"Initially, I was just curious about COVID. I started feeling fear when I had my first COVID patient in March. I had a fear of the unknown. Fear of getting COVID and accidentally giving it to my family. I had this fear even if we had more nurses working in the ER than COVID patients at that time. I started wearing PPE, which we hardly used before COVID. We usually used the regular mask in the ER before COVID. For the next few months, I did social distancing at work and at home. It was emotionally exhausting to social distance from my family for a long time."
