A doctor at the Brooklyn VA Medical Center tested positive for the coronavirus, according to officials and an internal memo.<\/p>\n
The March 11 memo obtained by media says the VA employee\u00a0contracted the virus through community spread, is quarantined at home and doing well. The worker lives in Manhattan.<\/p>\n
\u201cThose who interacted with the employee are being contacted and the risk of infection is being assessed,\u201d the memo says.<\/p>\n
A VA spokesman Friday confirmed that \u201can employee tested presumptive positive for COVID-19\u201d on March 11.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn accordance with CDC guidelines and the patient\u2019s clinical status, the employee is currently in home isolation, mitigating further risk of transmission to other patients and staff,\u201d said the spokesman, Steve Piork. \u201cThe facility is currently awaiting confirmatory results from the Centers for Disease Control.\u201d<\/p>\n
James Fitzgerald, director of NYC Veterans Alliance, said the employee is a doctor who treated patients at the Fort Hamilton, Brooklyn, facility on Monday and Tuesday after coming into contact with someone who infected by coronavirus at religious services last weekend.<\/p>\n
A VA staffer confirmed that the infected doctor treated patients earlier this week.<\/p>\n
Fitzgerald is concerned that the\u00a0potentially deadly virus\u00a0may have spread to his members.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen it comes to the veterans\u2019 community we have to take into account that this is a vulnerable population for many health considerations, including respiratory disease associated with Agent Orange,\u201d Fitzgerald said.<\/p>\n
Vets visiting the hospital Friday were also worried.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt scares the sh-t out of me,\u201d said 72-year-old veteran Ed Cavaliere.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe might pass it to somebody else, and somebody else might pass it to somebody, and it might end up with me, and I don\u2019t want to bring it home to my family,\u201d Cavaliere said.<\/p>\n
But others were blas\u00e9.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter to me that somebody has it. Everybody is going to have it,\u201d said Joseph David, 57, an advocate for homeless veterans.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not like we\u2019re going to have zombies walking on the street. Most of these veterans have seen worse,\u201d David said.<\/p>\n
Allan Hyatt, 72, said the situation is \u201ca little disconcerting\u201d but \u201cnot shocking.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat are the odds of it not happening?\u201d he wondered.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A doctor at the Brooklyn VA Medical Center tested positive for the coronavirus, according to officials and an internal memo. The March 11 memo obtained by media says the VA employee\u00a0contracted the virus through community spread, is quarantined at home and doing well. The worker lives in Manhattan. \u201cThose who interacted with the employee are […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":13562,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1469,31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13561","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-new-york","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13561","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13561"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13561\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13563,"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13561\/revisions\/13563"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13562"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}