‘We’re supposed to be a first-world country’: Doctor leaks video from packed ward of New York hospital amid coronavirus surge

As New York City struggles to cope with the surging number of Covid-19 cases, a doctor has released footage of the dire conditions inside her Queens hospital – raising the alarm about the scale of the epidemic and the shortage of critical equipment needed to save lives.

Dr Colleen Smith works at Elmhurst Hospital, which this week saw 13 coronavirus-related deaths in a single day. The hospital has begun transferring out non-Covid patients to other hospitals in order to clear space for the sheer number of people arriving needing urgent...