It may feel like a scary time to go to the hospital, but — even during the COVID-19 pandemic — the safest place to be during a medical emergency is in an emergency room.

"I think people's big fear is that they'll walk into a very crowded emergency department waiting room, with people coughing, sneezing, showing signs of COVID-19 and not have appropriate social distancing — and that is absolutely not the case," says Dr. J. Finkelstein, medical director of Houston Methodist's emergency departments.

In the video above, Dr. Finkelstein explains what it looks like in our emergency rooms right now and the extra precautions we're taking to keep you safe from COVID-19.