From behind her face shield, the young doctor stares straight ahead.
She stands behind a COVID-19 patient lying supine on an operating table. A vitals monitor shows the man’s heart is pounding and that he’s taking 47 breaths per minute — quadruple the normal rate. A nurse’s gloved hand reaches over him, clutching a syringe.
In the black-and-white photograph, the doctor’s eyes are wide.
The person who captured the moment didn’t have to ask why.
Dr. Scott Kobner outside L.A. County-USC Medical Center in Boyle Heights. When the COVID-19 pandemic began last spring, devastating Kobner’s home state of New York before surging in California, he knew history was unfolding. (Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)