As a nurse, she knew the daily traumas of Covid-19. Then her father landed in her ICU
Even on his second trip to the emergency room, Tom McNamara wasn’t especially afraid of the virus inside his cells. The first time, doctors had diagnosed him with Covid-19-related pneumonia, given him some antibiotics, and sent him home. That night, his wife had set an alarm for every two hours, rousing herself to check his oxygen saturation, and by the next morning, it had dipped low enough that she’d sped as she drove him back. But now that he was at the hospital again, his numbers seemed fine, and he thought, This is stupid, I should have just stayed home.
His daughter Caroline didn’t think it was stupid. Then again, she and her parents had been living in different worlds. Geographically, they weren’t far. They were all in Williamsport, Penn. — “the birthplace of Little League baseball,” near the green middle of the state. But to Tom and Amy McNamara, the pandemic wasn’t something to get too stressed out about. For most people, they imagined, having Covid-19 was like having a bad cold, a sentiment similar to one the president himself had expressed.
