Dr. Payman Simoni, who had continued to treat patients throughout the coronavirus pandemic, has passed away from COVID-19 complications.
TMZ reports the Beverly Hills plastic surgeon was hospitalized in Los Angeles after being exposed to the deadly virus while performing a cosmetic procedure on one of his patients who was positive.
Despite the patient having had her temperature checked and filling out a COVID questionnaire, the patient was not tested. She later contacted the office after her lip injection procedure to warn them that she had tested positive.
According to reports by TMZ, the woman had coughed on Simoni during her procedure. While Simoni was wearing a mask, he still contracted the virus.
Simoni immediately began to quarantine and began experiencing symptoms like shortness of breath. He was later placed on a ventilator at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.
Simoni was then placed in a medically-induced coma when his lungs began to fail. He passed away on Friday from a brain hemorrhage.
Simoni was 50 years old.
The City of Beverly Hills had previously paused a resolution, which allowed cosmetic surgery offices to remain open. Many surgeons opted to hold off on elective surgeries due to the rise in coronavirus cases around the area.
Currently, there are more than 8,000 people with COVID-19 in LA County hospitals as the establishments struggle to deal with the sustained influx of patients.
Officials are bracing themselves for another round of COVID hospitalizations as those who contracted the virus around the holidays begin to get sick. "COVID-19 is now everywhere and infecting more people than ever, " LA County Mayor Eric Garcetti says.
LA County reports well over 200 COVID-related deaths per day.
"I'm on the phone every single day with the families who have lost their bread winners, their parents, their children. We continue to see more people, who don't have underlying conditions, dying from this," Garcetti says.
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