An ER nurse told us she was exposed to the coronavirus and has symptoms but still can't get tested,

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

It highlights both America's crippling inequality and its broken healthcare system

On Monday, March 16, an emergency room nurse in the Los Angeles area developed symptoms of what she thought to be a sinus infection. She went to her shift the next day and learned from other nurses that a patient of hers had contracted the novel coronavirus.

The coronavirus, which causes the disease COVID-19, first spread from China beginning in late December and has infected over 250,000 people in at least 163 countries as of March 20. In the US, at least 213 people have died from the coronavirus.

The nurse immediately called the hospital's employee coronavirus hotline asking for a test - but her hospital denied her one, claiming she did not fit the requirement of employees eligible to get testing.

In conversations with more than a dozen nurses across the country, Business Insider has learned that hospitals haven't provided the nurses who are treating actual coronavirus patients with enough tests - even if they feel symptomatic or came into contact with COVID-19 patients.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/health-news/an-er-nurse-told-us-she-was-exposed-to-the-coronavirus-and-has-symptoms-but-still-cant-get-tested-and-it-highlights-both-americas-crippling-inequality-and-its-broken-healthcare-system/ar-BB11txWj?li=BBnb7Kz

[JenniferJuniper]

1. My sister is an RN.

No mask. No testing. Sick nurses and patients all around her.

Never mind respirators at this point. We won't have medical personnel OR hospital beds in a few weeks.

[Hekate]

2. That is criminal

[emmaverybo]

3. Making them continue to work means that not only are they at more risk, but uninfected patients

are, who, released, bring it home to family and if working in an essential business spread into community. That or death since many are already high risk.

[SunSeeker]

4. Denying tests to symptomatic health workers amounts to manslaughter.

We need to know if she has Covid-19 or not NOW. If she doesn't have it, we need her at work desperately. If she does, she needs to be quarantined so that some vulnerable person she is treating--or her own family member--doesn't catch it and die of double pneumonia.