By last Tuesday, the death toll from coronavirus in New York had passed that of the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center.
The outbreak has placed New York at the centre of the global pandemic and put an unprecedented strain on the state's emergency workers and frontline healthcare staff.
Over the course of Tuesday, six of those people - two doctors, an undertaker, two senior care home staff and a food delivery worker - kept diaries of their days and shared them with the BBC.
Midnight, Tuesday 7 April
Kathleen Flanagan returns from a late shift at a nursing home. The TV is on in the living room, playing the sitcom That '70s Show. As has become the custom in her household she shouts "Hello" to let her family know that she is home and to make sure they avoid contact with her.
She heads downstairs into the laundry room, takes off her clothes and showers.
Everything she has worn at work must go into the washing machine before she sees her husband and children.
When she heads back up the stairs, she is greeted by a bouquet of sunflowers in the kitchen. A card from her eight-year-old son reads: "Keep kicking butt Mom!"
Two of her three sons are asleep on the couch waiting for her. She cooks eggs and spinach for dinner and shares details of her day with her husband - the good news is that coronavirus patients in one of the centres she oversees are starting to look better, but in another the situation is getting worse.
She opens her laptop to do some work and falls asleep somewhere between 01:00 and 02:00.
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