The Pandemic's Battleground

They've witnessed the worst of COVID-19 – day after day, week after week — while fighting to help grievously ill patients who otherwise wouldn't survive. The pandemic has forced critical care nurse Holly Vilione and caregivers at North Memorial Health Hospital to confront a grueling emotional landscape that's made all the worse when the virus hits home. Last August, after Vilione and her extended family made a trip to a cabin, she and several other members of her family began showing signs of the virus. The disease eventually killed her mother-in-law, leaving her and her family devastated and stunned by COVID-19's deadly reach.