A Florida father is hospitalized with the coronavirus and was on a respirator after apparently being infected by his 21-year-old son who went out with friends, says the father’s wife.
John Pace, 42, of Plantation, about six miles west of Fort Lauderdale, fell ill the day after Father’s Day, his wife, Michelle Zymet, said in a Facebook Live video earlier this month.
Pace, who Zymet said is diabetic, was placed on a respirator after his condition worsened. It has since been removed from the fan and has improved slightly, according to an update made by his wife on Thursday.
“It was difficult. I’m here at home,” Zymet said excitedly in his previous video. “We cannot leave the house; we cannot see him; we cannot be with him.”
Zymet said the entire family, including a 14-year-old son and 6-year-old daughter, have tested positive for the coronavirus. They became infected after their oldest son, Zymet’s stepson, became ill and learned that a friend she had dated was infected with the virus, the mother said.
Zymet said in an interview on MSNBC Tuesday that she had begged her son not to leave because she was concerned that the family would become ill.
Her husband was at risk of becoming seriously ill with the coronavirus because he has diabetes, she said. Doctors have also said that he is obese, which is an additional risk factor.
Zymet has said he wanted to share his story to help young people realize the dangers.
“The younger generation just don’t get it. They don’t care; they don’t think. I’m not quite sure what they don’t get,” she said on MSNBC. “Our son was locked up for a while and when the state got up and you were able to get out again and we weren’t in quarantine, he decided he wanted to go out and hang out with his friends.”
“We are trying to open everyone’s eyes so that by not wearing a mask, by washing their hands frequently, and by not distancing themselves socially, they are putting themselves and the people they love at home at risk … every day,” she wrote. in a Facebook post on Thursday.
Zymet said in his Facebook video that his oldest son developed symptoms after leaving and initially thought he had a cold. He did not tell the family that he was ill. When her 14-year-old son began to feel ill, the eldest went ahead and told his parents that a friend had tested positive for the coronavirus.
The entire family fell ill, but Zymet said her symptoms were minor.
“My throat was sore, I had a little cough, but again that was the severity of my symptoms at the time,” he said in his video.
Pace was not so lucky. He first developed a fever before his condition quickly worsened, Zymet said.
“I could barely open my eyes,” he said in his video. “Very lethargic, so I took him to a test site and had him examined … A couple of days went by and finally at that point after four days of having a fever, he could barely get up from the couch, move.”
She said she took her husband to a hospital emergency room, where they admitted him and then transferred him to the intensive care unit.
“They are not allowed to enter the room with them because I am COVID, he is COVID. So, yes, all of our family members were positive for COVID when we obtained the results. It is something that one never expects to happen and with the severity which has been reached, “he said.
Zymet could not immediately be contacted by NBC News on Friday.
Coronavirus cases have been on the rise among the youngest people in the U.S., including Ohio since the state relaxed its order to stay home.
Dr. Stephen Blatt, medical director for infectious diseases at TriHealth Hospitals in Cincinnati, told NBC News earlier this month that “the problem is that people don’t wear masks.”
He said that most of the new cases in the state are young people that he believes “got tired of not going out and seeing their friends.”
“I think they saw that things were getting better and they just said, ‘OK, let’s go out.’ We have to get the message across that this is not over and it is not going to end for a while,” he said.
In the US, Arizona, Florida and Texas, in particular, have reported an explosion of new cases.
