MOUNT VERNON – A year later, Tracy McCook still remembers when New York emerged as the global epicenter for the deadly coronavirus pandemic.
At the time, government officials desperately searched for hospital beds and ventilators as the uptick in cases led to overcrowding of medical facilities. To help fill the demand, spaces such as the Westchester County Center, and even the Javits Center in New York City, were transformed into makeshift hospitals.
But amid the upheaval to find hospital beds, McCook and other nurses at Montefiore Mount Vernon Hospital in Westchester County wondered why there were unused beds at the facility.