The 59-year-old comedian is detailing her experience in the emergency coronavirus ward.
Kathy Griffin is opening up about her experiences in the COVID-19 emergency ward from earlier this month. The 59-year-old comedian spoke with the Los Angeles Times after returning home from her scary stay.
Griffin went to the hospital on the recommendation of her doctor after she had suffered from what felt like was a stomach bug for almost a week after returning from a trip to Mexico.
“We’d been hearing about a 14-day incubation period [for the coronavirus]," Griffin tells the Times. "So for me to get what felt like food poisoning after six days, I thought, 'OK, is this a coincidence or what?'”
Her husband, Randy Bick, notes that Griffin's symptoms included "incredibly intense pain, vomiting, diarrhea, every 20 minutes."
“The vomiting felt like a convulsion,” Griffin adds.
Though Griffin praises the "heroes" who helped treat her, she says that the hospital set-up was not ideal.
“Frankly, when they said the corona ward, I thought I would be walking into the white suits with blue-taped ceilings, everything,” she says. “I kind of expected them to put me in a shower room and all that — but as recently as [Tuesday], there’s no cavalry that’s coming in handing out millions of [test] swabs.”
In fact, Griffin did not qualify to receive a coronavirus test, despite noting that her doctors felt she should take one.
“The doctor was going through the boxes and going through the boxes [on a form] and she kept saying, like, ‘Ugh, because of the lungs, the fever and the kind of cough ... you don’t meet the CDC requirements,’” Griffin recalls.
She was given the option to be admitted to the hospital, where she might be more likely to get tested, but after consulting with a few health-care staffers decided she’d be better off self-isolating at home.
Griffin went on to slam President Donald Trump and the lack of resources and tests in the United States.
“I just think it’s so obvious that those tests have to be accessible to everybody,” Griffin says. “A lot of people, when they hear the president saying everyone who needs a test should get one, then shouldn’t have to then go to a hospital where, frankly, they may be exposing themselves or exposing others."
Griffin first slammed the administration earlier this week when she detailed her experience on social media. It came after Trump claimed that the United States is testing more than any other nation.
"He’s lying," Griffin captioned her post, which shows her lying in a hospital bed with a protective face mask, alongside a screenshot of Trump's tweet. "I was sent to the #COVID19 isolation ward room in a major hospital ER from a separate urgent care facility after showing UNBEARABLY PAINFUL symptoms. The hospital couldn’t test me for #coronavirus because of CDC (Pence task force) restrictions. #TESTTESTTEST."
Bachelor alum Colton Underwood was able to get tested and was diagnosed with having coronavirus. Here's his story:
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