Dr. Sampson Davis, an Emergency Room Physician, joins Yahoo Finance’s Alexis Christoforous and Brian Sozzi to discuss what hospitals looks like amid the coronavirus outbreak.

Video Transcript

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: I want to welcome back to the show Dr. Sampson Davis. He is an emergency-room physician. He's currently at East Orange General in East Orange, New Jersey. Also the author of "Living and Dying in Brick City." Doctor, good to see you again.

We've sort of been seeing you throughout as this pandemic gets worse and worse, especially where you are there in New Jersey. Just tell us right now what's happening in that emergency room? Are you getting more and more cases and more and more positive COVID-19 cases?

SAMPSON DAVIS: Absolutely. We're getting-- the great majority of the patients that I see today, yesterday, the day before are all COVID-19 patients. If I see 30 patients per shift, 25 have COVID.

But keep in mind, we're at the point now if you have minor symptoms, we're not testing you any longer. I can tell by your symptomatology, the fever, the cough, the body aches that you have coronavirus. And so we're sending-- we're sending patients home with symptomatic treatment. Those who need to be treated and who need to be hospitalized, we are keeping them in the hospital. We're putting them on high-flow oxygen. We're giving them fluids plus or minus other medications.

But right now, I am seeing such a surge. A week ago, I had zero patients. Today I'm seeing probably about 200 to 300 patients within a week with coronavirus.

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: Doctor, when should-- there's a lot of confusion around when should you go to the doctor or to the emergency room? Because if you go, you may actually be exposing yourself to more damage. So if someone is running a fever, they have a cough, should they go into the emergency room or see their doctor?

SAMPSON DAVIS: So it's a judgment call, but the truth of the matter is exactly to your point. If you have minor cough, some body aches, fever, headache, you're not feeling your normal self but your feel within reason you're breathing OK, then stay home. That's the safest place for you and for us, the health-care workers.

But if you feel like you're short of breath, you can't breathe, you're winded-- you may-- you might feel like you may pass out. You're having chest pain. Then go to the emergency department. Call 911. Use your resources. You can always call your private physician, and there's hotlines from each state that you can call to discuss your symptoms to decide if you should go to the emergency department.

But if you have minor symptoms, let's keep in mind, not only are you exposing other people but you're exposing yourself. Rest, fluids, sanitize your area, quarantine yourself, these are all steps that we should take.

And I understand there's a lot of panic right now, rightfully so. But at the same point, you want to make sure you do what's best for yourself and for your community and your loved ones.

BRIAN SOZZI: Dr. Davis, are you getting the amount of masks you need inside the hospital? I think there is a next level of uproar regarding 3M right now.

SAMPSON DAVIS: Yeah, there is. There is. I mean, and this is all kind of sort of city and state dependent. Right now, I'm very diligent in finding masks. I refuse personally to go inside the emerging department without a mask, and I think we're ramping it up. But we are short on supplies. We're short on staff.

A lot of my patients, especially at my hospital, we lost six nurses. One of our physicians, God bless his soul, passed away two days ago from coronavirus-- amazing human being. And so we're seeing a situation where now we have this dichotomy where there's a surge in the patients and it's a decrease in staff.

And to your point, there's a shortage of supplies that we have to ramp up. This marathon that we're running right here is that we're so far behind the virus that we're trying to catch up at a pace that at least we could be in a position to conquer and defeat the situation, which we will-- which we will.