Video: Tennessee nurse with coronavirus posts video from a hospital bed: ‘It hurts to breathe’

A nurse at a Tennessee care facility where more than 100 people have tested positive for coronavirus has posted a video from her hospital bed after catching the virus herself.

Shareka Williams of the Gallatin Center for Rehabilitation and Healing in Nashville says she wants to convince people that the virus is “not a joke,”.

“Excuse me, it hurts to breathe,” Williams says in the video. “I just want to tell you, don’t take this as a joke. This is not a joke. You can’t see your family, you can barely talk, trying to do everything you can to stay sane.”

Meanwhile, the recent outbreak at the nursing home in Tennessee has now resulted in four deaths, according to a report.

Officials at the Gallatin confirmed the fatality total Wednesday.

All told, more than 100 people linked to the facility have now tested positive for the virus – 74 of them residents and 33 staff members, The Tennessean of Nashville reported.

Mayor Anthony Holt of Sumner County, where the Gallatin Center is located, said he was worried that health care providers at the center could find themselves overwhelmed by the outbreak.

“I’m extremely concerned,” Holt told the Tennessean. “Our cases have gone up every day.”

As of Wednesday, Sumner County had a total of 201 cases of the virus, meaning the care center had accounted for about half.

Statewide, Tennessee has seen about 2,600 people test positive as of Wednesday, with 24 deaths, according to the Tennessean.

The state ordered the privately-owned Gallatin Center to be emptied Monday so it could be deep-cleaned beginning Tuesday, a spokesman for Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee told the newspaper.

Dozens of residents were evacuated Friday after testing positive for COVID-19, Lee said in a news release. National Guard troops arrived Saturday to begin testing all remaining residents and staff at the center.

Residents who tested positive were transported to one of several hospitals within the High Point Health System using an ambulance strike team of EMS professionals from Sumner, Cheatham, and Dickson counties, First Call, and MedicOne.

Dozens of other non-critical patients were transported to other facilities for care, officials said.