- Let's see how that looks.

How's that?

- [Interviewer] Adjust the camera a little bit so you're perfectly in the center.

Right now, there's a little more space on your left.

- How about that?

- [Interviewer] Yeah, that's great.

I think you're ready.

COVID-19.

- Difficult.

(laughs)

I get minimum three COVID possible or positive patients a day.

It's just become the normal now.

I've been getting them everyday for the last two months.

- The first thing that pops into my mind is fear, even though I don't really want it to be.

- Unprecedented.

- Unpredictable.

- Shitty.

I lost my grampa to COVID-19 just a few weeks ago and it was probably one of the worst experiences of my family's life.

Not being able to be there for him, for him to just go out like that was pretty damn shitty.

- [Interviewer] COVID-19.

- Overwhelming.

- Nervous.

- [Interviewer] Why?

- On a selfish level, I'm nervous because I'm supposed to go to grad school in the fall, like at my dream school.

It feels like this is never gonna end and the changes are just so constant that it's tumultuous right now.

- In my household, I live with my mother and my brother.

They stay upstairs, I stay in my basement.

If I get it, I get it, I don't care.

It's just I don't want my family getting it.

My brother has autism.

He's in such a routine where he knows he sees me every day and it's heartbreaking because I'm breaking that routine.

- Okay, one word to describe COVID-19.

Courage.

- Isolation.

- Isolating.

- Scary.

- I work in the emergency room so we're the frontlines.

We actually had someone who was a healthcare worker who was threatened to be shot at because we were the reasons why COVID is a thing.

She was in her scrubs and it was crazy and so we got this huge email and text saying, "Please come in your street clothes just for your safety."

- Chaos.

- Uncertain.

- This has completely changed the paradigm.

Learning on the fly what works and what doesn't and at the same time, people are losing their lives quickly.

And it's been a challenge.

- As a nurse who has to do my job, we could potentially be the cause or be carrying the cause of someone's death.

We're weapons.

We're walking biological weapons.

- I was sent home from work today because I actually had a low-grade fever and I had no idea.

I felt completely fine but they turned me away and told me to go home.

So if this persists, I think, for more than four days then I've gotta get tested and I'm not looking forward to that.

- Pandemic.

- Oh man.

(laughs)

Can that work, "oh man"?

Okay.

(interviewer laughs)

Oh man.

- [Interviewer] What happens when the pandemic is over?

- I don't know.

That's the thing, it's like, are we gonna go back to being our normal lives?

Are we gonna still be very precautious about what we touch, and how we interact with each other?

- But is it ever really over?

Is the real question, is it really ever over?

Yeah, the world will go back to normal but I think people will still continue to die from this virus, unfortunately.

(calm piano music)