MORE REASONS TO FOLLOW THE EXPERTS ADVISE ON COVID-19

…The former Pizza King, Herman Cain

The Pizza King and a resident of Riverside County, anyone can get Covid-19

This article will be a hodgepodge of issues regarding Covid-19.  I have become interested in how some people have had to learn the hard way about ignoring the experts advice regarding Covid-19.

First, I think it is so appropriate that someone like the former Pizza King that ran against Donald Trump in 2016, yes Mr. Herman Cain, and how he really blue it.  He blew it when he spent the time and money to attend Donald Trump’s first campaign re-election Rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

It is amazing to me that a black man would actually go, during a growing pandemic, to a white man's re-election campaign at the site of the worst massacre of blacks in America.  Yes, it was almost 100 years ago, but the massacre has again been made famous when the president had at first said he was going to have his first campaign rally in Tulsa on Juneteenth.  Fortunately, his staff got him to change the date to something other than Juneteenth, the anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, signaling the end of slavery in America.

The way the Pizza King severely blew-it is that he is now in the hospital with the Covid-19 virus that he pick-up during this visit to Tulsa.

Mr. Cain is a man with most likely, a contested immune system as he is someone who had already beaten Stage 4 cancer.

Why he decided to attend the sparsely attended rally is probably because Trump is considering him as his nominee as the next Federal Reserve Chairman. 

Cain was among the several thousand attendees at Trump’s Tulsa Rally, of whom did not wear masks.  Cain, today co-chairs Black Voices for Trump, and was pictured mask-less while he was not socially distancing at the Tulsa event.

After the rally, dozens of Secret Service agents and officers who were there, were given paid time -off, as they were ordered to self-quarantine for two weeks.

Hours before Trump’s rally, it was discovered that six of his advance staffers that had been in Tulsa, including two Secret Service employees, had tested positive for covid-19.

Two more advance staffers tested positive days after returning to Washington.

But Mr. Cain is only one example of what not to do regarding the coronavirus.

Sharing his regret on Facebook, a Mr. Thomas Macias was focused only on his loved ones.

“Because of my stupidity I put my mom and sisters and my family’s health in jeopardy,” the California truck driver wrote in a post his family shared with The Washington Post.  Mr. Macias had gone out to a party where no one wore masks, his niece Danielle Lopez has said, only to learn afterward that someone knowingly attended with the coronavirus.  Apparently the reasoning was, erroneously, that without symptoms, it couldn’t do anyone harm.

But the 51-year-old Macias was also at risk, by his Type 2 diabetes and being over-weight, niece Lopez said. The morning after that June 20 Facebook post, he called his mother saying he couldn’t breathe.  She told him to rush to the hospital.  By 9 PM that night, he had passed away.

Perhaps, Ms. Lopez said, her uncle would not have gone out, if their Southern California county had not been reopening and if most people hadn’t thought the virus’s threat was easing.  "His death, it was absolutely preventable,” she told The Post.

The family says that Mr. Macias was diligent for months about minimizing his trips outside the home, knowing his health conditions made him vulnerable.   But Macias was also a social creature, they said, calling his mom every day and eager to see his loved ones.

He “made friends wherever he went,” just like his father, his uncle Ricardo Macias told The Post.  “You could hear him coming from a mile away when he was laughing,” said Ms. Lopez, who had been looking forward to moving 10 minutes from her uncle

.

California was also starting to emerge from shutdown when Macias would have been weighing attendance at the party.  Riverside County, where he lived was approved late in May to enter Phase 2 of California’s reopening process, which meant people could head back to malls and dine at restaurants. Gyms, nail salons and more followed in June.

The coronavirus situation in Riverside, however, was worsening that month.

On June 17, the Desert Sun reported, the county went on a state watch list after cases increased and hospitalizations rose 19% in three days. Riverside is among the 19 counties, covering more than 70% of California’s population, that Gov. Gavin Newsom announced this week would have to shut a large swath of businesses back down, as the state shatters its records for new known coronavirus cases reported.

Even before Macias’s death, Ms. Lopez said, “we thought that it was a mistake opening so soon. …there’s still no vaccine, there’s still nothing to fight against this.  We should not have opened to begin with,” she said.

It’s not clear how many people were at the party Macias attended in Lake Elsinore, where he lived about an hour’s drive southeast of Los Angeles.  Lopez said her family heard from Macias that a friend who also attended later, reached out saying everyone should get tested

because a person attended despite their having a coronavirus diagnosis.  

At the very least, Lopez said, the friend should have worn a mask, a precaution that California mandated two days before Macias’sFacebook post,and that has since been embraced by leaders across the political spectrum.

Ms. Lopez said her uncle had previously worn a mask but seemed to think it was “not necessary anymore,” especially among friends.

She knows people are still resistant to masks, and it frustrates her.

“I really honestly don’t understand why people find it so difficult,” Lopez said.

Macias said he was tested for the virus June 15 and got a positive result three days later.

Soon he was broadcasting his mistake to hundreds of his Facebook friends.

“This is no joke,” he wrote to them. “If you have to go out wear a mask and practice social distancing.”

Don’t be an “idiot like me,” he said.

He finished with: “Hopefully with God’s help I’ll be able to survive this.”

“I don’t know Thomas or your family but please take some comfort in knowing that his post will probably save lives,” one person wrote as they made a $20 contribution for his funeral.

Ms. Lopez said masks and social distancing will be required July 10 at the Sun City funeral service, where there will be no hugs and people will be asked to pay their respects quickly and then leave the room.

This is just one more example for myself, an elder Type 2 Diabetic that always wears a mask when going amongst other people.

Copyright G. Ater 2020