They look like images from an Armageddon dystopia, but they were taken in a regional hospital in the northern Italian town of Cremona. They show doctors wearing full protective suits, goggles, facemasks and clear plastic face shields as they tend to patients lying half-naked on their beds, attached to artificial respiratory devices. The doctors and nurses working in the clinic’s intensive care unit “are running out of strength and are incredibly tired,” clinic coordinator Carla Maestrini told the Italian broadcaster La7. “We have so many patients.”

Massimo Galli, chief physician for infectious diseases at Luigi Sacco Hospital in Milan says that the infectious diseases unit at the hospital has been cleared, as have two sections of the surgical ward, in order to handle just the most acute cases of COVID-19. Hospital personnel are working 12 to 14 hours a day, he says, and they are suffering from a shortage of virologists, internists and pulmonologists, all of which are badly needed in a catastrophic situation of the kind the country is currently experiencing. “Those who think the coronavirus is being exaggerated should come for a visit,” he says.

More: