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Nurses in LA County are speaking out against the new guidelines.

Tuesday, nurses and representatives with the SEIU 721 union gathered outside the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors meeting in downtown to L.A. to speak out.

Hospitals are pushed to the brink and states battle to keep schools open, staffed.

Markeitha Harris, an LA County Public Health Nurse, joins Juan Fernandez and Jasmine Viel to discuss concerns many healthcare workers have over policies that would put COVID positive workers back into the workforce without isolation periods.

“Son guías muy peligrosas y también contradictorias a la ciencia, y a lo que sabemos que si va funcionar”, dijo Ileana Meza, enfermera de oncología del hospital LAC+USC.

Nurses participating in Tuesday’s protest said the new guidance puts patients and workers at risk.

“The way that you drive this pandemic down is by staffing up properly: stop the county’s overreliance on registries, on traveling nurse registries, on contracting out,” nurse practitioner Ileana Meza told reporters.

The head of the union that represents nurses in the county called the new guidelines — which allow Covid-positive health care workers to skip quarantine if asymptomatic — “outrageous and dangerous.”

“Our patients have a right to know that their caregivers may be COVID positive,” said Kelly Zhou, a nurse anesthesiologist who has worked at Los Angeles County + USC Medical Center for 25 years. “We care for a population that is extremely vulnerable to mutiple medical conditions.”

“You should be concerned.” Putting a N95 mask isn’t going to stop the spread completely, nurses say.