COVID19+ patients (yet), which is heartbreaking, but necessary to protect the hospital and our fragile patients as best we can. I understand that life threatening illness is an extraordinary situation, but the family member of a COVID19 positive patient is too big a risk to have in the hospital regardless of circumstances since the likelihood they are also COVID19 positive/infectious is super high.

Making exceptions is not going to happen, which is why you would be arrested if you forced the issue. Public health trumps the desired good of being with a sick or dying loved one.

Also, teaching a layperson how to use PPE and avoid contamination and exposure is difficult to do effectively and unfortunately cannot be the primary focus of healthcare workers in that scenario.