The First Wave: patents and health care
workers, and protesters, during the first three months of COVID19 in NYC
Matthew Heineman's documentary The First Wave
presents how New York City dealt with the sudden explosion of the COVID19
pandemic in March 2020, through June, mostly from the viewpoint of health care
workers and patients.
So
it is pretty hard to watch the medical scenes.
In one instance, we see a middle aged man who
has apparently done a DNR and refused a ventilator struggle to take his last
breath, and then pass away.
There are many scenes of people being brough out of
coma into recovery, slowly, with physical therapy.
There are scenes of empty NYC streets and of special
burial areas.
There is relatively little about how the pandemic
started or the politics. But Gov. Andrew Cuomo holds his meetings, and
moralizes, that the virus will test the character of every single civilian as
to whether they can step up as required and sacrifice, even like soldiers. I
thought about British civilians darkening their homes during the Battle of
Britain in 1940. Cuomo, however, would face his own scandal soon.
In May (an hour into the 93 minute
film) protesters crowd Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village after the
murder of George Floyd by a rogue policeman in Minneapolis. Protests (with regard specifically to legacy
racism) replace what used to be gay life (and it's not Stonewall). Fortunately, because they were outdoors,
protests transmitted relatively few cases. But the protests also underscored
the fact that non-white people had born the brunt of
the pandemic because of their service jobs and more crowded households.
There had occurred over 17000 deaths in NYC by the end
of May. At the end of the film the names
are listed.
Picture: Mortuary Trucks in NYC, Wikipedia embed,
click for attribution.
Name: 'The First
Wave'
Director, writer: Matthew Heineman
Released: 2021/11
Format: 2.35:1
When and how viewed: Landmark Bethesda Row 2021/11/21
small audience
Length: 93
Rating: R
Companies: Participant,
National Geographic, Neon
Stars: ****_
(Originally posted: Monday, November 22, 2021 at 12 noon EST)