A 30-year-old in San Antonio, Texas, has died from the coronavirus after attending a “COVID party” and initially believing the illness that caused a global pandemic is “a hoax.”
via People:
A “COVID party” is a gathering “held by somebody diagnosed by the COVID virus and the thought is to see if the virus is real and to see if anyone gets infected,” Dr. Jane Appleby, the Chief Medical Officer of Methodist Healthcare, said in a recorded statement, according to NEWS4.
“Just before the patient died, they looked at their nurse and said, ‘I think I made a mistake, I thought this was a hoax, but it’s not,’ ” Appleby said.
Appleby said she was sharing the patient’s story in an attempt to make sure people know that the coronavirus can affect anyone.
“It doesn’t discriminate and none of us are invincible,” she said. “I don’t want to be an alarmist, and we’re just trying to share some real-world examples to help our community realize that this virus is very serious and can spread easily.”
Texas is among the many states in the U.S. that have recently had spikes in coronavirus cases. The state reported a record number of new daily cases on Thursday — 10,909, data from The New York Times shows.
Bexar County, where San Antonio is, has had 18,602 total cases of coronavirus and 166 deaths, according to a Friday update. On Friday alone, the Texas county recorded 923 new cases.
Appleby said she has seen spikes in the number of coronavirus cases firsthand in her hospital, noting that the positivity rate has jumped to 22 percent, “a concerning increase from a positive rate of about five percent only several weeks ago.”
“My plea to our community and especially all of our young folks in the community is to take it seriously. Wear your mask,” she added to local news station KSAT.
COVID-19 is not a hoax — just in case anyone reading this has any doubts.
