A nurse employed at two New York City hospitals said she worked several shifts while sick with COVID-19, CNN reports.
The nurse, 44, spoke to CNN under the condition of anonymity because she fears she'd be fired otherwise.
On March 23, the nurse lost her sense of smell and then started to experience chest pain the next day. She wanted to get tested at one of the hospitals she worked at, but colleagues said they weren't testing staff. She went to an emergency room where a co-worker she knew well was working. Her colleague eventually agreed to test the nurse for COVID-19.
The nurse called in sick the next day, and wasn't scheduled to work for four more days. She returned to work March 30 and received her positive test results in the middle of her shift. She left to isolate herself at home.
The nurse, who works mainly with COVID-19 patients, thinks patient secretions contaminated her mask, which she wore all day. She worries she spread the infection to her co-workers and family.
The U.S. doesn't have enough tests to check all healthcare workers for COVID-19, Peter Pronovost, MD, PhD, chief clinical transformation officer at Cleveland-based University Hospitals, told CNN.
"The solution is to get more testing ability," he said. "That's the real way that we're going to avoid those kinds of situations in the future."