The Atlantic reported:

On Christmas Eve of 2020, my father was admitted to the hospital with sudden weakness. My mother was not allowed to join him. She pleaded with the staff — my dad needed help making medical decisions, she said — but there were no exceptions at that grisly stage of the coronavirus pandemic.

I contemplated making the trip from Maryland to New Jersey to see whether I, as a doctor, could garner special treatment until I realized that state and employer travel rules would mean waiting for a COVID-19 test result and possibly facing quarantine on my return. In the end, my father spent his time in the hospital alone, suffering the double harm of illness and isolation.

These events still frustrate me years later; I hav