Scientists in Cambridge and throughout the country have been working around the clock to come up with a vaccine for the novel coronavirus.

For one local woman, she says that when she noticed the death rate in her own community keep rising, she had to do something about it.

Gina Plata-Nino, who is Latina, said she wanted to be part of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine trial so her community could feel safe.

The number of children and adolescents seen at the UMass Memorial Medical Center - University Campus for behavioral health needs, including intentional medication overdoses and other suicide attempts, tripled last month, leaving the hospital with a waiting list for beds to treat them.

Dr. Brian Skehan, director of Child Emergency Mental Health and Child Consult Liaison of Psychiatry at the hospital, said Thursday that he had never before seen a problem this severe throughout the state and he blames the pandemic.

In the midst of dealing with the start of a second coronavirus surge, some hospitals are also readying to respond to election turmoil.

Much about the election may remain uncertain in the coming days or weeks, as votes are tallied across the country. But hospitals are preparing for a potential increase in volume, whether from violence associated with potential protests or stressed-out residents.

A 'second surge': UMass Memorial CEO says hospitalizations are rising.

There is a sense of calm inside the Marlborough Hospital Intensive Care Unit. Two rooms are open; only one patient is on a ventilator; and the nurses and staff chat in a relaxed manner.

Dr. Kim Robinson, a pulmonologist and head of the Critical Care Team at Marlborough says it was a very different scene during the spring coronavirus surge.

“We would get calls – this patient’s oxygen level is low; this patient is setting off alarms on the ventilator – and you needed to run into every room to check on these patients,” Robinson said.

On Tuesday, Governor Charlie Baker assessed the state’s response to the COVID-19 crisis, saying we have learned so much since the spring surge.

“We’re going to be living with Covid until there is a vaccine or treatment,” Baker said Tuesday afternoon during a news conference. “But the Commonwealth’s response to this pandemic has been transformational since last spring in nearly every aspect of our daily lives.”

In a year unlike any other, the leaders of Greater Boston's business community are meeting the challenges of 2020 head on.

Healthcare systems across the Commonwealth are readying their COVID-19 surge plans ahead of an anticipated second wave of the virus. Experts predict COVID-19 could once again overwhelm the state next month.

But staying ahead of a virus that is known to mutate won’t be easy for hospitals, as they must be prepared for whatever comes their way.

“This is the calm before the second storm. But nobody knows just which way this is going to go and where it’s going to end up,” said Dr. Eric Dickson, president and CEO of UMass Memorial Health Care.

When COVID-19 was surging in Massachusetts in the spring, many hospitals came dangerously close to running out of essential personal protective equipment, or PPE.

There was a global competition for N95 masks, surgical gowns and gloves, and these lifesaving items were in short supply.

But out of the those tense moments came valuable lessons on how to prepare for highly infectious diseases. Now, as a fall surge looms over the Commonwealth, hospitals are applying those lessons.