CNN Reporter Sara Sidner Breaks Down Crying in Emotional Report About Covid Funerals in Hospital Parking Lots
CNN’s Sara Sidner broke down on air after a chilling and heartbreaking report from Los Angeles about the havoc the Covid-19 pandemic is wreaking in that city.
Kicking off her coverage on CNN’s New Day, Sidner noted the “unconscionable” fact that one person is dying every eight minutes in the nation’s second-largest city, and that Black and Latino communities are getting hit the hardest.
“They are taking the brunt of this, and many of those people are the people we rely on to live our daily lives,” Sidner pointed out. “The people at the grocery stores. The people who have to work, to make the country move and they are suffering the most. It’s incredibly difficult to see that because there are folks that won’t wear masks, they won’t self-distance, that we are literally killing each other.”
Sidner’s package then looked at a number of families who’ve had loved ones die from the coronavirus and a grim new hallmark of the pandemic: hospital parking lot funerals.
Her taped report closed with a plea from Juliana Jimenez Sesma, who has lost her mother and stepfather to the coronavirus.
“Don’t let this be you,” Sesma urged. “If you truly love your loved ones, don’t let this be you. Continue to take all the precautions. Take extra precautions. Exaggerate if you have to.”
When Sidner appeared back on screen, she began to bookend her report but only got in a few words before becoming overwhelmed with grief.
“This is the tenth hospital that I have been…” Sidner said to host Alisyn Camerota, before breaking down and starting to cry. “I’m sorry. This is the tenth…”
After another long pause, she tried again.
“I apologize. I’m going to try to get through this,” Sidner continued still sobbing through her words. “This is the tenth hospital that I have been in, and to see the way that these families have to live after this and the heartache that goes so far and so wide… it’s really hard to take. I’m sorry, Alisyn.”
Camerota, who was soon misty-eyed herself, complimented Sidner for soldiering thought the heart-wrenching stories she has covered and the “collective trauma that all of us are living through.”
Then, in a final moment of raw emotion, Sidner spoke out, human to human, to those who still refuse to wear a mask or socially distance.
“It’s just not okay. It’s not okay what we’re doing to each other,” she emphasized. “These families should not be going through this. No family should be going through this. So, please, listen to what this family is saying. Don’t let this be you. Do whatever you can to keep this from killing your family members and your neighbors and your friends and your teachers and doctors and firefighters. All of these people are here to help you. But you have to do your part.”
Watch the video above, via CNN.
