American pandemic: A preacher, a nurse and a firefighter take on the coronavirus

Teresa Cole, a 57-year-old awoke on oxygen Sunday, the morning after she was admitted with trouble breathing. She was one of four COVID-19 patients out of 13 inpatients at Jamestown Regional Medical Center, on Sunday, Nov. 22, 2020 in Jamestown, ND. (Francine Orr/Los Angeles Times/TNS)

It was still dark when the Rev. Albert Mann stepped outside his trailer home, looked to the sky and prayed for the dying to end.

He climbed into his white pickup — refuge from the Florida mosquitos — as he prepared for his sermon.

"Please, God," he said. "Let us get out of this pandemic."

Pastor Albert Mann of Gordon Chapel Community Church watches as his wife Valencia Mann takes the temperature of a church member on Sunday, Nov. 22, 2020 in Hawthorne, FL. (Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times/TNS)

Halfway across the country in North Dakota, Nikole Hoggarth rose before the sun and let out the dog, careful not to wake her husband or the six children who still lived at home. Her nurse's uniform was laid out in the bathroom.

She grabbed a chocolate shake for the road and set off for the 50-minute drive to the hospital. Country music helped clear her head.

Meanwhile in Houston, the nation's fourth-largest city, Fire Capt. Daniel Soto reported to Station 16 just outside downtown and pointed an electronic thermometer at his temple.

Houston Fire Capt. Daniel Soto, 35, second from left, supervises as firefighters treat a man struck by a driver while crossing a highway Sunday, Nov. 22, 2020. (Carolyn Cole/Los Angeles Times/TNS)

Ninety-nine — high enough to send him home under the department's coronavirus precautions.

He took his temperature again and passed.

So began Nov. 22, a Sunday, exactly 307 days since the first coronavirus case was diagnosed in the United States.

Houston Fire Capt. Daniel Soto, 35, slides down a poll at Station 16 in the Montrose neighborhood before answering a call. The station, located near Texas Medical Center, is one of the busiest in the city. (Carolyn Cole/Los Angeles Times/TNS)

The nation's death toll stood at 257,117 — more than drug overdoses, breast cancer, suicide and diabetes combined for any recent year. Only heart disease, the nation's leading cause of death, kills more people.

The first surge of infections came in late March and stretched into April. The virus spiked again in June and July.

Now a third surge was setting records for infections, with more than a million new cases reported each week.

Pastor Albert Mann of Gordon Chapel Community Church starts his Sunday mornings by praying and reading the Bible in his truck before heading to his church to get it setup for Sunday services on Sunday, Nov. 22, 2020 in Hawthorne, FL. (Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times/TNS)

Even with years of experience dealing with death, Mann, Hoggarth and Soto struggled to fathom the meaning of those statistics. Not that there was much time to think about the numbers while working on the front lines.

Nikole Hoggarth, RN, 47, right, gives a sucker to Evylan, age 5, and Cicely, age 2, as their father Ryan Koropatnicki, right, looks on inside the emergency department at Jamestown Regional Medical Center, on Sunday, Nov. 22, 2020 in Jamestown, ND. (Francine Orr/Los Angeles Times/TNS)

Houston Fire Capt. Daniel Soto, 35, left, firefighters Michael Bravenec, center, and Tom Wolcott, right, wear gowns to protect against Covid-19 as they perform CRP on an unidentified man hit while crossing a highway Sunday. Once they reached the hospital, the man was pronounced dead. (Carolyn Cole/Los Angeles Times/TNS)

Pastor Albert Mann and his wife Valencia Mann visits grave of Dorthy Jackson the mother of Valencia who recently died from complications of Covid on Sunday, Nov. 22, 2020 in Hawthorne, FL. The Gordon Chapel Community Church cemetery is where several church members who died from Covid are buried. (Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times/TNS)