More than 10,000 people have died of COVID-19 in the United States. Over 3,000 of those deaths were in New York City.
Monica Guy, a New Yorker and freelance journalist, gives this virus a personality -- a thief who steals loved ones.
The following is what she said during the interview:
"I have seen ambulances bring people who are ill, vomiting with surgical masks on, and they are vomiting into the mask. They are being rushed into an emergency room out of an ambulance. You just have to stop what you're doing and watch. You become frozen, because you just can't believe this is real."
"I'm not sleeping. My husband isn't sleeping either. And that's because he is a small business owner. So his business has been closed."
"I am so humbled by the virus, my arrogance and thinking it wouldn't come here. I have learned the virus is sneaky. It's an unseen enemy. And it is, if I could make it have a personality, it would be a thief that climbs through the window of your home, infects your family, and steals them away because they don't survive. That's how I would characterize this virus. It's a thief who steals loved ones."
"The first time I heard someone being sick and not surviving was my friend's father, who passed away about a week ago today. And he was being treated in Brooklyn and he did not survive. He was a nice man. A really nice guy."
"My friend was not able to see her father in the hospital. There is no funeral. There is nothing. He was cremated, and so my friend and her children and her husband, they're trying to put on a brave face because they have to, but I know when the kids are asleep, my friend cries."
"Words fail to describe how absolutely devastating this has become."
"New York City needs PPE, ventilators, beds, space and time, time to get ahead of this, or at least time for the health care industry to catch their breath so they can then push forward again."
(Supervisors: Xu Xingtang, Xia Lin; Correspondent: Miao Xiaojuan; Editor: Li Guangzheng.) ■