The First Wave

Kieleargente , ragerino , uncleruckus-27636 said it all - there is actually nothing more to add.. besides underlining that this is a documentary and not a movie.

It is heart wrenching, I am not crying easily .. but when the one nurse started washing her hands, ranting and swearing at all of this after a patient died, I lost it.

It really really just shows you the extraordinary emotional stress these people especially are going through.

I do not understand the 1-6 star ratings, I have no idea who and how one can come to this "conclusion/opinion".

I personally feel very deflated after seeing this. I fear/feel nothing will change. Authorities and our systems will always 'be' like this. Prioritising profits instead of standing up for values like community, care, decency...etc.

I too believe a strict lockdown worldwide could/would have changed the course of this pandemic.

The stories of those who overcame, and the care of the medical professionals towards their patients, was absolutely breathtaking.

Anyone who says differently, trivializes the suffering of others and the work of the healthcare professionals. In fact, those who marked a 1 and voiced their opinion, made clear their ignorance.

I thought Matthew Heineman did justice by being able to film what was going on in the ICUs at the time. The hospital they were at was in Queens and I was in Brooklyn at the time. It's accurate. I was surprised the film crew was able to capture more of the intimate moments that the public doesn't get to see. It's a necessary watch, despite the flashbacks. Part of me thinks if they were releasing footage like this early on in the pandemic, it would've changed a lot of public opinion. The other part says some people still would've turned a blind eye. Also, beware of the other reviews calling this fake. Those Herman Cain award nominees wouldn't even know...

We as a society failed here massively. This all could have been avoided if we would have gone into a strict globally coordinated lock-down as soon as the first cases started showing up. I am glad that I was able to convince my parents to isolate, move to our remote condo, and stay away from everybody until they finally got vaccinated.

That being said, those who down-vote this documentary and call it fake, are exactly the same people who have been downplaying the pandemic and making it much worse for everybody else. They should be ashamed of themselves instead of continuing with their bull.

Lastly I would like to express my condolences to everybody who lost a loved one to this disease, and thank everybody who was involved into saving people's lives despite all the struggle and disbelief about how some patients got sick.

It's hard to watsch because it's a documentary about just the first wave. We all had multiple of those. And many less fortunate countries got much worse outcomes. And it's still not over as of now.

I think this documentary is extremely accurate in telling this story that needs to be told from the lens of healthcare providers. It literally was like this. The emotions, the dialogue, the sentiments, the difficult conversations, the intersection with racial injustice and unrest. It is all accurate, and seeing this made me feel heard. It validated that many of the things// conversations I saw and experiences I/ my colleagues had were in fact happening everywhere.