3 nurses share what it's like working in states that have reopened as they brace for a surge in coronavirus cases

• Cases of the coronavirus have been surging across the US Sunbelt after states started easing their public health lockdowns that were put in place to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 disease.
• Three nurses in states that have reopened told us what it's like working in hospitals right now as they brace for an influx of patients.
• Lindsey Medeiros works at an urban hospital in Phoenix; Andrea Magee works at a rural hospital in Mississippi; and Kiersten Henry works at a suburban hospital in Maryland.

Nurses caring for patients with COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, spend long hours in critical-care units tending to people who've been sick for weeks, some of whom hover near death.

While infections have dropped in New York, once considered the pandemic's epicenter, coronavirus cases are now soaring in more than 20 states, predominantly in the Sunbelt region. More than 36,000 new coronavirus cases were tallied across the US on Wednesday alone — the highest single-day total recorded yet.

Three nurses in states that have reopened told Insider what their jobs are like as hospitals brace for a possible onslaught of new patients.

Lindsey Medeiros, 38, in Arizona

Lindsey Medeiros is an ICU nurse at Banner University Medical Center in Phoenix, Arizona, where lockdowns began easing on May 15.

Her work treating the most critical COVID-19 patients has been "one of the most trying times of my career," Medeiros said. She continued:

"For me, this has just been unlike anything else," she said. "It's very hard to be with a patient by themselves as they emerge from a coma and you're standing over them with a shield and a mask. You're looking at them when they're looking at you ... and you can see into their soul.

And they're looking at you wondering 'What the heck is going on?'

And I have to say, 'I'm Lindsey, I'm your nurse. It's okay, I'm here with you. I'm wearing all of this protection because you have coronavirus, but we're taking care of you.

And the patient, they look at you and their eyes get big and then squeeze your hand. These people are absolutely terrified."

The mother of two young girls, Medeiros said she's afraid, too.

"When people ask what their mommy does, they say, 'She's a hero,' which makes me cry every single time I leave, but they are just my light in my world and they're keeping me sane," she said.

While Medeiros fears contracting the virus, she said she has "a fire in my belly to take care of these patients."

"Every day I go to work, I perform the proper protocols, I wear my PPE, I wash my hands, and I do my very best to prevent the spread," she said. "That's no guarantee that I'm not going to get it. At this point, it's just not something that I can focus on because of all of the work we have to do to take care of our patients."

Some patients admitted to Medeiros's ICU before Arizona eased lockdowns are still on ventilators, she said.

"You put yourself in that position and you say 'This could be me.'"

In Arizona, COVID-19 infections have soared to almost 60,000, and more than 1,460 patients have died, according to the Arizona Department of Health Services.

Banner UMC has seen an "influx" of COVID-19 patients since Memorial Day weekend, two weeks after the state reopened, according to a hospital spokesperson. While there are still some ventilators available, external lung machines reserved for their most critical patients are at capacity.

Medeiros said many patients are from Navajo Nation reservations in rural areas outside Phoenix. According to the Navajo Department of Health, 7,088 people from the reservations have been infected.

"We're caring for this surge of patients that really never left the hospital," Medeiros said. "Some of these nurses taking care of these patients that have been with us from the original admission in March and April and May that have been on a ventilator for four to six weeks are still with us. So we're still working really hard, and a lot of these people are very sick for a long period of time."

As Arizona reopens, she said it's difficult to imagine having to care for more sick patients on top of the ones her ICU is already struggling to keep alive.

"It's hard for even me to say it's a 'before and an after,' because for me, this has been my life for the past almost three and a half months now," she said. "And I don't see anything really changing because we've been working and we will continue to work as the state opens up because we do anticipate another surge in cases."

Mederios said she's not seeing a lot of people maintaining social distancing or wearing masks out in public now.

Her husband owns a small company and Medeiros said she understands the pressure to lift lockdowns and reopen struggling businesses.

"It's easy for me to say, in one breath, that they shouldn't be reopening," she said. "But I'm not a political official, I'm not the governor."

"And I know that there is so much more than just what I see in my ICU," she added.

Andrea Magee, 33, in Mississippi

"Very tough, very emotional" is how Andrea Magee describes the past three months. She's an intensive care nurse at Methodist-Olive Branch Hospital in Mississippi, which reopened at the end of April.

"We got a lot of positives right in the month of March and April," Magee, whose rural hospital has just 12 beds in its intensive care unit, told Insider.

"Not everyone tested positive, but we did have a lot of people that ended up on the ventilator that were really sick in the ICU before we reopened," she said.

Magee added that nurses from nearby hospitals have been called in to help.

The hospital is treating COVID-19 patients in all age groups, she said. "They're terrified. They can't catch their breath. They have all these symptoms."

A hospital spokesperson said the number of COVID-19 patients has remained steady, about one to four a week, with only a slight increase from before Mississippi reopened.

Magee said Mississippians need to understand the threat the virus poses is real.

She recalled a patient who came in to the hospital walking and talking, but soon grew so ill he had to be put on a ventilator. "He unfortunately didn't make it," she said, "but just being able to talk with him beforehand, before all of that happened and being able to pray with him and kind of hear his fears on what was going to happen next. That one really sticks out for me."

Magee, who is in a long term relationship, is meticulous about wearing PPE, following proper sanitation, and changing her clothes when she comes home. "I am religious with my hand hygiene, washing my hands for two minutes after contact with patients and other coworkers," she said.

While she understands the dangers of COVID-19, she does not live in fear of the virus.

"As a nurse, we're exposed to all kinds of things," she said. "COVID is just the newest thing we're being exposed to. So I wouldn't say I'm afraid of being sick, but it is our job to be that hand and compassionate person for people who are sick."

Kiersten Henry, 43, in Maryland

The last three months have been "surreal" for Kiersten Henry, a nurse practitioner in the intensive care unit at MedStar Montgomery Medical Center in Olney, Maryland.

"These patients are with us potentially for weeks, or as long as a month and a half, they've been really sick," she said.

The wife of a firefighter and the mother of two high schoolers, Henry struggles to separate her work in the ICU from life at home.

"There's a world inside the hospital with what we're seeing with COVID that the moment you step out back into the community, it's hard to reconcile the two different worlds," she said. "Because people aren't seeing what we're seeing every day."

While Maryland began reopening in the middle of May, Montgomery County postponed Phase 1 to June 1 due to a high number of cases, and just entered Phase 2 this week.

Since reopening, the hospital's COVID-19 admissions gradually declined from a peak of 60 cases in early May, but admissions jumped 18% after the Memorial Day weekend, according to a hospital spokesperson.

The hospital's 30-bed COVID-19 unit remained near capacity until last week. Twenty patients still remain in the unit with just over half still hooked to ventilators or high flow nasal cannula machines, which provide increased oxygen support for the most critically ill.

Henry said some patients without health insurance may have delayed coming to the hospital. "They're coming to us two weeks in where they are getting really sick," she said.

As the region continues to slowly reopen, "we're not going to know how it plays out until we do," Henry said.

"From a business standpoint, I'm sure, the sooner we reopen the better for some of our smaller businesses," she said. "And I think, from a healthcare perspective, we're just going to have to sort of hope that people adhere to the guidelines and that the slow reopening doesn't cause us to see a surge in cases."

Henry anticipates another potential spike in cases. If MedStar's network of hospitals in nearby Baltimore or Washington, DC, run out of beds, her hospital will take in patients from those areas.

"I can foresee that as we get back to 'the next normal,' that we're still going to be in the ICU, caring for these patients in the ICU, fighting this fight as other people start to move on from COVID," she said.

Despite the grim reality, there are also glimmers of hope. Recently, a COVID-19 patient who survived weeks on a ventilator came back to visit the nurses, doctors, and other staff at Henry's hospital who all worked to keep him alive. It was hopeful to watch the man get out of his car, stand on his own, and wave to them from the parking lot, Henry recalled. She explained that it takes hundreds of hospital staff to keep one patient alive.

"All those same people invested in his outcome, and you know, seeing that one family and what it means to them to have their husband, their father, their grandfather, home with them is why we do what we do," she said.

She said that whatever happens as a result of reopening the region, nurses will continue to fight for patients with COVID-19.

"We're going to show up every day and we're going to care for whatever patients come our way," Henry said. "And our hope is that a gradual reopening won't cause a surge in patients, but whatever it brings, our job is to try to take care of the people and to try to get them out of the hospital and we'll keep doing that."