Dear Editor,In response to the article “The Lived Experience of COVID-19” by Roberts et al, published in the July-August 2021 issue of The Journal for Nurse Practitioners, the authors studied the experiences of individuals living with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) infection. Two major themes of COVID-19 experiences emerged as data was collected from study participants by telephone interviews. The two themes were physical and psychologic experiences, whereas psychologic experiences were driven by physical experiences.Understandably, anxiety was one common psychologic experience reported by study participants including those who were health care providers. As a nurse practitioner (NP), while reading this article my attention shifted to the health and well-being of NPs providing care during this COVID-19 pandemic and the potential damaging impact on the nursing workforce. Nursing is the largest profession providing health care and there are over 4 million nurses in the United States. However, nurses were experiencing fatigue, stress, and burnout prior to the pandemic; therefore, it is concerning that symptoms may be exponentially higher since the pandemic onset. A recent survey conducted by the American Nurses Foundation to understand the well-being and mental health impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on nurses found 25% of NPs have sought mental health care since March 2020.There is a nursing shortage caused by many factors and it is likely to worsen as a result of the pandemic. The American Nurses Foundation survey of 22,000 nurses found 28% want to leave nursing. Although only a small percent (2%) of the 934 NP’s surveyed intend to leave the nursing profession within the next six months and 9% are undecided, more than half report the reason for leaving is because their health/well-being is negatively affected by work, and they plan to retire.Aside from the large number of registered nurses planning to leave the profession, approximately one million are older than 50 years; therefore, they will reach retirement age in approximately 10 to 15 years. Nursing education constraints is another contributing factor of the shortage. The American Association of Colleges of Nurses reports nursing program enrollment is limited by a nursing school faculty shortage and additionally high nurse turnover rates exist.Although nurses are being portrayed as heroes caring for ill patients during this COVID-19 pandemic, frontline nurses report feeling unprotected and discredited. Burnout that often results from staffing shortages and job stress, will further drive the nursing shortage. With limited strategies implemented to promote well-being and retention of working nurses, many nurses will transition to different career paths. As this occurs, we can anticipate the health of all populations to be adversely affected. Not only will there be less nurses available to provide care, but there will be a larger volume of aging patients with complex health conditions requiring more care than seen in previous years.Changes are needed to turn lessons learned during these challenging health crisis years into solutions for increasing the number and retention of nurses including advanced practice nurses. Communicating the full extent of the healthcare problem across political, executive, and medical domains may drive change. Collaborative efforts are needed to promote well-being of the currently employed nurses, mitigate burnout, and increase the future nursing workforce. Staffing with a safe nurse-patient ratio in healthcare facilities, appropriate funding and faculty support for nurse education, and increasing nursing recruitment efforts are a few strategies that may generate solutions. However, the first step toward achieving these solutions is to make legislative changes. All healthcare professionals are encouraged to take a stand; start discussions with legislators advocating for nurses.