CBS News on Monday issued a clarification after promoting a story about a nurse who claimed she was asked not to wear a face mask while working in a coronavirus response unit.
Imaras Vera earlier this week posted a video of herself in tears on social media, announcing she had quit her job as an intensive care unit nurse because her and her fellow nurses were not provided masks and were not permitted to wear masks they brought to work themselves. CBS promoted Vera’s video in a tweet that had garnered nearly 55,000 likes and 25,000 retweets as of Tuesday afternoon.
However, after Senator Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) retweeted CBS’s story about her, Vera posted her reply to Sanders acknowledging she had indeed received a mask.
“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 posted on Twitter on Tuesday. “The hospital, Northwestern Medicine, acknowledged that Imaris Vera had quit her job, but referred CBS News to Vera as to the details of why.”
CBS’s clarifying tweet had received less than 1,000 likes as of Tuesday afternoon.
Vera has not publicly commented on the incident.
“I am currently looking for other COVID Nursing jobs where I know I’ll feel SAFE & not be told I can’t wear my own mask/PPE,” Vera posted on Facebook on April 1. Vera wrote on March 26 that she “suffer[s] with anxiety and bi-polar depression and was feeling a heavy toll with transitioning back into the ICU after being away from the bedside for over a year,” indicating she hadn’t worked as a nurse for one year and quit her new job almost immediately.