The latest COVID-19 case reports have added another 781,000 cases, and hospitalizations are up by 80%.
With so many people contracting the virus, it has made staffing difficult for all businesses. In some hospitals, it’s gotten so bad that nurses who still have active COVID-19 are being asked to care for patients.
TikTok videos show health workers posting videos claiming that they should report to work within five days of testing positive for COVID-19.
“Can you imagine me coming in, ‘Hey Mr. Smith, I’ll be your nurse tonight,’ and then coughing like this? [coughs],”One nurse said.
Mayra Castaneda shared with Inside Edition that she’s back at St. Francis Medical Center in Los Angeles, as an ultrasound tech.
“They said, ‘You can come back on the fifth day.’ And I was like, ‘But I’m not feeling well, how am I going to go back?’ [They said] ‘We’re short staffed, we have no one to cover,’” Castaneda said.
According to the hospital, “Workers who test positive and are symptomatic should remain quarantined and not report to work.”
Hospitals state they follow CDC guidelines. With so many employees being diagnosed with COVID-19, hospitals don’t know what to do and must get their doctors and nurses back on the job.
Dominic Canova works as an ER psychologist in New Jersey. He is also back at work, and still tests positive for COVID-19.
“There is fear. There is guilt. I do not want to be infecting anybody,”Canova stated.