Nurse dies alone from coronavirus after being 'refused test twice'
A nurse has died from coronavirus after reportedly being denied testing twice.
Lisa Ewald, 54, from the US state of Michigan, began showing coronavirus symptoms at the end of March, Fox 2 reports.
Ms Ewald lost her sense of taste and smell and had a high fever. She was also high risk due to being asthmatic.
Her niece Carly Ewald told the station the 54-year-old had been front and centre at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit helping people fight COVID-19 since mid-March.
The nurse had told friends she had tried to get tested twice and only managed to obtain an assessment on her third attempt where she returned a positive test.
On March 31, Ms Ewald was found dead alone in her home. Coronavirus was determined to be her cause of death.
"She cared so much more about other people than she did herself," Carly told Fox 2.
"And that's kind of what upsets me."
Her friend Juleen Miller told The Detroit Free Press “the worst part is that you can’t even really honour her with a funeral because of this stupid thing”.
Henry Ford Hospital said it’s adhered to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s guidelines for testing employees for COVID-19.
More than 600 employees of the Henry Ford Health System, which includes the hospital Ms Ewald worked at, have tested positive for coronavirus since tracking began, The Detroit News reported.
According to Johns Hopkins University, the US currently has more than 360,000 cases of coronavirus and more than 10,600 deaths.
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