As 2020 ends, coverage of nursing in Covid care still depends on who is involved. A recent NBC News piece offered a good quick look at the travel nurses who are trying to cope with the current U.S. surge. In a BBC Newshour report, an NYU physician forcefully affirmed the key role skilled nurses play, especially in ICUs. Yet a long New York Times article on a shortage of “specialists” to run ventilators excluded nurses. And one governor had to defend his health commissioner, an RN, from an MSNBC anchor’s suggestion that an “upgrade” to a physician was needed.
