'They Said in Some Ways COVID-19 Is Worse Than The War In Iraq': Showtime's VICE Correspondent Gianna Toboni On Healthcare Workers Battling COVID-19

(CBS Local)-- On Sunday, May 10, VICE on Showtime will give viewers inside access to what a hospital battling COVID-19 looks like.

Correspondent and producer Gianna Toboni talks with healthcare workers and their families as they battle this unprecedented global pandemic in the country's epicenter of New York and New Jersey. While Toboni has been all over the world to cover stories, this one stands in a category all by itself.

"I was talking to my brother and sister-in-law, who are both doctors in St. Louis, Missouri, and I felt like there wasn't enough of a deep dive on healthcare workers," said Toboni in an interview with CBS Local's DJ Sixsmith. "We had seen some soundbites here and there from frontline doctors and nurses, but I really wanted to understand what these folks were dealing with in their personal lives and professional lives."

Like Toboni, the healthcare workers interviewed in this piece have spent time in war zone. The VICE correspondent says the doctors interviewed in her story agreed that the situation around COVID-19 is just as bad, if not worse than the war zones they'd seen in Iraq.

"When I asked about the comparison to war, I asked if that was appropriate. They both to my surprise thought that COVID-19 was in some ways worse than the war in Iraq," said Toboni. "They said that they were dealing with it in a very localized way. They saw horrific stuff like friends being killed in front of them. With COVID-19, this is a global problem. They said we can't wrap our heads around what we're dealing with right now."

Watch Toboni's story and all of VICE on Showtime this Sunday, May 10 at 8pm EST/PST. Watch all of DJ Sixsmith's interviews from "The Sit-Down" series here.