white house overtly lied about it when they were asked, when they were asked about the cdc guidance, they said oh, that guidance wasnt actually approved by the cdc. Actually, the cdc had approved it. And the white house blocked it. Things are bad. I get it. If there is one thing that is worse than an aastonishingly botched response to an existentially challenging pandemic, that is killing tens of thousands of americans on an ongoing basis, if there is one thing that is worse than its maybe an astonishingly botched response to that kind of an epidemic that just keeps getting worse over time, right . Where the Public Health people and the scientists are actually exerting less control over the countrys response over time, rather than more. Where the scientists and the Public Health people who actually know to what to do are getting more and more muzzled, as the terrible response of our government continues, and actually gets worse day by day. So i got it. Everythings terrible. I know. And were going to cover a bunch of that stuff over the course of this hour tonight, including a look at what might be the worst state in the country in terms of how the epidemic response is being botched, and how the people of that state are being prevented from knowing the truth about the scale of the disaster there. Things are bad. I know. We will cover, we will still continue covering all of the badness of it, but for a hot second here, on this friday night, i do just want to cover one piece of this that is something constructive and innovative and good, so forgive me. Lets go back to dr. Patti at st. Barnabus for a second. You might remember something that caught my attention in this photo that we showed from dr. Patti a week ago. And you see, hes got his respirator on, the face shield at the top of his head, the ppe gown, the gloves on, but you can see the sticker of himself, the sticker of his own face, that little picture of a smiling dr. Patti, that is put on his medical gown as a sticker. Dr. Patti told us that somebody sent that to him, among all of the people who have been sending him an his staff great stuff, somebody sent that picture of him of his head shot, so that his coronavirus patients could see his face, and know that there was a human being behind all of that protective gear. Turns out there is a kind of amazing story behind that. That sticker, with dr. Pattis photo on it was sent to him by somebody who never met him in real life. Her name is Laurie Justice shockett, an artist with a medical degree and married to an e. R. Doctor and the mom and the stepmom of two more e. R. Doctors. She is connected. And right now, one of the things she has started doing, is making ppe portraits for medical staff who wear full protective gear when taking care of their patients, so you, the doctor, or you the nurse, send her the smiling photo of yourself, she will print, laminate and mail a sheet of ppe portraits to stick on the outside of your ppe gear so your terrified patients who cant actually see really any of your face, they can at least have some idea of who you are, and what you really look like. And where this idea came from, i had no idea, was the Ebola Outbreak in liberia, in 2014 and 2015. An american artist named mary beth heiferman who teaches at occidental college, she was moved and intrigued by the images of the full space suitlike ppe, that Health Workers were wearing, while caring for people with ebola in liberia. And she started studying it. And she ultimately created the ppe portrait project. Subscribing it as an art intervention designed to improve ebola care. And this was, this was not a whim. It was not a small thing. It was not an easy thing. It was a deeplyresearch, grantfunded project, focusing on the psychological effects of isolation on patients and ultimately the beneficial effects of puncturing that isolation by allowing them to connect better with their providers. Mary beth herrerman, the artist was invited by the government of liberia to come work with doctors in Ebola Treatment Centers in 2014 and 2015 and she told us that she has always hoped that what she started doing in liberia, these few years ago, would become best medical practice for all kinds of patients who have to experience the isolation of never seeing people outside ppe. Seeing only masked faces for days at a time. Well, now, this epidemic that we are in, appears to be putting her idea into effect, putting her idea at the center of consciousness, at least, in more and more places. It was her work, the ppe portrait project, in liberia, for the ebola crisis, that inspired laurie, who saw dr. Patti at st. Barnabus here on this show, and she sent dr. Patti his portrait and that is why we were able to see him wear it. The same work also inspired a Stanford University researcher who works on Quality Improvement of patient care. As the covid epidemic drove tens of thousands of patients into american hospitals, and american Frontline Health providers everywhere, were into full ppe whenever they could get their hands on, it the stanford researcher, katie brown johnson, got in touch with mary beth happerman, and now they are working together on a project at stanford that provides ppe portraits to hospitals across the country. This very a dic version of the project on the web which is basically a template that Health Care Workers can use to do this. I will also tell you that we got kind of a hilarious offshoot of this idea from a brother and sister team named linda and jack. Jack was recently being treated for cancer at the hospital, during the covid19 epidemic, and after seeing all of the medical workers dressed head to toe in protective gear, jack and his sister linda and their other siblings decided to design their own sort of homegrown, homeconceived version of this very fancy high level art world, high Level Medical world idea. And what jack and linda and their siblings came up with is a version of it that is sort of equal parts awesome and hilarious and slightly unsettling. Look. Behold. It is the selfie mask. This isnt you printing a portrait of your straight to camera smiling face on a sticker that you put on your gown, this is you approximating the look of your face, as kind of a mask overlay, its like wearing a face suit of yourself, on your face. They tell us theyve now made a bunch of them at the hospital jack is being treated at for cancer, this is jacks oncologist wearing his. Look at that. Key shave that goatee and nobody would ever know. Jack and lindas brother andy helped them come up with a fairl