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Coronavirus cases among health workers climb, underscoring the chaos on an outbreak’s front lines

Health workers responding to an outbreak like #coronavirus face long hours, changing protocols, potential medical supply shortages, and risks to their own personal health.
A worker in protective gear stacks plastic buckets containing medical waste from coronavirus patients at a medical center in Daegu, South Korea on Monday.

Thousands of health care workers, largely in China, have been infected amid the ongoing coronavirus outbreak, a sign of the immensely difficult working conditions for medical staffers, who should be among those best protected against infection.

The infections, along with the deaths of several doctors in China, underscore the deeply challenging, chaotic environment that health care workers confront when toiling on the front lines of a major outbreak. They face long hours, changing protocols, potential medical supply shortages, and risks to their own personal health and that of their loved ones.

“You are expected to be there and stay there and take care of those

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