The Biggest Worry for Doctors Fighting the Pandemic

One family. Six doctors.

Yvonne Yui is waiting for the results of a coronavirus test after potentially being exposed at the East Coast hospital where she practices neonatal medicine. Her cousin Pamela Lin, a physician at a family practice in Baltimore, has been coughing for three days as she awaits her own test results.

Lin’s husband is an infectious-disease expert managing the coronavirus response at a Baltimore hospital, fretting about shortages in protective gear and supplies. Within this tight-knit extended family is also an emergency-room doctor dealing with an uptick in patients with symptoms associated with the coronavirus, a doctor in Philadelphia who treats immunocompromised patients who are especially vulnerable to the virus, and a retired doctor who may well be called in to care for the sick as cases rise exponentially.

Yui had always counted herself lucky to be among a family