About 2 a.m. on a sweltering summer night, Dr. Orlando
Garner awoke to the sound of a thud next to his baby daugh-
ter’s crib. He leapt out of bed to find his wife, Gabriela,
passed out, her forehead hot with the same fever that had
stricken him and his son, Orlando Jr., then 3, just hours be-
fore. Two days later, it would hit their infant daughter,
Veronica.
Nearly five months later, Dr. Garner, a critical care physi-
cian at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, is
haunted by what befell his family: He had inadvertently
shuttled the coronavirus home, and sickened them all.“I felt so guilty,” he said. “This is my job, what I wanted to
do for a living. And it could have killed my children, could
have killed my wife — all this, because of me.”
With the case count climbing again in Texas, Dr. Garner
has recurring nightmares that one of his children has died
from Covid. He has returned to 80-hour weeks in the inten-
sive care unit, donning layers of pandemic garb including
goggles, an N95 respirator, a protective body suit and a hel-
metlike face shield that forces him to yell to be heard.
As he treats one patient after another, he can’t shake the
fear that his first bout with the coronavirus won’t be his last,
even though reinfection is rare: “Is this going to be the one
who gives me Covid again?”Frontline health care workers have been the one constant,
the medical soldiers forming row after row in the ground
war against the raging spread of the coronavirus. But as
cases and deaths shatter daily records, foreshadowing one
of the deadliest years in American history, the very people
whose life mission is caring for others are on the verge of
collective collapse.
In interviews, more than two dozen frontline medical
workers described the unrelenting stress that has become
an endemic part of the health care crisis nationwide. Many
related spikes in anxiety and depressive thoughts, as well as
a chronic sense of hopelessness and deepening fatigue,Combat Fatigue
By KATHERINE J. WUDoctors and nurses are under increasing duress as the pandemic surges and hospitals are overrun with patients.
CONTINUED ON PAGE D5‘We’re sacrificing so much as health care providers —
our health, our family’s health.’
DR. CLEAVON GILMAN
EMERGENCY MEDICINE PHYSICIAN, ARIZONA‘Systematically, it makes me feel like I’m failing.
The last eight months almost broke me.’
DR. SHANNON TAPIA
GERIATRICIAN, COLORADO‘I remember doing CPR and cracking ribs. These were
people from our community; it was so painful.’
SHIKHA DASS
EMERGENCY ROOM NURSE, NEW YORK‘This is my job, what I wanted to do for a living. And it could
have killed my children, could have killed my wife.’
DR. ORLANDO GARNER
CRITICAL CARE PHYSICIAN, TEXASCLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: CAITLIN O’HARA FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES; DANIEL BRENNER FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES; MICHAEL STARGHILL JR. FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES; KHOLOOD EID FOR THE NEW YORK TIMESTUESDAY, DECEMBER 1, 2020 D1
NSCIENCE MEDICINE TECHNOLOGY HEALTH
8 ENTOMOLOGYA clutch of eggs
and a century-old
puzzle in the
leaf insect world.
3 ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
At a London lab, a
breakthrough that
might speed up
drug development.
7 THE NEW OLD AGEBiden’s team offers
a plan that would aid
caregiving ‘across
the age spectrum.’