Today we learned that 6.6 million people here in the U.

S.

Filed for unemployment benefits last week.

That was higher than expected and on top of the 3.3 million who filed the week before.

That's that 10 million number that you are talking about 10 million people, John in two weeks.

That is completely unprecedented.

Normally, in a crisis like this in some form of financial crisis, it would take several months for job losses at this level to filter through.

What's so shocking here is the level that has already notched up in just a matter of weeks.

So great is this Corona contraction that we are seeing already frankly, at Great Depression, levels of unemployment and gnome.

Or so has that being felt more painfully than on the front line with the medics, doctors and nurses in New York, where they're now, incidentally, 92,000 cases on where the governor today warned that they would run out of ventilators.

So great is the volume of patients they will run out of ventilators, he said.

In six days time on where a nurse, Kaya Kelly, aged just 48 died on March, the 24th.

He was the first nurse believed to have died from the virus will.

Today I spoke to his grieving sister, Chaos Kelly was a nurse at one of the main hospitals in New York City, Mount Sinai West, that's been treating Corona virus patients from Day one, the 48 year old with a team leader working round the clock.

But as an SMS sufferer, he, too, was vulnerable on.

On March the 18th he texted his sister, Maria, to tell her he'd contracted Covert 19.

I'm told that he was in I C.

U um, but that he was okay and that he had the virus and that he was on a ventilator.

She'd been mostly worried about her parents, given their age and hadn't really focused on her brother.

But then it came over her.

I felt like someone pulled a a dark blank over me.

It was very heavy.

I had this very heavy, dark feeling, a CZ, much as one can know the feeling, Waas is just a knowing that this was not This was not good.

She asked him some questions, but he was weak and struggled to reply.

He sends me a screenshot of himself of he's taken a head so he sends me a picture of himself.

Then he says he can't talk because I choke and can't breathe.

I love you.

I'm sorry.

Okay.

I love you.

Going back to sleep?

Yeah.

I send him a couple hearts.

I say you've pulled through so much.

I love you and we're praying.

And he sends me a giant carts that says, I love you.

Um, emoji.

And it's on his back and that is it.

That would be the last time she would hear from him.

It was Wednesday.

The 18th diocese condition deteriorated rapidly over the next few days, but they weren't allowed to see him on the following Tuesday.

Six days later, her parents called.

They just called and said that he is declining rapidly, rapidly and has very little life signs.

Um, we got off the phone and she called back about seven minutes later and said that they called her and that he had in fact, past case is believed to be the first nurse in New York to have lost his life to Cove in 19.

And he did so in a hospital where staff were openly complaining about a lack of personal protective equipment like masks and gowns to shield themselves from infection.

Nurses at the hospital posted this picture of themselves wearing dust bin liners as gowns to make the point.

But across New York, it's the same story.

Staffer, overwhelmed and under, equipped to cope.

Guys, his fellow nurses are left with one conclusion.

Hospital killed him.

That's their position.

Then they that is how they feel.

They end and continue to put other risk.

But there were three people right now that I'm aware of in his unit that are sick there is, was and remains to be.

Is this so important remains to be a PP issue.

I know that you think that had he had the right protective equipment?

Yes, he wouldn't be dead today, based off of the information that I've received, um, from, um staff and and other people in the hospital.

Was he along with others were unnecessarily exposed.

They didn't have the peopIe that at all that they needed, but they also had a hippie issue before Corona virus.

If her speaking out makes any difference, Maria says her brother's death will not be in vain.

His body is being flown home today, alone on a plane to his parents in Michigan, another state that's fast becoming a new virus.

Hot spot she own candidate and the Mount Sinai West Hospital sent us this statement.

This growing crisis is not abating and has already devastated hundreds of families in New York and turned our front line professionals into true American heroes.

Following Kelly's death, the hospital added, We lost another here, a compassionate colleague, a friend and selfless caregiver.

Joining me now from New York via the Internet is Dr Leah Houston.

She's Bean, an emergency medicine physician, and now leads a group for medical professionals, the Humanitarian Physician Empowerment Committee.

Lear, Houston Thank you very much indeed for joining us.

Now we've seen an internal email from Lang Own Hospital saying doctors face dismissal if they talk to the media.

Why are medical professionals being threatened with being fired for telling the truth?

Well, this isn't anything new, you know.

Physicians have had a gag clause for quite some time about shortages of medications and supplies, and that's part of why I'm starting this company.

But this now is really shining some sunshine and some light on this problem because it's now being so exposed because it's being so big.

You've got former colleagues and friends on the ground there.

What are they telling you?

Well, you know, you know, actually, you guys reached out to me to me through Ah, New York City.

Doctors face Facebook group.

That's a private Facebook group of only physicians.

And, um, I get to see and hear a lot on that group, and I'm currently not working.

But I hear crazy stories inhumane stories of, you know, not having the proper protective equipment having their masks ripped off their face.

One story where doctors were being sprayed down as if they were contaminated equipment and not given new gowns.

And they were just spraying them down with chemicals.

Att.

One health system in New York City and this know, from from where would you say it was from?

It was from the University of Langdon.

Well, cause hospital.

Wow.

Okay, um, well, I guess my point is is that I've seen letters like that written to me before, many times, and this is not surprising or new, and I'm certain that almost every health system has sent an email like that out, gagging their physicians from speaking the truth.

And you know you will be terminated.

And you might even get reports to the OPM.

See and lose your license and be blacklisted if you speak out about this.

Um, but my take is is that we took a Hippocratic oath for our patients on we served them, not the health systems on This is just a travesty.

It's criminal.

The problems with the protective equipment and also prophylaxis.

You know, hydroxy Clara Quinn is being used prophylactically in both Italy and, um, ubiquitously in India right now.

And they've only just recently started a clinical trial at the Roy Vaginal is College of of Surgery, Columbia University in New York City about this.

But this is something that there's good evidence for that it, you know, it serves some protective effect.

If it's given prophylactically, it's really a shame.

But let me let me ask you this.

I mean, after all, the United States is an exceptionally wealthy country.

Why is personal protection equipment in such short supply?

I mean, we're in the same state.

It has to be said, but we don't quite have the same money you out?

Well, it's all supply chain, you know, when it's the same reason that we've experienced drug shortages and shortages of other supplies in the supply chain in general is the same reason we're not able to have your pick of testing.

If you look at the countries that are able to ubiquitously test and then you look at the companies that provide the testing equipment, you know those countries supply them eso you know, here in the United States, we have third party administrators that control the supply chain off medical equipment and pharmaceutical agents into the health systems, and they play a role.

You know, I'm assuming, and a lot of it might just be lack of preparedness.

You know, I was trying to get an understanding of what happened with FEMA and why you know why they haven't prepared for this.

So, you know, I'm not an expert by any means, but I do know that there are, you know, group purchasing organizations and pharmacy benefit managers that have caused shortages in the past, and I'm assuming they probably also have a significant impact on what's going on today.