Some health care workers are posting videos on TikTok, saying they're being told they should come to work just five days after testing positive for COVID-19, even if they are still showing symptoms.
Another 781,000 new COVID-19 cases were reported in the last 24 hours, with hospitalizations up 80%.
And with so many people getting the virus, staffing for all businesses has become a challenge. In some hospitals, it’s gotten so bad that nurses who still have active COVID-19 are being asked to care for patients.
Some health care workers are posting videos on TikTok, claiming they're being told they should come to work just five days after testing positive for COVID-19, even if they are still showing symptoms.
“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 told Inside Edition she's back at work as an ultrasound tech at St. Francis Medical Center in Los Angeles.
“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.
The hospital said in a statement, “Workers who test positive and are symptomatic should remain quarantined and not report to work.”
Hospitals say they're simply following CDC guidelines, and with so many of their employees coming down with COVID-19, they don't have a choice and need their nurses and doctors back on the job as soon as possible.
Dominic Canova is an ER psychologist in New Jersey. He's also back at work and still testing positive for COVID-19.
“There is fear. There is guilt. I do not want to be infecting anybody,” Canova said.
