Lawyer who live-tweeted struggle to get coronavirus test in NYC is in critical condition

A high-profile lawyer and former federal prosecutor who tweeted about his struggle to get tested for coronavirus is now in intensive care at a New York hospital.

David Lat, the 44-year-old founder of the Above the Law blog was hospitalised on 18 March after attending ER for a second time with suspected coronavirus but could not be tested.

His husband, Zachary Baron Shemtob, told the New York Law Journal that Mr Lat had been put on a ventilator on Friday night and is “not doing great”. Doctors at the NYU Langone Hospital in Manhattan were “taking it hour by hour, day by day”.

“I just want people to know how serious this can be,” said Mr Shemtob. He told the Law Journal that Mr Lat’s exercised-induced asthma could be making it harder for his husband to manage the Covid-19 disease, which affects the respiratory system.

In a series of tweets from his hospital bed on Wednesday, Mr Lat began documenting his illness and described the difficulties he faced in getting tested for coronavirus at the beginning of March.

He said: “It shouldn’t have taken two separate ER visits, both times with severe respiratory symptoms, to get a #COVID19 test. But that was my experience”.

Mr Lat said he first began feeling unwell on 7 March before experiencing a series of chills three days later. Not long after, the lawyer recorded a fever in the 101F-104F range and admitted himself to hospital with trouble breathing on March 15.

After Mr Lat was refused a coronavirus test, he returned home before readmitting himself to hospital as his condition worsened. He said:”By Monday 3/16, I couldn’t breathe again. I rushed back to the ER – and this time they were on their game. They admitted me, gave me oxygen, put me in an isolation room – and FINALLY gave me the #coronavirus test.”

Mr Shemtob told the Law Journal that Mr Lat’s family have been prohibited from visiting him at the hospital, and cautioned people to “be vigilant and careful as possible”.