A widow believed coronavirus killed her husband. It took weeks to learn the truth
LOS ANGELES — For Julie Murillo, the fight to get her husband tested for COVID-19 lasted twice as long as his battle with the illness itself.
Julio Ramirez fell sick March 8 after returning from a trip to Indiana for his job as a sales representative for a jewelry company. Fearing he’d been exposed to the coronavirus, the 43-year-old sought care, but doctors refused to test him on two separate occasions, instead giving him medication and telling him to rest at his San Gabriel home.
He died there March 16.
Nearly three weeks later, after a campaign by Murillo that included calling government agencies and hiring a private autopsy firm, a team from the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health visited the funeral home where Ramirez’s body was being kept. Test results confirmed what Murillo had suspected: Her husband had contracted the coronavirus.
As public health officials struggle to get an accurate picture of the coronavirus outbreak, much attention has been paid to how limitations on testing have caused the reported number of cases to be artificially low. But deaths can also slip through the cracks and escape official tallies — at least in the absence of a savvy loved one who becomes an advocate for the dead, like Murillo.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/a-widow-believed-coronavirus-killed-her-husband-it-took-weeks-to-learn-the-truth/ar-BB12JdyY?li=BBnb7Kz
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