“The First Wave:” Inside the Early Days of the Pandemic

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: And from a crisis facing our planet to the continuing health crisis facing the world, that is COVID-19. The Biden administration is looking to ramp up the production of vaccines as global cases rise. The World Health Organization says more than 3 million new cases were reported last week alone. And sometimes, just one story can illustrate the true horror. In focus tonight, Dr. Nathalie Douge, one of the subjects at the harrowing documentary, “The First Wave,” by Director Matthew Heineman. It takes viewers inside one of New York’s hardest hit hospitals. They both spoke to Hari Sreenivasan about this film.

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HARI SREENIVASAN: Matthew Heineman, director of “The First Wave,” and Dr. Nathalie Douge, thank you both for joining us. Matthew, you’re a guy who has literally gone to where the trouble is. You’ve made films out of Syria and out of Mexican drug cartels. And then, here you are on, really, in your backdoor, in the United States, in New York, you’re watching this pandemic. How did you get access to this hospital, to this place? And then, also, were you surprised by what you were seeing in there?

MATTHEW HEINEMAN, DIRECTOR, “THE FIRST WAVE”: Yes. So, you know, we reached out hospital systems all across the country and basically, got rejected from the hospital systems all across the country. But eventually got access to film along Jewish Hospital in our backyard in Queens. There’s many things that surprised me, having made films in different conflict zones around the world and you can sort of come home and somewhat turn off your brain, although these stories never really leave you. I think in making “The First Wave” and telling this story, you know, it was a — we were documenting the same thing we were living with. So, it was really one of the hardest films I’ve ever made. This was — it’s really, 24/7 full on experience for weeks and months, and it was terrifying. But I think what pushed us to keep telling the story was the incredible, you know, fortitude, love, humanity and care that we saw every single day. I didn’t go to bed at night sort of feeling depressed about the state of the world. I went to bed at night sort of buoyed and deeply optimistic about the power of the human spirit, because that’s what we witnessed every single day. And despite the death and the terror, I think that’s the overwhelming thing that we all went to bed with every single night.

SREENIVASAN: Let’s take a look at a clip in the film.

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DR. NATHALIE DOUGE, PHYSICIAN: All right. I’m back. I’m Dr. Douge. OK? So, I’m going to be in charge of your care while you’re here.

DOUGE (voiceover): Last week, there were, like, maybe one, two, three patients that we kind of heard about, like whispered about.

DOUGE (on camera): They’re telling me you’re not needing as much as much oxygen as you did before.

DOUGE (voiceover): Is this a COVID patient? Is this not a COVID patient?

DOUGE (on camera): The infection went into his bones.

DOUGE (voiceover): And now, I have a list where pretty much all of the patients have COVID-19. It’s such a crazy, scary feeling.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Guys, we’re going to (INAUDIBLE) pulse. Put some pressure. Pulse him.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Wait. Stop. I have a pulse. I have a pulse right here. Pulse, pulse, pulse, pulse.

DOUGE (voiceover): This is the problem, it’s new. That’s the worst thing. We are taught pattern recognition. And as of right now, there’s no clear pattern.

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SREENIVASAN: Dr. Douge, you were working at a hospital which is near the epicenter of what it was in New York and I kind of want to know a little bit about the patients that you’re working with that were coming through this and what kind of personal impact. I see in the film, I remember a moment where you say, you know, this could have been my mom.

DR. DOUGE: So, it’s amazing when people are faced with their mortality, how open, honest and vulnerable they are. When for — I remember distinctly, there were a multitude of patients who started telling me how much they loved their families. I just don’t want to lose them. I’ve worked all my life for X, Y, Z just to provide for my family. I can’t leave them like this. A lot of the patients were actually more concerned about the people outside of those hospital — at those walls. They kept talking about, oh, my gosh, I can’t leave so and so. I need to be strong for so and so. People don’t understand that no one wants to be a burden. No one wants to feel that helpless. Everyone prides themselves on being independent, able to do what they can. But in those hospital walls, when I talk to my patients, you can see that they felt like they had so much more life to give. They wanted to be that person for their mom, their siblings, their children, for them to go back to. So, I just heard so many regrets of this can’t be my time. There’s so many things I wanted to do. There’s so many things I have left to do in this life, and that’s the thing that people are not getting in terms of all the preventative measures is that when you don’t do something, it is a ripple effect. So, I just want to give honor to those who we’ve lost because they did put up a fight. They didn’t want to just succumb to COVID. But COVID is a beast that we still don’t know everything yet, but we do know that it has the potential to wreak havoc on people’s lives.

SREENIVASAN: Matthew, you chose to focus on a couple of patients. There was an incredibly compelling story of a nurse and a police officer. Tell us — for people who haven’t seen the film, tell us a little bit about them.

HEINEMAN: We’re not just following from the healthy workers. We’re following two patient stories. One, a COVID positive nurse who gave birth and then was intubated. And then, a New York city cop who was deeply sick as well. And we had no idea whether they were going to live or die. And I think one of the most difficult things of experiencing COVID as a patient and as a doctor, really, is how deeply isolating it was to be making life and death decisions through an iPad or an iPhone. And, you know, so, it was really important for us to capture these stories, to be able to go home with the family members who are struggling to just understand what was happening, to get pieces of information, to see their loved ones gasping for air or intubated and asleep through a phone. I mean, it’s just — it was like a sort of strange sci-fi movie that we were living in. And so, it was really important for us to show that aspect of the story as well.

SREENIVASAN: Doctor, you do have such — a strong spirit, but in this film, I don’t know if you see it the same way, but when we’re watching it, we see so many moments where that spirit is tested. But I wonder, now, when you look back at yourself, as Matthew captured you, what do you see?

DR. DOUGE: I see someone who’s really struggling, grappling with, what’s the purpose of life? You start questioning what is this suffering for? How do we live fully in this society that we have? And you really start wondering, do I have enough to keep going? I struggle with, do I still have that tenacity, the resilience to keep going through both before last year in terms of like just waking up to go to work knowing the suffering, the frustration, the uncertainty, do I have that skill set to be resourceful, adaptable, to be that nurturing person that we all desire, we crave, that sense of, I can relate to you no matter what our circumstances are? So, that spirit that I pride myself on to be able to see people for themselves, who they are despite everything, with all that’s going on and still working in health care, that spirit has been taking hits continuously. And the real thing that myself and a lot of my colleagues and other health care workers I had talked to were collectively trying to figure out how can we rejuvenate ourselves and find our essence again of why we’re still doing this.

SREENIVASAN: Matthew, we’ve spoken to different nurses, ICU nurses, travel nurses on this program over the past 20 months and I wonder if when you were making this film, did you think that, here we are 20 months later, that we would still be having almost the same things that you witnessed in New York playing out in other parts of America, in other ICU wards, whether it’s in Alaska or in Idaho, has stressed today after we have vaccines available to people?

HEINEMAN: Absolutely not. I mean, I think when we started filming, we naively thought it was going to be, you know, one or two weeks that we’d be in the hospital. We were filming sort of, you know, 16 or 18 hours a day. Obviously, it continued for much longer. We ended up filming for, you know, four or five months through the first wave, and of course, we’re still living with it today. And I think that’s one of the greatest tragedies, is that for people like Dr. Douge who are risking lives — who risked their lives during the first wave without any tools at their disposal, without any vaccine, without any medicines, to walk into a hospital now and have people dying, who are making a choice not to take a vaccine, you know, this is largely a disease of the unvaccinated right now in terms of those who are really getting sick and really dying. And, you know, it’s really, really, really sad to me how politicized COVID has become. You know, it didn’t have to be this way. It could have been something that brought our country together. And the fact that it became so politicized, the fact that truth and science became so politicized is incredibly, incredibly sad to me.

SREENIVASAN: The other part of the film that I want to discuss real quickly is, Dr. Douge, here we are in the middle of the pandemic watching you deal with these challenges. And here comes the George Floyd protests, here comes the sort of reckoning that the country starts to go through, and we see you on a completely different set of front line.

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DR. DOUGE: When we started chanting, I literally felt like my breath was stripped away. I also heard all the times my patients said, I can’t breathe.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Guys, we need some help in here now.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Wait, stop. I have a pulse. I have a pulse right here. Pulse.

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DR. DOUGE: I pride myself in respecting the essence of life, of living. I became a doctor to help people’s quality of life, to have a fulfilling life, both inside and outside of hospital walls and clinics. So, with the murder of George Floyd, I just felt like inside of these walls, I am doing everything I can, and people are asking from me to do all that I can to help preserve life. And then yet, the minute I walk outside these walls, I see like the blatant disrespect, the disregard for the life of black people. So, because it wasn’t just George Floyd. There was Breonna Taylor, there’s a list goes on and on and on. And at that time, and still, I just couldn’t be silent. Because silence does a lot too. So, I just felt whatever I could do to advocate for people’s life and their right to be able to live it, I had to take part in the protests.

SREENIVASAN: And, Matthew, why was it important for you to put that aspect of this in the film?

HEINEMAN: With the killing of George Floyd and this national reckoning over race and this epidemic of racism in our country, which, obviously, is integrally tied to this disproportionate impact of people of color with this disease, you know, it wasn’t a question of sort of, if we were going to include it in the film, sort of how, and it all came out naturally in following Dr. Douge.

SREENIVASAN: And finally, a question to both of you. Why do you want people to see this film? I mean, it is some of our darkest moments in American history, both of these story lines. What was happening inside in the hospital and out on the streets? Dr. Douge, let me start with you.

DR. DOUGE: I want people to see it first because, for so long, I think the star of the pandemic has been the COVID-19 virus. It has been the politicians. It has been the statistics. It has been all of these entities that people can’t relate to, but it’s the people. It is the person. It’s the names that force us to call into action. When you are able to relate to something and apply it to your life, it then gives you a sense of urgency to like, OK. I can’t be complacent anymore. So, this film reiterates our human essence that collectively, when we work together, we can accomplish so much because we were able to, we survived the first wave, the second wave. But the goal is to not have any more waves. But all of us have a part that we play. And this film is not just about the trauma we endured, but it’s about the happiness that we experienced, it’s about the joy when we see people we connected with their loved ones after going through it. It’s about the support we can find in people we didn’t know ever, like to see that we can relate to so many people that don’t necessarily look like us, but we can feel their struggles, their joys, their triumphs. So, I want people to see this film, to see themselves or possibly their loved ones and know that we can do more, we can be better than what we are right now.

SREENIVASAN: Matthew?

HEINEMAN: I hope that the film provides a vehicle through which we can all reflect on what we’ve been through, take stock of where we are now, and learn from and hopefully, do better as we move forward. And so, yes, it’s been the greatest privilege of my career to be able to tell this story, to be able to follow people like Dr. Douge. And I just — I really hope that people watch this film and engage with this film and it creates a dialogue in this country. So, thank you so much for having us on.

SREENIVASAN: Matthew Heineman, director and writer of “The First Wave,” and Dr. Nathalie Douge, thank you both.

DR. DOUGE: Thank you.

HEINEMAN: Thank you.