Two nurses were named to Time's Most Influential People of 2020 list, including a New York City nurse who treated her hospital's first COVID-19 patient, contracted the disease herself and recovered to return to work.
Amy O'Sullivan is an emergency room nurse at Wyckoff Heights Medical Center in New York City. She treated the hospital's first COVID-19 patient, who died in March, becoming the city's first person to die of the disease. Ms. Sullivan also displayed coronavirus symptoms, was intubated and spent four days on a ventilator. She returned to work after recovering.
Bonnie Castillo, RN, is executive director of National Nurses United and the California Nurses Association. During the COVID-19 pandemic, she has fought layoffs and pay cuts for nurses and was among the first to highlight the lack of personal protective equipment for nurses.
Anthony Fauci, MD, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, MD, director-general of the World Health Organization, were also named to the list.
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