Kathy Griffin Home With Abdominal Infection After ER Coronavirus Scare [UPDATE]

UPDATE: 7:18 p.m. ― Kathy Griffin told The Los Angeles Times on Thursday afternoon that she was now at home with a stomach infection after being hospitalized over concerns that she had COVID-19 symptoms.

Griffin said she recently returned from a Mexican vacation and experienced intense abdominal pain, vomiting, diarrhea and a cough. She said she was eventually directed to the emergency room at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles and placed in its coronavirus isolation ward.

An x-ray revealed her lungs were clear and a scan revealed she had an abdominal infection, Griffin said. A doctor still wanted to administer a test for COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, because some of her symptoms fit the illness, according to the comedian. But, she said, the doctor said she couldn’t because of guidelines issued by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Comedian Kathy Griffin said Wednesday she was in a hospital coronavirus isolation ward with “unbearably painful” COVID-19 symptoms.

The former “My Life on the D-List” reality show star shared a photo of her wearing a mask in a bed at what she said was “a major hospital ER.” She wrote that she was unable to be tested “because of CDC (Pence task force) restrictions.”

Citing a tweet from President Donald Trump that falsely claimed the U.S. had done more coronavirus testing than any nation, Griffin wrote: “He’s lying.”

A fact check by CNN on Wednesday revealed that “while the US has overtaken South Korea in total numbers of coronavirus tests administered, it has conducted far fewer tests per capita given the US population is more than six times larger than South Korea’s.”

Tests for the coronavirus remain in short supply. U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines for testing say: “Clinicians should use their judgment to determine if a patient has signs and symptoms compatible with COVID-19 and whether the patient should be tested. Most patients with confirmed COVID-19 have developed fever and/or symptoms of acute respiratory illness (e.g., cough, difficulty breathing).”

Griffin has been a strident critic of Trump. In 2017, she posed for a photo of her holding a fake severed head of the president. She said her shows were canceled, she lost celebrity friends and she was questioned by the Secret Service amid the outcry.

Griffin mounted a comedy comeback tour in 2018, but she’s has had a rough time of it lately. Last week, her mother Maggie Griffin, who had dementia, died at age 99. “I am gutted,” the comedian wrote.

HuffPost has reached out to her rep.