Dr Lorna Breen, who was medical director of the emergency department at New York-Presbyterian Allen Hospital in Manhattan, died of self-inflicted injuries on Sunday, police said.

The 49-year-old's father, Dr Philip Breen, told the New York Times: "She tried to do her job and it killed her."

New York accounts for 17,500 out of America's coronavirus 56,000 deaths.

The elder Dr Breen said his daughter had had no history of mental illness. She died in Charlottesville, Virginia, where she had been staying with her family.

Lorna Breen herself had fallen ill with the coronavirus during the course of her work and returned to the job after about a week-and-a-half of recuperating, said her father.

The hospital had sent her home again, before her family "intervened" to bring her to Charlottesville, said her father.

He said that when they last spoke, his daughter had seemed "detached" and told him how Covid-19 patients were dying before they could even be removed from ambulances. Dozens of patients have succumbed to coronavirus at the 200-bed hospital in Manhattan.

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