In an episode airing Tuesday night at 11 p.m. ET, “Vice News Tonight” goes inside an Italian hospital, showing the extent of the coronavirus crisis in one of the hardest-hit areas in the world.
“The Italians on the ground who we’ve been in contact with over the last few weeks have been really eager for us to be there. What they’re experiencing is unprecedented, and they really wanted the world to understand their experiences — and to see the humanity of what is unfolding,” correspondent Isobel Yeung told TheWrap.
That humanity is shown in the clip above, exclusively on TheWrap. Yeung, clad head-to-toe in protective gear, walks past the hospital beds of infected Italians in Papa Giovanni Hospital, narrating, “This guy here is having his blood taken out. He’s having it oxygenated here before it’s then pumped back into his veins… This guy over here is only in his 30s. He’s had a tracheotomy…”
Yeung also interviews Fabrizio Sala, the Vice President of Lombardy, about the current state of affairs in Italy.
The special, according to a release, seeks to show Americans what could happen here if the curve isn’t flattened, but it came with significant risks and challenges for the crew.
“The logistical issues were the biggest challenge though,” said Yeung. “Obviously, we can’t just go into scenarios and get close to people as we’d want to. Instead, we had a huge amount of safety precautions in place to ensure we were mitigating risk for ourselves as well as to anyone we might come in contact with. We have our own risk and security team at VICE who does extensive security assessments for every high-risk shoot. This was no exception. In this case, we had many thoughtful conversations about why we felt it was extremely important to pursue this story while balancing and minimizing any risk wherever and whenever possible. There just hasn’t been a lot of video from inside Italy’s epicenter and sometimes it can be hard to truly understand the horror and scope of something like this without being able to see it for yourself.”
Watch the exclusive clip above and the full “COVID-19: Italy’s Tragedy” Tuesday night at 11 p.m. ET on Vice TV.