City of plague:A new Yorker’s pandemic chronicle Pt 14.

In late March 2020, New York City began to drown.

The number of COVID-19 patients surged with terrifying speed. Each day, more than three hundred new patients were admitted to hospitals across the city. Ambulances howled endlessly through the streets, their sirens piercing the air day and night, racing from one emergency to the next. Their cries became the soundtrack of a city under siege.

At first, the system held.

But only barely.

Soon, exhaustion took hold—not just of the patients, but of the system itself.

Ambulances became delayed, sometimes arriving too late. Hospital beds filled beyond capacity. Doctors, nurses, ventilators, medications—everything grew scarce. Hospitals were forced into unthinkable positions. Physicians had to make decisions no healer should ever face: who would receive treatment first, and who would have to wait.

Who might live.

Who might die.

Hospitals scrambled to expand. Beds were added wherever space could be found. Rooms designed for one patient now held two, sometimes three. Hallways became makeshift wards. Stretchers lined corridors beneath harsh fluorescent lights.

Yet even as beds multiplied, it was never enough.

Beds could be added. Machines could be acquired.

But human beings could not be multiplied.

A nurse could not become two nurses.

A doctor could not divide themselves into fragments.

Fatigue accumulated like a physical weight. Medical staff rushed endlessly between patients, their movements hurried, their eyes hollow with exhaustion. No matter how hard they worked, they could not keep up.

Care became thinner, stretched across too many lives.

And under those conditions, survival itself became uncertain.

One evening, as I sat at home, my wife suddenly spoke.

“Do you know?” she said quietly. “Yanzhen starts her new job tomorrow.”

I looked up, surprised.

“Isn’t she working at the nursing home already?” I asked. “It’s close, convenient. No transfers, no complications. Why would she change jobs now?”

My wife hesitated.

“She applied for the new position some time ago,” she said. “She just received confirmation. It’s at a public hospital.”

She paused, then added, half-joking, half-serious:

“Maybe her boyfriend works there.”

“You’re imagining things,” I said gently. “She doesn’t have a boyfriend anymore.”

I knew they had broken up months earlier.

Then a thought struck me.

“Does that hospital treat COVID patients?”

My wife met my eyes.

“Yes,” she said softly. “It does.”

Silence fell between us.

“Her nursing home doesn’t have COVID patients,” I said slowly. “It’s safer there. Why would she transfer now? Hospitals treating COVID patients are the most dangerous places in the city.”

My wife’s face was tense with worry.

“I don’t understand either,” she said. “The risk is so high. Why didn’t her mother stop her?”

Yanzhen was my wife’s niece. She had graduated from nursing school in Buffalo two years earlier and worked at a nursing home in Chinatown. Her schedule was manageable—three twelve-hour shifts per week. Her salary exceeded seventy thousand dollars a year. The benefits were good. The workload was stable.

She had security.

And now she was walking away from it.

I could not understand.

Especially not now.

Not when the virus was everywhere.

My fears were not unfounded. I had seen reports online. Nurses posting messages on social media described shortages so severe they bordered on disbelief. Some hospitals lacked even basic surgical masks. N95 respirators, the gold standard of protection, were rationed or unavailable.

Some nurses were forced to reuse disposable masks.

Others sterilized them repeatedly, hoping they would still work.

Some fashioned their own masks from cloth.

Some wore garbage bags as protective gowns.

Garbage bags.

The image horrified me.

The virus was invisible. But its threat was absolute.

Without hesitation, I opened WeChat and sent Yanzhen a message.

“Are you really planning to work at a hospital that treats COVID patients?”

Her reply came quickly.

“Yes, Uncle. I am.”

My chest tightened.

“Have you thought this through?” I asked. “This virus is extremely contagious. Aren’t you afraid?”

There was a pause.

Then she responded:

“I’ve already signed the papers. I start tomorrow. Thank you for your concern.”

Her calmness unsettled me more than fear would have.

I realized then that arguing would change nothing. She had already chosen her path.

Instead, I wrote:

“You’re a nurse. You understand the risks better than I do. I’m proud of your courage. But promise me you’ll protect yourself. Only if you stay healthy can you continue helping others.”

“I will,” she replied. “Don’t worry.”

Still, I could not help asking one more question.

“Do you have enough protective equipment?”

“Yes,” she said. “The hospital has everything we need.”

I hesitated.

“I saw reports online,” I said. “Some nurses were wearing garbage bags.”

She reassured me calmly.

“That might happen in smaller facilities. Not at the public hospital.”

Her confidence soothed me—but not completely.

After our conversation ended, I began researching the situation in New York more carefully.

The city’s first confirmed COVID case had been reported on March 1.

From that moment forward, the numbers climbed relentlessly.

Hospitals filled.

Staff were overwhelmed.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo issued an urgent call for medical volunteers nationwide.

The response was extraordinary.

Within one week, more than seventy thousand volunteers registered to help. Tens of thousands were nurses. Thousands more were licensed professionals and supervisors. They came from across the country, answering a call that transcended geography.

They came knowing the risks.

Knowing the fear.

Knowing the cost.

They came anyway.

Reading this, I felt ashamed.

I had thought only of danger.

Of loss.

Of fear.

But I had not thought of duty.

If everyone chose safety, who would care for the sick?

If everyone retreated, who would remain?

Healthcare workers faced enormous risk. But they also possessed knowledge, training, and purpose. They were not reckless.

They were resolute.

One doctor said in an interview:

“If you’re afraid of death, you shouldn’t have chosen medicine.”

Another story struck me deeply.

An elderly medical worker, over eighty years old, volunteered to travel to New York. Before leaving, he wrote in his will:

“If I become infected, do not give me a ventilator. Give it to someone younger.”

I sat in silence after reading those words.

Such courage felt almost unbearable.

I finally understood Yanzhen’s choice.

She was not running toward danger out of ignorance.

She was walking toward responsibility.

Toward meaning.

Toward humanity itself.

Yet courage did not stop the virus.

It spread without mercy.

Patients died, one after another.

Medical workers, exhausted beyond measure, carried the emotional burden of lives they could not save.

On March 24, 2020, tragedy struck.

At Mount Sinai Hospital, a forty-eight-year-old nurse manager named Kious Kelly died after contracting COVID-19.

She became one of the first nurses in New York City to die in the line of duty.

Her death sent shockwaves through the medical community.

Through the city.

Through the hearts of those who understood what she had given.

After that, I contacted Yanzhen more often.

Sometimes every day.

Sometimes late at night.

Only after receiving her message—“I’m safe”—could I sleep peacefully.

On May 12, Nurses Day arrived.

It was a day traditionally filled with pride and celebration.

But that year, it was different.

The celebrations were muted.

The joy was tempered by grief.

Too many had fallen.

Too many were still fighting.

Yet slowly, signs of hope appeared. Infection rates began to decline. The city, battered and wounded, began to breathe again.

Still, the cost remained.

On May 10, another nurse, Erwin Lambrento, who had served for twenty years at a hospital in Queens, died after contracting the virus.

He died just before dawn.

A quiet end to a life of service.

I thought often of these nurses.

Of their families.

Of their sacrifices.

Viruses are powerful.

But they are not stronger than the human spirit.

No virus can destroy courage.

No virus can erase compassion.

No virus can defeat humanity itself.

When I thought of my niece—her quiet strength, her steady resolve—I felt something I had not felt in months.

Not fear.

Not uncertainty.

But hope.

Because as long as there are people willing to step forward in the darkest moments…

humanity will never truly fall.