39-Year-Old New Orleans Woman Dies While Awaiting COVID-19 Test Results

While awaiting results from a Coronavirus test, Natasha Ott, 39, was found dead on the floor of her kitchen by her partner Josh Anderson, who grew nervous after her texts became unresponsive. 

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According to NOLA.com, as noted Complex, Anderson says Ott began feeling ill on March 10th, and as a social worker for the HIV health center CrescentCare, she had access to testing kits but decided against testing as she was deemed “low-risk.”

“She wrote me the following on March 11th: ‘I tried to go to Ochsner [Medical Center] today to get a flu test and they told me it would be a week before I could see my PCP. I ended up getting [the flu test] at work. We only have 5 coronavirus tests at my clinic. I declined to take one so someone else could,'” Anderson wrote on Facebook.

Ott’s flu test returned negative, but her symptoms continued. She decided to take the COVID-19 test, but was told results would take five days to come in.

“On Friday March 19th she wrote: ‘Good morning! I love you.’ To my lasting shame, I replied: ‘Morning, sunshine. How you feeling?’ I very much wish I’d said ‘I love you’ back,” Anderson wrote. “She sent her last message to me at 8:36am in response: ‘A little better and hopeful. The herbs seems to be helping.’ At 6 6:54pm I texted, with no-reply. I called twice, with no-reply. I wrote: ‘I’m getting nervous. Just called twice. Text or call me soon. If I don’t hear from you within the hour I’m coming over there to check on you.'”

When Anderson arrived, it was too late. Ott was dead in her kitchen.

“For those of you not fortunate enough to have known her — know this: It’s an immeasurable loss,” he continued. “And seeing a woman I knew to be so full of life lying on the floor lifeless was devastating. I was afraid to touch her. I held her anyway. Her Coronavirus test results have still not come back.”