At some Spanish hospitals, doctors and nurses resort to taping garbage sacks to their arms to shield themselves while they work to save an avalanche of patients fighting for breath. They have run out of disposable coats.
The plastic glasses they wear are of such poor quality that medics can barely see through them, so they find the pulses and veins of coronavirus patients by touch, said Samantha Gonzalez, a 52-year-old nurse who works in the emergency room at the Txagorritxu hospital in the Basque city of Vitoria.
"This is not the First World anymore — it's a war," said Gonzalez.