From my home in Brooklyn I heard sirens all day all night the whaling of ambulance sirens.

I think for the rest of our lives, that's what we will remember.

I'm Dr. Tom Frieden, president and chief executive Officer of Resolved Save Lives, an initiative of vital strategies.

I was previously director of the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Health Commissioner for the New York City Health Department.

I was born in New York City, a hospital called Doctors Hospital. It's now a condominium. I did my medical school here at the height of the AIDS epidemic.

Seven years I lived in northern Manhattan, a community called Washington Heights.

Even before then, I had been a tour guide in New York City

as a high school summer job.

I love the city.

I love walking around it, spending time in Washington Square Park,

looking at the people, the diversity of New York City people

from 150 countries and more schools that teach in dozens of languages movers and shakers of the

universe to people just starting out in this country of the my patients at a time in clinic, I got to know about their lives, their challenges, dreams,

and I think of them when I think about the people who've been sickened and killed by COVID-19.

After medical residency, I went to New Haven

for a year of infectious disease training,

and then I came right back to New York City

as an epidemic intelligence service officer.

As an EIS officer, I documented the deadly spread of multi-drug resistant tuberculosis in New York City.

And working at the Centers for Disease Control I dealt with the

H1N1 influenza pandemic with Ebola in West Africa with Zika with a series of

health emergencies. The Chinese authorities have imposed a lockdown

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