More than one million Americans are dead from COVID-19.

Frontline hospital workers experience the devastation up close and in real time.

And for one LA Times photographer who documented their struggles,

looking back at those images means coming to terms with some hard truths,

but also some hope.

I'm Gustavo Oriano. You're listening to The Times, Daily News from the L.A. Times.

It's Monday, June 6, 2022.

While the U.S. continues to experience the spread of COVID-19 infections with new variants

like Omecron, it's no denying that there's been a drop in hospitalizations, in deaths.

Through it all, L.A. Times photographer Francine Orr was there, sharing images from over a dozen hospitals.

Francine, welcome to the Times.

Thank you, Kosovo. It's a pleasure.

I want to bring us back to two years ago, how did you get that assignment to cover COVID?

I self-assigned myself. So in the past, I've spent a lot of time in Africa and in India. I've

covered extreme poverty. I've covered drug-resistant TB, HIV-AIDS, also leprosy. I have a very

focused interest in global health and public health. And so immediately, I started calling

hospitals one after another when I came back

begging if I could get in. And so I was placed in the ICU unit with the nurses. And I just kept

going back over and over and over again. I would spend time in the emergency department and also

the isolation tents.

And then recently, though, you did an assignment that involved you putting your camera down.

You were actually asked to write about your experience for the LA Times.

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