“We’re at capacity”

The nurse who was interviewed by The Daily Beast on Wednesday said she has already been—since the pandemic began months ago—diagnosed with the virus and quarantined at home. As for her hospital, she said, “We aren’t accepting any more COVID ICU patients, and we are at capacity with the ICU patients that we have.”

“We all felt this would be a possibility, and I’m concerned about it,” said the nurse, voicing a concern echoed by public health officials all over the state: whether any Arizona facility has what it needs to take care of the increasingly large population of patients.

“We’re going to run out of room to care for people, we’re going to run out of PPE, out of ICU beds, out of hospital beds, and we aren’t going to be able to provide care for the population of people who are going to need it,” she said, growing frustrated. “I don’t see people wearing masks. I don’t see people social distancing.”