Jon CohenScience’s COVID-19 reporting is supported by the Pulitzer Center and the Heising-Simons Foundation.SAN DIEGO—When COVID-19 patients began to pour into Scripps Mercy Hospital Chula Vista a few months ago, before the new coronavirus began to ravage much of the state, it shook up the medical team in the intensive care unit (ICU). “The morale wasn’t very good,” says Dennis Amundson, a pulmonologist who runs the ICU.
They soon rallied, however, and now “smile going in” to patient rooms, he says. “It’s kind of like going to war at first,” Amundson adds. “You’re scared, and then all of a sudden you look left and look right, other people are doing it, so you do it, too.