The First Wave

I watched the film via streaming on the Eventive app on Apple TV. The first moments of the documentary was hard to watch. Several times I considered turning the TV off and not watching it. You, the viewer, are basically like the fly on the wall where interns and nurses are constantly called to rooms in ICU to assist dying patients trying by a long shot to rescue them from sure death either through CPR or electro heart shocks before deciding their pulses are not coming back and they are declared dead. Many times the interns and nurses lose it and get very emotional when they are unable to save lives. You actually see one body getting zipped in a body bag, stored in a refrigerated truck and buried in a mass grave. Later on, the movie focuses on three specific people. An intern and two severely ill Covid-19 patients in ICU on ventilators. One is a school security officer for the NYPD, the other one of the hospital's nurses who is pregnant who caught covid from her patients. While in ICU, she gave birth by C-section. The film also focuses on both their families and how they are coping. Throughout the film it is hard to predict if either of them would survive. I predict this film will be a strong candidate for an Oscar for Best Documentary.

This is a great documentary that shows the pandemic in a different perspective. Thanks to all the nurses for their hard work during this hard time! This touches on so many different issues, i feel like not one is more important then the other. As humans, we should come together.

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.

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.

I watched this trying to understand better the facts of Covid and it unfolding since I only really heard stories from the news. This did an okayish job showing that as it mostly pertains to 3-6 patients examined in the whole film. Oddly they threw in a racial component to the film that seems unrelated and disjointed (they do mention that apparently covid affected minorities more than white people but that's unrelated to the BLM stuff they have later in the film).

Overall I had more empathy for nurses and what they went through so I'd say that's probably the message overall that resonated with me.