Plastic surgeon died of COVID-19, got it from lip-filling patient

• Well-known Beverly Hills plastic surgeon Dr. Payman Simoni died on Friday from a brain hemorrhage potentially linked to COVID-19. He was 50 years old.
• Simoni, who appeared on “The Doctors” television show, may have contracted the virus from a patient by giving injections into his lips.
• The doctor wore a mask during the procedure, his longtime friend said.
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Beverly Hills plastic surgeon Dr Payman Simoni died of a brain hemorrhage on Friday after testing positive for coronavirus, his longtime friend Katy Amiri-Younesi told CBS News.

Before her death, Simoni, 50, performed a routine lip filler injection for a patient while wearing a mask, Amiri-Younesi told CBS News. Days later, the same patient called to tell Simoni she had tested positive for COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus.

“He wore a mask at all times,” Amiri-Younesi told CBS News. “He was a doctor. And he took all the protocols.”

The patient had her temperature taken and was erased before her appointment, People.com reported.

After receiving the patient’s call, Simoni underwent a COVID-19 test on December 6 and tested positive, Amiri-Younesi told CBS News. A week later, his health began to decline and he had to be put on a ventilator at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center due to breathing difficulties.

“The shock was that he was in perfect health,” Amiri-Younesi told CBS News. “He’s a doctor. I called him when I had COVID. He was telling me what to do.”

Read more: What it’s like to go to a Botox clinic while driving, with masks, needles and temperature checks

City Councilor John Mirisch told The Beverly Press it was a mistake to let cosmetic procedures resume in the city.

“We have to be careful,” Mirisch said. “No one needs Botox in the middle of a pandemic.”

He added: “It is a tragedy if someone were to die because of this. Lip fillers are not worth dying.”

Simoni, a well-known Beverly Hills surgeon who appeared on “The Doctors”, was ultimately placed in a medically induced coma due to his worsening condition. He died of a brain hemorrhage in a coma, according to TMZ.

There are 11,366 new cases of COVID-19 in Los Angeles this week, according to the county’s public health department. Los Angeles County is the first U.S. county to exceed one million COVID-19 cases, with a total of 1,014,662 to date.

Mayor Lester Friedman told The Beverly Press that elective procedures, which are generally considered, have been permitted since April 28 under state and county guidelines, provided doctors and patients use their judgment to determine whether such procedures were essential.

“We specifically did not recommend [cosmetic surgery], neither the state nor the county, ”Friedman told The Beverly Press.

Friedman told The Beverly Press that it has not been proven that Simoni contracted the virus from his patient during a procedure.