It was a ritual nearly every New Yorker took part in: at 7:00 every night, people hung out of their windows, stood on their fire escapes or stopped in the streets to clap, bang pans and cheer in appreciation for the city's frontline workers.

At the same time, those frontline health care workers were putting their lives on the line, fighting a disease that was little understood. Many became ill themselves, and some died from the disease. Worse, they were putting up this fight without the proper PPE, or personal protective equipment, wearing masks and gowns for days on end as wave after wave of critically ill COVID patients crowded hospital rooms, corridors, anywhere they could fit another bed. 

As patients lay dying, it was the nurses who took the place of loved ones, holding their hands or holding a tablet of smart phone so family members could say one last goodbye. 

Judy Sheridan-Gonzalez is the President of the New York State Nurses Association. She joined In Focus to talk about what the city's nurses went through as the crisis kept building, working horrendous hours, afraid to go home lest they spread the virus to their own families, suffering physically, mentally and emotionally with almost no support.

She also talked about what needs to be done in the future: a guarantee that all health care workers will get the protection they need and a more fair system where everyone will get health care as a right, not a privilege.