| At first, Lenny Bernstein treated the coronavirus in 2020 like he had Ebola in 2014. After reporting from a hot spot, he scrubbed everything, down to his wallet and notebook. Now, on his way to Kent Hospital in Rhode Island with video reporter Joyce Koh, the pair were vaccinated and boosted. They had rapid tests. The emergency department director, a contact of Bernstein's from a previous story, kitted them out in N95s, face shields, gloves and gowns. By reporting from inside hospitals — no easy feat, since medical centers often deny access for legal or public-relations reasons — Bernstein and other Post journalists can trace how the pandemic has evolved over these two years. During the omicron surge, as Bernstein and Koh's latest story from Rhode Island shows, it's hospital emergency departments that are in danger of buckling.  Attending physician Anne Dulski (center) speaks with Stanley Lomas, who arrived by ambulance at Kent Hospital with chest pains. (Joyce Koh/The Washington Post) | Much has changed since early 2020. Then, when almost nothing was known about the coronavirus, Bernstein and another Post video reporter, Jon Gerberg, reported from inside the intensive care unit of a New York hospital overwhelmed by cases. Bernstein followed the virus from its early strain on ICUs to improvised field hospitals, and to covid wards where patients try to recover. In other ways, too little has changed. This surge has once again laid bare the brutal math of care in a crisis: A flood of coronavirus patients can mean no beds for broken bones, appendicitis cases or other emergencies. A shortage of staff can mean suffering patients waiting half a day to be seen or discharged. One patient the reporters spoke to for this story waited 36 hours before she got a bed. And hospitals with little to no time to rebound from the fall delta wave have once again delayed thousands of surgeries, leaving many patients in sometimes serious pain. These ripple effects cause the "moral harm" of knowing non-covid cases are going without the usual care, Megan L. Ranney, an emergency physician and an academic dean at Brown University, wrote for The Post on Friday. Even on the relatively "slow" day of Bernstein and Koh's visit last week, Kent Hospital only had enough workers to staff 199 of their 359 beds. In Koh's stark videos, health-care workers explain the relentless pace and emotional toll of treating through the surge — on the busiest days, drawing blood in cars, administering IVs in the waiting room or moving patients to an overflow tent. Laura Forman, the emergency department director at Kent Hospital, told the reporters people should do everything they can to avoid winter accidents and injuries. "In the seven years that I've been covering health and medicine, I've never heard a doctor say, 'Stay away from our hospital,' " Bernstein said. "That's how bad it is." Part of the burden, health-care workers said, is knowing that much higher vaccination rates could have prevented this situation. For a medical worker who's been on the front line throughout the pandemic, Bernstein said, "the last year of it has been, in their opinion, utterly, totally unnecessary." Forman doesn't even ask anymore whether a patient is vaccinated. The answer can make her too angry. She simply provides the same level of care. That exhaustion was plain in the visit Bernstein and Koh paid to Kent Hospital last Thursday. Koh went in light, with an iPhone for still photos and one extra video camera lens, to stay as unobtrusive as possible as workers guided them through the halls and treated patients. Her fly-on-the-wall approach and hours of footage — plus more than a full day of editing — paid off with four powerful minutes of video. For more of The Post's reporting on the pandemic, sign up for our Coronavirus Updates newsletter (all stories linked in that newsletter are free to read). Then read Bernstein's story, with Koh's video, below. To hear an interview with Laura Forman, director of Kent Hospital's emergency department, listen to Friday's Post Reports episode.  (Joyce Koh/The Washington Post) Patients at Kent Hospital are waiting 10 hours for care as staff shortages, covid cases and other emergencies overwhelm the emergency department. By Lenny Bernstein ● Read more » |    | | | A North Dakota coal-fired power plant was slated to close last year, to the delight of environmentalists. But local officials rallied to block renewable projects in the area, and a buyer stepped in. By Joshua Partlow ● Read more » | | | | For 17 years, she battled baffling attacks of dimming vision, nausea and crushing fatigue. Medical Mysteries ● By Sandra G. 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