Members of the Paris Transport Authority are reporting difficulties minimizing contact between people as they use the subway in Paris, France on September 15. | Julien Mattia/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

“My worry is that it’s a long winter.”

VIENNA — “I have never seen an emergency room so crowded with very, very sick patients,” recalls Annalisa Malara, a doctor at Codogno Hospital in Lombardy, Italy. “We were literally overwhelmed by the number.”

That was late February, when Malara diagnosed Italy’s first case of locally transmitted Covid-19. An emotionally wrenching marathon of hospital shifts followed. Malara felt like she was constantly scrambling — to get enough oxygen to keep patients alive, to arrange patient transfers to other hospitals, to try and sleep so she could keep going. “We had to watch patients die,” she said. “It’s something that I think I can’t