“When we landed in New York City, it was unlike anyplace I’ve been,” said Bunnell, a hospitalist at McKay-Dee Hospital. “As we walked through the airport, it was completely dead. No shops were open. No other flights were really coming in. We crossed the Brooklyn Bridge without another car or person in sight. You could see all the way to the end of Fifth Avenue.”

The scene was pretty unsettling for the medical crisis team, given the fact that the city serves nearly 4 million people on any given day.

“Every bed in the hospital was taken. The place was lined with ventilated patients and no curtains in between,” he said. “There were a few nurses there doing the very best they could. It was really hard sitting there looking at the patient list and just hearing rapid response and code blue going off all the time. We had 25 code blues go off in one day and you knew those were all patients who were intubated and ventilated and probably weren’t going to make it.”

Bunnell said New York City hospitals were so overwhelmed, they converted several parts of the buildings into intensive care units, including conference rooms, hallways and outdoor tents.

“One hospital even had baby monitors so they could keep an eye on their patients at the end of the hall,” Bunnell said.

Bunnell spoke about his April 2020 trip to New York City during the 76th annual Ogden Surgical Medical Society Conference this week at the Eccles Conference Center. The theme of the conference this year was “Infectious Disease in Primary and Specialty Care.”

“COVID was really lonely for a lot of the patients. Everyone at that time were there by themselves,” Bunnell said. “There were no visitors allowed. It was isolating all around.”

But Bunnell said there were moments of celebration as well. Every time someone was taken off a ventilator, he said the song “Here Comes the Sun” was played overhead. People also made posters of encouragement for medical workers to read as they walked into the front doors of the hospital and others cheered them on in the streets below.

After returning to Utah, Bunnell said things eventually began looking good as far as the pandemic was concerned.

“It was nice to have a vaccine and a little bit of normalcy. Unfortunately, around June and July, we started hearing about delta and other variants and around July 1 things started to pick up again after that initial surge of fall and winter of 2020.”

Bunnell said hospitalizations got right back up to over 400 patients very quickly and the pressure on the ICU was unrelenting. And even though it’s been a little bit encouraging to see the numbers tailing off in the past week or so, he said there’s still a ways to go in the hospital setting.

“Pressure on the ICUs are impacting more than just the COVID patients. Our community hospitals are under enormous duress. The Saturday before last, we were taking care of a young woman, a mother of two,” he said. “She spent 11 hours in the ER before we could get her an ICU bed at a community hospital. Unfortunately, she passed away. This is impacting people without COVID as well.”

Bunnell also said there has been a whole new dynamic of public attitude.

“It’s just a whole new ballgame for us when you have patients misled from mountains of seductive misinformation out there and are actively fighting your recommendations,” he said.

Bunnell said it’s incredible what a group of people can do together when they need to, and working during the pandemic has given him renewed passion for his profession.

“I’ve come away wanting to focus on what matters most and that’s human connection. Human connection is a huge part of healing and it’s clear to me that isolation is cruel and unusual.”

In closing, Bunnell said if you know a nurse or have one in your family, go the extra mile to look out for them.

“They’ve really been taking the brunt of this thing,” he said. “They’ve really been struggling and they are the backbone of our system.”