Hi, I'm Danfermac, and welcome to Axios Recap, brought to you by Comcast.

Today is Thursday, March 11th.

And we're looking back at this same week last year, the week that America changed.

This is our COVID-19 decision-maker series.

Conversations about some of the most consequential decisions made this week last year.

Today we speak with Dr. Stephen Corwin, CEO of New York Presbyterian Hospital, about how

his system had to pivot for the pandemic.

On March 1st, New York Presbyterian checked in its

first COVID patient, a lawyer from the northern suburb of New Rochelle, where a cluster of

cases had prompted a response from the National Guard. Dr. Corwin joins us to discuss the

decisions he made that week, in staffing, in canceling elective surgeries, in distributing PPE,

all the while he was watching Italy, deeply concerned about where the U.S. was headed.

That conversation in 15 seconds.

We're joined now by Dr. Stephen Corwin. So Dr. Corwin, when did you first realize COVID was spreading

in the community and had reached New York City? On March 1st, we admitted to our Lawrence Hospital

facility in Bronxville, a very sick patient, a 52-year-old lawyer from New Rochelle. And he had been in

a hospital for a couple of days before then. He had not met the criteria for testing for

COVID. He had no travel history. And recall at the time, the testing was very limited.

The testing was being done by the CDC, but there were suspicions

given the appearance of his x-ray that he had COVID, and indeed he had COVID, and was transferred

to our Columbia facility to be put in the ICU and put on a ventilator. At that point, we recognized

there was community spread. And that was a sort of

...