E.R. Doctors on the COVID-19 Crisis, and the Politics of a Pandemic

The New Yorker Radio Hour

WNYC Studios and The New Yorker

Politics, Arts, News, Wnyc, Books, David, Storytelling, Society & Culture, Yorker, New, Remnick

4.2 • 6.2K Ratings

🗓️ 27 March 2020

⏱️ 34 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Across the country, doctors and nurses are being forced to care for an increasing number of COVID patients with dwindling supplies and no clear end to the outbreak in sight. Two emergency-room doctors, Jessica van Voorhees, in New York City, and Sana Jaffri, in Washington State, describe the scope of the crisis as seen from their hospitals. “It would be typical in a twelve-hour shift to intubate one patient who is critically ill, maybe two,” Dr. Voorhees says. “The last shift I worked, I intubated ten patients in twelve hours.” Plus: it’s been just over a month since Donald Trump gave his first public statement about the coronavirus—saying, in essence, that the virus did not pose a substantial threat to the United States. Why did he so dramatically underplay the risks of COVID-19? “With Trump, sometimes the answer is pretty transparent,” Susan B. Glasser, The New Yorker’s Washington correspondent, told David Remnick, “and, in this case, I think the answer is pretty transparent. He didn’t want anything to interrupt his reëlection campaign plan, which entirely hinged on the strength of the U.S. economy.”

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is The New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker.
0:13.2	Welcome to The New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick.
0:16.5	It's looking very much like New York City is for now, the epicenter of the COVID-19 crisis
0:22.3	here in the United States and perhaps the world.
0:25.5	It's a very difficult time to be a New Yorker.
0:28.4	The number of confirmed cases is doubling every three days, and there's not nearly enough
0:33.7	hospital beds and equipment for the influx of patients into the city's hospitals.
0:39.3	One hospital in Queens had 13 dead in a single day. And Andrew Cuomo, New York's governor,
0:45.5	lashed out last week at the federal government's response.
0:49.3	FEMA says we're sending 400 ventilators. Really?
0:56.5	What am I going to do with 400 ventilators?
0:58.2	When I need 30,000,
1:02.8	you pick the 26,000 people who are going to die because you only sent 400 ventilators.
1:06.0	Cuomo got extra ventilators from FEMA eventually,
1:08.9	but New York is still on an alarming trajectory,
1:12.7	and the full scope of the crisis is already being seen in the city's emergency rooms.
1:18.1	Dr. Jessica Van Voorhees is an ER doctor at Methodist Hospital in Brooklyn, and I caught up with her
1:23.8	on Thursday as the city's number of confirmed cases past 20,000.
1:29.6	Doctor, how are you doing today?
1:33.7	Another bright and sunny morning, but a little crazy at work, obviously.
1:38.9	Well, tell me what you're seeing this morning.
1:42.9	Well, our numbers certainly continue to rise.
	...

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