Fourteen members of the same family in Texas tested positive for the coronavirus after a small meeting in June, the family says. One of them is dead and the other is on life support.
Tony Green, who lives in Dallas, said that after months of social estrangement, he and his partner threw a party for their parents on June 13.
He and his partner did not wear masks at the meeting, nor did their parents.
“We felt that the worst was behind the country because everything was easy, things were reopening and none of us had any symptoms,” Green said.
The next day, Green said, he woke up feeling sick. By June 15, his partner and his parents, whose names he declined to provide, were ill.
Green, 43, told NBC News in a phone interview Monday that he related the episode on a GoFundMe that he launched to cover the medical expenses of his partner’s father, Rafael Ceja, who has pneumonia and is on life support after giving positive for COVID. -19, the disease caused by the coronavirus.
Green said his partner’s parents traveled from their Dallas home to Austin on June 15 for the birth of their first grandchild. Ceja’s mother and one of her partner’s sisters also joined them for the visit.
“That night in Austin, my father-in-law got sick,” Green said.
Then her mother-in-law and sister-in-law began to feel ill. Although his wife and sister-in-law’s parents quickly left Austin, the newborn’s parents also became ill and tested positive for the coronavirus, Green said.
The newborn was saved, he said.
Between June 17 and 23, his father-in-law’s mother became ill.
“The pain and trauma that was to come is more than anyone could have prepared for,” Green wrote on GoFundMe.
Green said he and his father-in-law were admitted to the hospital on June 24.
The virus attacked her central nervous system, Green said, and she almost had a stroke. She spent a few days in the hospital. Sometime in late June, her father-in-law’s mother was admitted to the same hospital as her son.
She died of COVID-19 and pneumonia on July 2 in a room next to her son, Green said. Ceja did not know that her mother was in a room next to hers.
Later that day, Ceja learned that her mother had passed away with no family by her side. “Rafael would not only miss his funeral, he couldn’t even say goodbye or see her one last time,” Green wrote on GoFundMe.
Green said his mother-in-law, Marisa, called him “crying and screaming in terror” on July 12 to inform him that Ceja was on life support.
Two days later, a funeral was held for Ceja’s mother. Only 10 family members were able to attend.
Lowering the guest count was made possible by continued bad news: Two of Ceja’s sisters, one of her nephews and a brother-in-law had contracted the virus, bringing the total number of infected family members to 14, Green said. .
Twelve family members have recovered or are in various stages of recovery, Green said Monday.
She said she has had a front row seat for the suffering of her mother-in-law and father-in-law.
“I can’t help but feel responsible for convincing our families that it was safe to have a reunion,” she said.
The guilt you feel is overwhelming.
“There are many things that I would have done differently,” he said.
Green said he decided to publicly document his family’s diagnoses because he knows that many people in the Dallas area are not convinced that the virus can be deadly and of the importance of social estrangement. The decision has divided her family, she said.
“I just don’t think people are really paying enough attention to security protocols and the things they can do to protect themselves a little bit better,” he said Monday.
Green said he is not sure if staying at least 6 feet away from other people outside your home indoors and outdoors is effective in reducing the spread of the virus, as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have said. Disease prevention.
“I just didn’t see that six feet away makes a difference because of the distance germs can travel,” he said. “I’m still not 100 percent sure that’s the case.”
Still, he said, he believes that people should be more vigilant when wearing masks. According to the CDC, there is increasing evidence that facial coatings help prevent people with COVID-19 from passing the virus on to others.
On July 2, Governor Greg Abbott changed course and forced to wear masks in public in any county with 20 or more coronavirus cases.
“Wearing a covered face in public has been shown to be one of the most effective ways to reduce the spread of COVID-19,” Abbott said in a statement announcing his executive order.
After bar-related cases began to escalate, Abbott ordered that they close on June 26.
Green said he has friends in Dallas who don’t think the virus is significant enough to alter their way of life.
“I don’t think they’ll change their opinions unless he bites them on the butt like me,” he said.
