Overwhelmed by COVID-19: A day inside a Louisiana hospital

Before the latest surge of the coronavirus, Louisiana neurologist Robin Davis focused on her specialty: treating patients with epilepsy. These days, as virus patients flood her hospital in record numbers, she has taken on the additional duties of nurse, janitor and orderly.

“I was giving bed baths on Sunday, emptying trash cans, changing sheets, rolling patients to MRI,” said Davis, who has been coming in on her days off to provide some relief to overworked nurses at Ochsner Medical Center in the New Orleans suburb of Jefferson.

The rapidly escalating...