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CBS News Issues Clarification On Viral Nurse’s Sob Story

Screenshot Twitter CBS News

Shelby Talcott Senior White House Correspondent
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CBS News clarified a viral video it tweeted about allegedly dangerous conditions for hospital workers amid coronavirus after the nurse’s story quickly fell apart.

The nurse, who goes by the name Imaris on social media, claimed that she was forced to quit her job after being asked to work in a novel coronavirus unit without a face mask. The video showed a woman in tears who said that America and “nurses are not being protected.”

The video went viral, with CBS News being one of the publications to push the story. Even the Daily Caller, going off initial reports, produced its own video. The video has since been stripped off Facebook and YouTube.

“In tears, a nurse says she quit her job after she was asked to work in a coronavirus ICU without a face mask,” CBS News’s original tweet on April 5 claimed.

The network clarified Imaris’s story April 6 after it was discovered that the nurse had changed her story in a tweet to Independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who also shared the video. CBS News did not delete the original video or issue a retraction.

CBS News’s clarification came after the Daily Caller’s Monday report on the nurse’s viral video. The network did not respond to a request for comment, but issued a clarification later Monday after the Daily Caller’s inquiry.

“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,” Imaris admitted. This was different than her original story, which claimed that nurse’s were not being protected.

Imaris quit her job on her very first day back, it was also discovered. The nurse admitted that she suffers from “anxiety and bi-polar depression.” Imaris noted that she was “feeling a heavy toll with transitioning back into the ICU after being away from the bedside for over a year,” according to a post shared by Schachtel. That post was written before her first day back on the job.

The nurse did not respond to a request for comment Monday from the Daily Caller. (RELATED: CBS News Says ‘Editing Mistake’ Led To Misleading Video Showing An Italian Hospital During Segment On New York’s Coronavirus Crisis)