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Nurses Fear What's to Come: 'Walk Down Our Unit for a Day'

Associated Press

   LOS ANGELES - The nurses of California are afraid.

   It's Christmas Eve, and they aren't home with their families. They are
   working, always working, completely gowned up -- and worn down.

   They're frightened by what people are doing, or not doing, during a
   coronavirus pandemic that has already killed more than 320,000
   nationwide and shows no signs of slowing down.

   They're even more terrified of what's next.

   "Every day, I look into the eyes of someone who is struggling to
   breathe," said nurse Jenny Carrillo, her voice breaking.

   A charge nurse at Providence Holy Cross Medical Center in Los Angeles'
   San Fernando Valley, Carrillo is haunted by the daily counts of
   COVID-19 patients. Dark shadows circle her eyes.

   By Tuesday evening, the hospital had 147 coronavirus patients -- a
   record for Holy Cross but a tiny fraction of the nearly 2 million cases
   recorded in California since the pandemic began.

   Close to 18,000 people were hospitalized in the state Tuesday, and
   models project the number could top 100,000 in a month -- unimaginable
   for medical systems that are already running out of room. More than
   23,000 people with COVID-19 have died in California, and the number is
   expected to climb.

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