COVID-19: what physicians wrote as it happened

Last updated September 20, 2026.

This page is a maintained record of what physicians, nurses, residents, and medical students wrote about COVID-19 on KevinMD.com, a physician-authored publication founded in 2004 by Kevin Pho, MD, a board-certified internal medicine physician in Nashua, New Hampshire, as the pandemic happened. It draws on 1,226 essays and podcast transcripts with COVID, coronavirus, or pandemic in the title, published between February 2020 and August 2026 by 829 named contributors, 811 of the posts bylined by physicians and 27 written anonymously, the most of any subject in the archive. Of the 1,226, 779 were published in 2020 and 430 in March, April, and May of that year alone. Every claim on this page is attributed to a named author with the date it was published and a link to the original.

This record is different from the others on the site. It is not an argument about an issue; it is a primary source, written in real time by people who were in the building, and it is organized by when things were written rather than by question. Physicians disagreed with each other during the pandemic, about lockdowns, schools, masks, treatments, mandates, and the word “hero,” and the page records what they said and when, with names and dates on every side, and does not adjudicate. No institution kept this record: the guidance and the papers exist elsewhere, but what an emergency physician posted on March 19, 2020, what an intensivist posted about the unvaccinated in September 2021, and what both posted afterward about what it did to them, exist here.

The sections below follow the pandemic in order, from the first weeks through the aftermath, then record the disagreements, then give the corpus’s own numbers. Each section opens with what the posts of that period were about, followed by what named authors wrote, in the order they wrote it. Where authors cite figures, the source is named alongside the author, and the figures are theirs as of the date they wrote. This is a historical record of clinician experience and opinion, not clinical guidance.

What did physicians write in the first weeks, February and March 2020?

The first 142 posts, February through March 2020, are about shortage and fear: personal protective equipment, ventilators, beds, testing that did not exist, and the arithmetic of a surge that physicians could see coming from Italy and Wuhan. Half of the posts mention testing, a third mention PPE or N95 masks, a quarter mention ventilators, and 42 percent mention fear or the writer’s own family. Physicians wrote wills, moved out of their homes, and grieved colleagues in advance.

Michael Pappas, MD, wrote on March 19, 2020, that “even if 10 percent of patients required hospitalization, hospital beds would be filled by May,” in “On the frontlines of the coronavirus pandemic.” Amy Cho, MD, MBA, Mark Pappadakis, DO, Theresa Tassey, MD, MPH, and Sunny Jha, MD, wrote on March 25 that “if our ventilators run out, like the toilet paper did, many will die unnecessarily because of shortages,” and that “even with appropriate PPE usage, American physicians and nurses have already died,” in “An urgent dispatch from the COVID-19 frontlines.” Ashwini Bapat, MD, and Emeric F. Bojarski, MD, wrote the same day that only 20 percent of states required payment parity for telehealth visits, which the pandemic had just made the front line, in “COVID-19 has urgently summoned telemedicine to the front lines.”

Lee Hiromoto, JD, a fourth-year medical student, wrote on March 13 asking schools to test symptomatic students, accelerate the match, and “allow fourth-year medical students to graduate early and begin working to fight COVID-19,” in “COVID-19: Test medical students, accelerate the Match, and let us graduate early to join the fight.” Harsh Moolani wrote on March 20 that a nursing home near Chicago had confirmed 30 residents and 12 staff positive, and that residents had been “subjected to contradictory formal policy amendments,” in “COVID-19 policy amendments put nursing home residents at risk.” Lilian White, a medical student, wrote on March 28 that schools were extending clinical suspensions “with no definite end in sight,” and that to call students part of the team “but exclude them when their help could actually be the most beneficial is shocking and disappointing,” in “Where are the medical students during the pandemic?”

Keowa Bonilla, MD, wrote on March 28 of hospitalized patients asking “will you be like those cases on TV that you keep hearing about?” and that “the absolute fear and loneliness in their voices pierce into you,” in “The absolute fear and loneliness of COVID-19 patients in the ICU.” Shane Sobrio, MD, an emergency physician, wrote on March 29 that “people my age have died and likely will continue to,” and that N95 masks were “running out quickly across the country,” in “I am an ER doctor on the frontlines of the COVID-19 fight but I am counting my blessings.” Kara Pepper, MD, wrote the same day of anticipatory grief, “precipitated by recognizing that my colleagues who have dedicated their lives to caring for patients will die,” in “Anticipatory grief during the COVID-19 pandemic.”

What did physicians write during the first surge, April and May 2020?

April and May 2020 are the peak of the record, 292 posts in two months, more than the site published on any subject in any two months before or since. The subjects are the daily routine of protecting a family, redeployment to units physicians had not worked in for decades, the “hero” framing that arrived in April and that many physicians rejected, furloughs and pay cuts in the same weeks, and dissent among physicians about what the evidence supported. Fear or family appears in 52 percent of the posts, the highest of any period.

Crystal Wong, MD, Suzan Song, MD, PhD, MPH, and Sara Kerley, MD, wrote on April 1 that the Strategic National Stockpile held 30 million surgical masks and 12 million N95 masks, “only 1 percent of the number required,” in “Fighting COVID-19: Don’t let health care workers become collateral damage.” Kristin Yates, DO, wrote on April 13 that the fear “involves not only the well-being of my patients; but also my family, my colleagues, and myself,” in “Coping with fear as a physician during a pandemic.” Jordana Kozupsky, AGNP-BC, wrote on April 14 of her own reluctance to volunteer for the front line, as “the granddaughter of a woman who was sheltered by a non-Jewish family,” and of gathering PPE donations instead, in “Cowardice in the face of coronavirus.” An anonymous cardiology trainee wrote on April 19 that pregnant health care workers were “in an emotionally unique scenario that lacks clarity,” and questioned “whether I can still do my job and protect my unborn child,” in “Being a pregnant medical trainee just got more complicated in the COVID-19 era.”

Dee Bonney, MD, wrote on April 5 of a patient’s wife for whom “The twice-daily phone calls have become progressively less hopeful,” and of the request she now heard from patients: “if I become infected and am critically ill, please don’t let me die alone,” in “The unintended consequences of isolating our dying COVID-19 patients.” An anonymous resident wrote on April 7 that physician deaths were “a demonstration of human sacrifice at the hand of our health care and medical training systems,” and that residents “may be the single most vulnerable professional population of all because we don’t have a choice,” in “Physician deaths in the era of COVID-19: human sacrifice, not heroism.” Veda N. Giri, MD, wrote on April 14 that “what worries me is that heroes are typically viewed as superhuman,” in “Health care workers during the COVID-19 crisis: superheroes or human-heroes?” Daniel K. Amponsah, MD, wrote the same day that “African American patients with COVID-19 are dying at a significantly higher rate compared to other races,” in “The deadly racial disparity of COVID-19,” and Osmund Agbo, MD, wrote on April 18 that Black Americans “are more likely to have a higher percentage of individuals with preexisting conditions who are uninsured or underinsured,” and pointed to the 2019 closure of Hahnemann, in “COVID-19: Why are blacks in America are more likely to die?”

Erin E. Stevens, MD, wrote on April 25 an hour-by-hour account of a clinic day where “Testing in Wisconsin is only for the sickest,” in “A day in the life of a physician during the pandemic.” Meghan Sharma wrote the same day that a national lockdown “has little legal precedent to follow,” and traced the question to the 1905 Cambridge smallpox case, in “Are COVID-19 lockdowns legal or not?” Natalie Moreno wrote on April 27 that “immigrants and minorities have often been the cornerstones for waging war against infectious disease,” in “Immigrant and minority physicians at the frontline of pandemics.” Jaclyn Lewis Albin, MD, wrote on May 12 that she saw “many capitalizing on fear and uncertainty, weaving a compelling story and drawing in the desperate ones who need a scapegoat,” in “Dissent in the time of COVID-19.”

What did physicians write in the summer of 2020?

The summer posts, 171 from June through August, are about reopening, schools, masks as a public argument rather than a supply problem, telemedicine becoming ordinary, racial disparities in who was dying, and the first physicians describing the pandemic’s toll on their own lives. Schools appear in 26 percent of posts, racial disparities in 22 percent, and vaccines, still months away, in 15 percent.

Jennifer Shaer, MD, wrote on June 20 that “in April, I lost my dad to COVID-19,” and that she was “also sensitive to the suffering of those trying to control the spread,” in “In memory of all the fathers lost to COVID-19.” Carly Schenker, MD, wrote on July 3 that the wartime framing of the response had not “progressed us towards the ultimate goal,” and proposed “alliance and partnership rather than resistance and combat,” in “A shift in mindset in our approach to the “fight” against COVID-19.” Rizwana Khan, MD, a pulmonologist, wrote the same day a diary of her own testing and precautions, and that recovery required “universal masking with social distancing, efficient testing and contact tracing,” and equipping health care workers, in “A pulmonologist’s COVID diary.” Ann L. Contrucci, MD, wrote on July 15 that patients with serious mental illness were left alone, that “these patients are left alone in an ER,” with no one to advocate or support them, and that mental health care was “the not so silent collateral damage of COVID-19,” in “Mental health care is the not so silent collateral damage of COVID-19.” Cassandra Hoggard, MD, wrote on August 29 from long-term care that “the physicians are no longer allowed in,” and that she relied on care aides’ reports to identify changes in residents she could not see, in “What it’s like to work in long-term care during the pandemic.” Nesrin Abu Ata, MD, wrote on July 7 that physicians should “quit putting your life and health at risk for a system that doesn’t value your best interests,” and that she had, in “How the pandemic forced this physician to quit.” Lisa Sieczkowski, MD, a pediatrician and program director, wrote on August 6 that as a parent and physician she was “inundated with data and opinions about COVID and school reopening and masks and vaccines,” and that her children would go back, masked, in “COVID and schools: Our only certainty is uncertainty.”

What did physicians write in the second wave and the vaccine’s arrival, September to December 2020?

The fall posts, 174 from September through December, turn from the virus to the vaccine: from 15 percent of posts in the summer to 32 percent, and to 49 percent in the first half of 2021. Physicians wrote about their own hesitation and their own relief, about the second wave arriving as they were exhausted, and about being alone in hospitals they worked in. Testing remained in a third of posts.

Katherine Hoffman, a biostatistician on a pulmonary and critical care team in New York, wrote on October 7 of “writing code for models to answer vague and terrifying questions” about which patients would crash, who could be transferred, and, if ventilators ran out, who had the best chance to survive, in “New York City’s COVID-19 outbreak from the eyes of a pulmonary and critical care team’s biostatistician.” Kara Ward, MD, an emergency and critical care physician, wrote on November 22 that she had “had COVID-19 infection twice, and I’m tired,” and that “there are many times I have stayed in full PPE in a room while a patient died” so that they would not die alone, in “I am an emergency and critical care physician. I had COVID-19 infection twice and I’m tired.” Madison Pomerantz, MD, wrote on December 25, after testing positive, that “I don’t want to be anyone’s hero. Do they know I had no choice?” in “I am a physician who tested positive for COVID-19. My main symptom is anger.” Amy Hughes, MD, a surgeon, wrote on November 12 of planning a twelve-week maternity leave while fitting in “as many surgical cases as possible” before it, in “A physician takes maternity leave during the pandemic.” Dalia Saha, MD, wrote on December 16 that physicians in her doctors’ lounge were uncertain about the vaccine, and that “concerns about the vaccines’ safety are not unwarranted,” in “What worries this physician about the COVID-19 vaccine.” Christine Lau, MD, wrote on December 24 that the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines had been “tested on thousands of people to determine safety and efficacy” in Phase 3 trials, and that they “do not guarantee you will never get COVID-19,” in “6 things people should know about the COVID-19 vaccines.” Kelly Lisciandro, DO, wrote on December 30 of being hospitalized alone with appendicitis after “months to protect myself, my family, our employees, my patients, my friends, and my peers from COVID,” in “Alone in the hospital in the midst of a global pandemic.”

What did physicians write in 2021, the year of vaccines, mandates, and the unvaccinated?

The 271 posts of 2021 are about the vaccine and then about the people who would not take it. In the first half of the year vaccines appear in 49 percent of posts and the subject is hesitancy, equity, and side effects; in the second half vaccines appear in 67 percent, “unvaccinated” appears in 31 percent after appearing in none before, mandates in 14 percent, misinformation in 19 percent, and Delta and Omicron in a third. Death appears in 54 percent of the second-half posts, the highest of the pandemic. Physicians disagreed about mandates, about herd immunity, and about how to talk to patients who refused.

Tuere Hughes-Kapenzi, MD, MBA, wrote on January 9, 2021, that the “number one side effect I am feeling, is overwhelming relief,” in “The side effect of the COVID vaccine that no one is talking about.” Nesrin Abu Ata, MD, an addiction physician, wrote on January 22 that “I felt my tears as I waited for the fifteen-minute period of monitoring,” and that a week earlier she had written to the governor asking when the vaccine would reach addiction centers, in “Getting the COVID vaccine: a behind the scenes look.” Katie Lockwood, MD, a pediatrician, wrote on May 3 that “I have experience with counseling patients about vaccine hesitancy,” which had affected about 19 percent of her patient families, and that in one focus group Black participants cited the Tuskegee study as the root of their concern, in “A pediatrician’s approach to vaccine hesitancy in a pandemic.” Tista S. Ghosh, MD, MPH, wrote on May 9 that “45 percent of Black men have expressed that they want to wait and see,” and that refusal in some military branches reached 40 percent, in “The disparity no one talks about: COVID vaccines and men.”

Betty Rabinowitz, MD, wrote on March 10, 2021, that the 28 million confirmed cases probably represented “10 to 25 percent of actual infections,” putting the likely number of Americans who had been infected near 165 million, and that a 77 percent drop in cases over six weeks was hard to explain by vaccination alone, in “A perspective on herd immunity for COVID-19.” Alison Yarp, MD, MPH, wrote on August 16 that “I received two doses of the Pfizer vaccine earlier this year, and I just tested positive for COVID-19,” in “I’m vaccinated and positive for COVID-19.” Michele Luckenbaugh wrote on August 24 of “irate parents ripping off the masks of teachers,” and that “the COVID vaccine is not 100 percent foolproof; no vaccine is,” in “The vaccine is not the enemy. COVID is.”

Mia Finkelston, MD, and Cynthia Horner, MD, wrote on September 28 that telehealth companies were offering ivermectin, “rumored by some to be an effective treatment for COVID-19,” which was unproven, while deaths were “tracking at over 650,000 deaths to date and hovering around 1,500 each day,” in “A prescription against COVID-19: Telehealth and ivermectin.” Shetal Shah, MD, a neonatologist, wrote on October 4 that “many physicians feel those who remain willingly unvaccinated against COVID are so staunchly opposed to immunization” that they are now essentially inconvincible, and argued for a federal mandate on the model of school vaccination rules, in “Is it time for a true federal COVID vaccine mandate?”

What have physicians written since 2022?

The record thins after 2021, 84 posts in 2022 and about 90 since, and its subject changes from the pandemic to what it left: long COVID in 17 percent of the recent posts, burnout in 28 percent, the highest of any period, the cost of vaccines once the federal supply ended, and physicians writing, sometimes anonymously, about what the years did to their families and their willingness to stay in medicine. Leaving medicine appears in 18 to 28 percent of posts from 2021 onward.

Diane Birnbaumer, MD, wrote in September 2022 that “we did not live in lockdown,” and that anyone who wants to understand the word should “ask someone from Shanghai if you want to understand what lockdown really means,” in “The impact of a single COVID infection.” Huma Farid, MD, wrote in October 2022 that 1,430 children had died of COVID-19 since the pandemic began, and that the vaccine was “83 percent effective in decreasing the risk of hospitalization” in children, including against Omicron, in “The resilience of children throughout the pandemic isn’t what you think.” An anonymous physician wrote in November 2022 of a family dinner at which her father held forth that “the lockdowns are a bad idea, that COVID isn’t that bad, and that masks don’t work,” in “For me, COVID has a face.”

Jenna Podjasek, MD, wrote in June 2023 that she had been “among the roughly 85 percent of Americans who had not yet received the bivalent vaccine booster” when she became ill, in “COVID-19 vaccine neglect: a tale of regret and debilitating symptoms.” Michelle Finkel, MD, wrote in October 2023 that the updated vaccine “would cost a total of $573 for our two teenagers and me” at a pharmacy, with PPO insurance, in “We got the new COVID vaccine. It was a whopping $191 per shot.” Sonali Mantoo, MD, a critical care physician, wrote in March 2024 that her first symptom “was a persistent cough while working a night ICU shift,” and that fourteen months into long COVID “with dwindling savings, I finally moved in with family,” in “Critical care physician battles long COVID with hope and grit.” An anonymous physician wrote in March 2025 that when the research on ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine came back negative “I stopped using them and discouraged inappropriate requests for them from patients,” in “The untold toll of COVID-19: a doctor’s battle to save lives and family.”

What did physicians disagree about?

Physicians on KevinMD disagreed during the pandemic, in public and under their names, about lockdowns and their legality, about whether schools should open, about masks as policy, about hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin, about vaccine mandates, about herd immunity, and about whether “hero” was a compliment or a trap. This page records those disagreements as they were made and does not resolve them. Two things the record shows: the treatment controversies were small on this site, hydroxychloroquine or ivermectin appearing in no more than 6 percent of posts in any period; and the mandate argument was concentrated in the second half of 2021, when it appeared in 14 percent of posts and then faded.

On lockdowns, Meghan Sharma laid out the legal uncertainty in April 2020, and Diane Birnbaumer, MD, countered in September 2022 that the United States never had one. On schools, Lisa Sieczkowski, MD, sent her children back masked in August 2020, and Susannah Hills, MD, wrote in October 2020 that by the teachers’ union’s estimate “an additional 750,000 tests would need to be done as schools reopen,” in “Inadequate COVID testing leaves New York City schools vulnerable.” On the vaccine, Dalia Saha, MD, wrote in December 2020 that “concerns about the vaccines’ safety are not unwarranted,” and Christine Lau, MD, wrote the same month that the trials had been run and the vaccines were safe. On mandates, Shetal Shah, MD, argued for a federal one in October 2021, and Jacqueline Redmer, MD, wrote in December 2022 that “Forced COVID leave has opened me up to the examination of the guilt” attached to rest, in “Lessons from employer-mandated COVID leave.” On the word hero, an anonymous resident called physician deaths human sacrifice, not heroism, in April 2020, Veda N. Giri, MD, accepted the word and warned against superhuman the same week in April 2020, Carly Schenker, MD, argued in July 2020 that the war framing had not helped, and Madison Pomerantz, MD, wrote in December 2020, “Do they know I had no choice,” On dissent itself, Jaclyn Lewis Albin, MD, wrote in May 2020 that physicians who dissented were sometimes right and sometimes “capitalizing on fear and uncertainty, weaving a compelling story,” and that telling them apart was the work.

How did the record change, period by period?

The table gives the share of posts in each period that mention each subject. It is the pandemic as physicians on KevinMD wrote it: testing and PPE first, fear and family throughout 2020, vaccines from the fall of 2020, the unvaccinated and mandates in late 2021, and long COVID and burnout after.

Subject Feb to Mar 2020 (142) Apr to May 2020 (292) Jun to Aug 2020 (171) Sep to Dec 2020 (174) Jan to Jun 2021 (190) Jul to Dec 2021 (81) 2022 (84) 2023 to 2026 (92)
Testing 50 percent 34 percent 33 percent 32 percent 24 percent 28 percent 24 percent 27 percent
PPE or N95 33 percent 33 percent 20 percent 20 percent 16 percent 12 percent 12 percent 16 percent
Ventilators 25 percent 21 percent 16 percent 9 percent 11 percent 17 percent 6 percent 16 percent
Fear or the writer’s family 42 percent 52 percent 40 percent 38 percent 25 percent 40 percent 30 percent 40 percent
Schools 33 percent 35 percent 26 percent 25 percent 21 percent 36 percent 26 percent 26 percent
Masks as policy 31 percent 27 percent 28 percent 31 percent 28 percent 44 percent 30 percent 23 percent
Racial disparities 15 percent 20 percent 22 percent 23 percent 20 percent 22 percent 19 percent 11 percent
Vaccines 13 percent 14 percent 15 percent 32 percent 49 percent 67 percent 60 percent 36 percent
The unvaccinated 0 percent 0 percent 0 percent 1 percent 3 percent 31 percent 17 percent 2 percent
Mandates 4 percent 5 percent 4 percent 7 percent 2 percent 14 percent 11 percent 4 percent
Misinformation 8 percent 4 percent 5 percent 10 percent 8 percent 19 percent 12 percent 14 percent
Hydroxychloroquine or ivermectin 2 percent 2 percent 1 percent 1 percent 2 percent 6 percent 1 percent 3 percent
Death 34 percent 44 percent 38 percent 36 percent 38 percent 54 percent 37 percent 40 percent
Long COVID 1 percent 2 percent 1 percent 4 percent 4 percent 11 percent 7 percent 17 percent
Burnout 1 percent 8 percent 6 percent 6 percent 9 percent 5 percent 14 percent 28 percent
Leaving medicine 16 percent 19 percent 20 percent 14 percent 16 percent 28 percent 23 percent 18 percent

The KevinMD COVID-19 corpus by the numbers

The figures below describe the set of KevinMD posts this page draws on, as of September 5, 2026. They are counts of what KevinMD published, not epidemiological data.

Measure Value
Posts with COVID, coronavirus, or pandemic in the title 1,226
Date range February 28, 2020 to August 20, 2026
Posts in 2020 779
Posts in March, April, and May 2020 430
Peak month April 2020, 164 posts
Named contributors 829
Posts bylined by an MD or DO 811
Anonymous posts 27
Posts by students and other non-credentialed authors About 170
Podcast episodes with full transcripts 150
Total words About 964,000
Most frequent contributors Robert Pearl, MD (10); Christine Lau, MD (9); Tomi Mitchell, MD (7); Debbie Moore-Black, RN (7); Susan Levenstein, MD (7); Cory Michael, MD (7)

How this page was built and how it is updated

The corpus was assembled from title searches for COVID, coronavirus, and pandemic, with 22 pre-2020 posts about earlier pandemics removed. Term frequencies were computed against the full text of each post by period, on the corpus assembled for the September 5, 2026 build; this page was converted to the current standard on September 20, 2026 without rebuilding that corpus, so the counts and figures are as of September 5, 2026. Quotations are taken verbatim from the original posts and are dated to the day where the period matters. Author credentials are as they appeared in the byline at publication. Because this is a historical record, the most frequent contributors are not weighted; the citations follow the calendar. Every source is linked in the sentence that cites it, and the full list appears at the end of the page. The complete feed is at the COVID-19 archive. Related records: Physician burnout: what physicians say, in their own words, Residency: what residents and attendings say, in their own words, and End of life: what physicians say, in their own words.

This page is updated as new COVID-19 essays are published on KevinMD, which now happens a few times a year. When it is updated, the date at the top changes, the counts in the tables are recomputed, and new named claims are added to the most recent section. Nothing is removed unless the original post is removed. An author who believes a quotation on this page misrepresents them can write to Kevin Pho and the page will be corrected.

To cite this page: Pho K. COVID-19: what physicians wrote as it happened. KevinMD.com. Updated September 20, 2026. https://kevinmd.com/covid-19

The 54 KevinMD posts cited on this page, in order of publication