Strapped by Shortage and Hit With Departures, Nurse Corps Swamped by Another COVID Wave

 An medical care nurse trained in communicable disease treatment, Alexander had spent some two months working marathon shifts in an ICU ward within the San Francisco Bay Area, even as the primary tsunami of COVID-19 patients began . Though she had volunteered, she recalls, the scene was apocalyptic: beds, ventilators, protective gowns, facemasks and even mortuary space were all scarce, but the patients kept coming. and therefore the end was nowhere in view .   After yet one more shift within the "meat grinder" that day, Alexander says, "I had a breakdown at work. I started crying, and that i just about couldn't stop. and that i basically didn't stop crying for, like, three or four weeks."   Intense psychotherapy helped, but the post-traumatic stress disorder was so severe that "stupid things would trigger me to cry," Alexander says, including a dead houseplant. In chats with colleagues, one question recurred: Why stay during a hard, dangero...