Last week a nurse claimed that she quit after being told she couldn’t wear her own mask in a Chicago hospital, and therefore she would have to work in the ICU without a mask:
In tears, a nurse says she quit her job after she was asked to work in a coronavirus ICU without a face mask: “America is not prepared, and nurses are not being protected” https://t.co/ywoSuLOPYP pic.twitter.com/S5BsnlO5nt
— CBS News (@CBSNews) April 5, 2020
There’s been a lot of claims made about this nurse and her story today, much of which I’ve been unable to verify. People were claiming her story was completely false, but offered no solid evidence as to why. One publication claimed the nurse had admitted that she hadn’t worked at the hospital in a year, but I couldn’t find any evidence of that either.
I felt like her story was dubious, but decided to wait until something more solid came out. Well now it has.
CBS News has finally done a little more digging and put out a clarification from this nurse, named Imaris Vera. Turns out her story was more complicated that she let on:
Imaris Vera, the nurse in this video, clarified her experience on Monday in a tweet: "We were each assigned 1 N95 per 1 covid patient’s room but was not allowed to wear it outside of the room, wear our own N95 mask around the Nurses station or Halls, which I came prepared with."
— CBS News (@CBSNews) April 6, 2020
Well that makes a lot more sense. If you wear a mask into a room with a covid patient, obviously the hospital won’t let you wear the mask outside of the room for fear it’s been contaminated. So her beef was that she wanted to wear her own mask in the hallways, but was denied. I’m guessing the hospital declined her request because of sanitary reasons, because they don’t know where that mask has been because it’s outside of their controlled environment.
So it turns out this is far more reasonable than this nurse led everyone to believe in her initial video, which CBS News put out and failed to check.
The same nurse released a somewhat nutty video expressing her concern about coronavirus a few weeks ago:
— Søren Flammen Wolff (@sorenwolff) April 5, 2020
That, along with the fact that she’s admitted that she’s dealt with bi-polar depression and anxiety, then I understand now why she quit.
Below are some responses to this ‘clarification’:
Think maybe this should have happened before you guys blasted her all over the internet? What you do think? https://t.co/ZIYtPkeMVP
— Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) April 6, 2020
What did I tell you all yesterday? Fake News godfathers who brought us Rathergate blow it again. Normal people with functioning olfactory nerves smelled this one from a mile away. #CrisisTheaterDistancing https://t.co/WVK37CMR9Z
— Michelle Malkin (@michellemalkin) April 6, 2020
This is Standard practice and it's for the safety of everyone. You don't wear contaminated masks in hallways.
The journalist who decided to run with this story should be looking for a new job. https://t.co/C8cClkVvd3
— Mandy ☕🦋🇺🇸 (@SpringSteps) April 6, 2020
Is the Mainstream Media verifying any of this stuff before posting? Perhaps @brianstelter could address this? https://t.co/WtXIZAL9nU
— toddstarnes (@toddstarnes) April 6, 2020