He smiled to comfort his COVID-19 patient — then he realized his mask was leaking

Sam remembers the moment he realized he could no longer smile at patients. He was helping a nervous man suffering from COVID-19 at the New York City hospital where he works as a nurse. The patient cracked a joke, and Sam laughed. Then he felt air in his eye.The smile had lifted Sam’s N95 respirator mask off his face, creating an air leak. With COVID-19, the deadly respiratory disease caused by the new coronavirus, transmittable through the air, that’s a risk.

“I have to say ‘wait a minute,’ then put on my PPE,” says Desiderio, referring to personal protective equipment like masks, gloves and gowns. “Then I feel guilty because I need to rush her. She really needs company, a human voice.” A good bedside manner is crucial for Dr. Sonika Randev, 35, a physical medicine and rehabilitation resident at Metropolitan Hospital Center in Manhattan.

Through tears, Randev recalled trying to tell an elderly patient with early signs of dementia, through layers of PPE, that he could not yet go home to his family. “You want to smile, you want to hold their hand,” she said. Occasionally, frail COVID-19 patients fall out of bed, said Emily Muzyka, a nurse at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital. Normally, nurses would rush to help, but now, Muzyka says, they must pause to first put on gowns, masks and gloves.

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