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  • my 95 mask everyday.

  • Leticia night suits up but Plain View Hospital in suburban New York, ready to help save lives.

  • She's not here to hand out medication or perform surgery, but she is a key fighter in the war against Kobe.

  • 19.

  • Very epicenter of this country's outbreak.

  • A lot of the work that you do is often unseen.

  • We could usually just go in, get it's on ember out.

  • Leticia works in environmental service is cleaning and sanitizing patient's rooms for unit almost entirely.

  • Kobe, 19.

  • You're walking into a hot zone every day, every day.

  • I hate to say this, but have you seen deceased patients?

  • Yeah, that's gotta be hard.

  • It's very hard.

  • I've seen patients where one day that's walking on face time with their families, and the next day I'll come into work and have you brush size You.

  • The single mother of three says her family would rather she be home, safe and far away from the virus.

  • How do you explain to your seven year old how and why?

  • Mommy's taking a risk.

  • When my father was diagnosed and I was telling my Children like what?

  • This is why Mommy goes to work so that Grandpa could be in a room where is clean and he can get better.

  • Laetitia is among the millions of essential person in the U.

  • S who show up every single day there unsung, often unseen heroes manning the other front line.

  • They keep the power on trash, collected hospitals, clean and operational, even help us bury our dead.

  • They keep our towns and cities running.

  • Despite invisible, potentially deadly danger, they face Melody Ara Vina's husband.

  • Rolando was one of those frontline workers helping keep people connected.

  • If you had to die Thio to save other people's lives, you know I'm going to try to make amends with that, Rolando worked as a tell come field technician for Verizon, a volunteer basketball coach and a doting father of five, her twin, who is positive, Kobe Thio, with an abbot's part in research.

  • And you don't give a train with hurry At every morning I get up extra early and their seven minute workout and take it to the track by her school on the weekends and just prepare her for these races.

  • He was a real girl, done, Yes, my husband has a real girl That was a real girl.

  • In his off hours.

  • He loved to dance.

  • Very good salsa dancer.

  • I saw a video of you guys dancing.

  • I understand.

  • He was excellent mambo dancer as well.

  • Yeah, love dancing.

  • Melody says.

  • On March 11th he was sent to a New York City hospital to help it prepare for a potential surgeon.

  • Communications.

  • How did he see his role as an essential worker during this time?

  • You know, during the this time when he was working, he was very concerned with his job alone.

  • Proper training.

  • And no, there's no way to know exactly how he contracted the virus.

  • But a little more than a week later, she says he started to feel sick when he got steak up that March 19.

  • You know, he told me.

  • He said, I think I have it.

  • On March 29th his twin girls 10th birthday Rolando died.

  • And so, Amira, what do you remember from that day?

  • I woke up and a chocolate company dropped their table.

  • My mom ended up with him.

  • Oh, honey, I'm so sorry.

  • What were the last things that you said to each other?

  • I start to him already.

  • Think I'm gonna, you know, facetime me.

  • Text me if you need anything, you know, you got this, you're gonna beat this And you know, he just looked at me and he said, Mel, I never knew a love like this before and I love you so much, Verizon, Rolando's employers said in a statement to ABC News.

  • Our deepest sympathies air with Rolando Sonny are a Venus family and friends.

  • Our team is grieving alongside them, knowing that our team members are still in the field.

  • We have taken every measure and dedicated every resource available to keeping our frontline workers safe and secure as we keep our nation connected.

  • Just the fact that the he's an essential worker.

  • But when it came down to the health system, you know, it was just, you know, a statistic point somewhere, you know, really, really, really hurts, because these people are out there risking their lives every day.

  • For many other essential workers, balancing that risk means trading time at home with their families for round the clock life in the office, instead of leaving working, going home.

  • We're having to stay here from Florida.

  • This is my converted office into my living quarters to New York.

  • This is my walking my new home.

  • Up to the building.

  • Electric grid employees have turned their office spaces into bedrooms, spending as many as 30 days away from their families.

  • It's just surreal feeling that when you get up in the morning and you go right to your desk, the one thing that you find out is you really come together as a family.

  • And for some, being sequestered means being away during life's special moments.

  • What's tomorrow, honey?

  • My birthday.

  • I want, like to say Happy birthday story.

  • Still, your dad will motivate me.

  • Come to work.

  • I know what it's like to have a dog.

  • I have a 70 0 Sung.

  • He motivates me to keep going, and I pray every day before come onto the road that God sent me while I'm out there.

  • Octavia French is one of at least 235 sanitation workers in the nation's capital, still gathering in the early hours of the morning to make their rounds collecting trash and recycling.

  • What do you love about your job?

  • I could hang on the back of the truck.

  • A lot of people don't expect females on the back.

  • So I get a lot of props for hanging on about the truck.

  • So you get a lot of night of the crime.

  • Yeah.

  • Atta girl.

  • How has that changed?

  • During the age of coverage?

  • Some people leave us like snap bags or drawings Like yesterday.

  • The keys had drew Chuck on the ground.

  • Being an essential worker in the time of Cove.

  • It has changed how much you're seen and appreciated.

  • Yes.

  • It made me feel like I'm a first responder.

  • Like my job is really important.

  • When you first started hearing about how contagious Cove it is, did it ever occur to you not to come to work?

  • I knew I had to come to work.

  • It's not like you can work from home.

  • No trial is gonna get up at home.

  • You got me all day in the footwork, doing the footwork and taking extra precautions with masks and double gloves.

  • But social distancing is tough in the cab of a garbage truck.

  • So in the truck, you're not six feet distance.

  • So we make sure the windows down that she really does represent what that part of our department public works.

  • Really.

  • is Christopher Gelled.

  • Art oversees the city's public works department.

  • It's his job to keep people like Octavia safe.

  • It's a pretty heavyweight.

  • Picking up the trash is what we've got to do.

  • It's what we do on behalf of our city is what we do so the residents can see the government still working and that we're gonna continue to do our job and our part to make sure that we get through this in our city.

  • In those quiet moments, what worries you people losing their lives out here off death and just a bless you called can cause so much damage.

  • I watched the news.

  • I read the paper and something like that.

  • Turn the news old because that's all they talk about.

  • So the less I'll see, the less I worry because I know I still have to go to work is no way is no way out of that.

  • How many deceased do you have in the building right now?

  • Currently, we have 17 17 year olds.

  • That's usually a whole month's worth of work.

  • In Brooklyn, New York, Anthony Pinocchio and his family run the scar.

  • Patchy funeral home.

  • The pandemic is robbing this delicate business of its human touch.

  • We're not making any impersonal agents anymore, so my cousins would meet them on a facetime phone call on a zoom message.

  • We'll have to send pictures, things that we never did before.

  • Physically, photographs of the casket will send people smartphone, casket selection.

  • The staff is running out of gloves, gowns, masks and what's worse, Pinocchio says the funeral home is running out of space.

  • In this chapel is usually a viewing chapel, and currently, right now we have it as a storage facility where we have all of these people that are pending cremations and or direct barrels.

  • I feel bad for for our families that they can't mourn their loved ones like they should.

  • You know, it breaks my heart.

  • Anthony's cousin, Celeste Herta, works here is a cosmetologist, she says.

  • It's particularly scary for her.

  • She was diagnosed with breast cancer just a month ago, and because of the outbreak, she's had to postpone surgery.

  • Did you consider taking a break?

  • Um, no, I don't consider taking a break if you're telling me to take a break, but I I can't I can't.

  • We'll take a break it Leticia says.

  • she won't be taking a break, either.

  • She'll keep showing up every day.

  • We're all family.

  • Were Old Team way.

  • We're all working together.

  • So benefit everyone.

  • In this time of crisis, the world's eyes are now focused on the often invisible workers.

  • Leticia says Even when the outbreak is over, she hopes to remain visible.

  • What would you say to your fellow essential workers who are again before this?

  • Somewhat unseen?

  • Thank you.

  • We need to thank each other more.

  • We need to make sure that we continue to show gratitude and appreciation someone another not just during this time afterwards.

  • Hi, everyone.

  • George Stephanopoulos here.

  • Thanks for checking on the ABC News YouTube channel.

  • If you'd like to get more video show highlights and watch live event coverage, click on the right over here to subscribe to our channel.

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my 95 mask everyday.

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