“The sound of sirens will be how we all remember this for the rest of our lives”

In those fatal spring months in New York, the sound inside ambulances conveyed, at least to me, a desperateness even more dire than the wailing sirens ricocheting across the city. The radio spat out emergencies nonstop as 911 calls surged beyond the volume on the day of the Sept. 11 attacks. Dispatchers sent E.M.T.s and medics on back-to-back runs for “sick fever cough,” the new designation being used for patients with Covid-19 symptoms.

That April, overwhelmed hospitals running out of beds began discharging far-from-recovered Covid patients to make room for those needing ventilators. Soon, many of the discharged sick-fever coughers, back home and some still wearing their hospital bracelets, would call 911 again. They were still having difficulty breathing.

Then things got worse. Scores of “diff breathers” turned into cardiac arrests, and worse — 83Rs and 83Ds — codes for dead after resuscitation initiated and for dead on arrival. That deep cough we once heard when we arrived on the scene was replaced by the agonized wails of inconsolable family members. A father or mother or grandparent had just died, and we couldn’t even offer the comfort of a hug because the virus was so contagious.