By Dominic Taylor-
A 30-year-old patient died after attending a ‘“Covid party”, believing the virus to be a hoax, according to Texas medical official.
The party was held to test whether covid-19 was real, by including an individual who has tested positive for the virus, to see whether they would become infected. Ironically, the individual with Covid who arranged the party survived, but not the later victim of the virus.
Dr. Jane Appleby, chief medical officer at Methodist Hospital in San Antonio, where the man died did not say when the party took place, how many people attended or how long after the event was the man hospitalised with Covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. The man was not publicly identified.
“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,’” said Dr Jane Appleby, the chief medical officer at Methodist hospital in San Antonio.
Appleby said: “I don’t want to be an alarmist, and we’re just trying to share some real-world examples to help our community realise that this virus is very serious and can spread easily.”A “Covid party” is a gathering held by somebody diagnosed with coronavirus to see if the virus is real and to see if anyone gets infected, she explained.
Appleby said in her comments over the weekend that she had been inspired to reveal the case after seeing a “concerning” rise in infections. She said 22% of tests were revealing a case of Covid-19, up from just 5% a few weeks ago.
She said a broader age range were being affected, with several 20 and 30 year olds critically ill at the Methodist hospital, she said.
“Please wear a mask, stay at home when you can, avoid groups of people and sanitise your hands,” said Appleby.
Officials in Houston have urged the city to return to lock down as hospitals struggled to accommodate new coronavirus cases.
Houston mayor Sylvester Turner and Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo said a stay-at-home order was needed for America’s fourth-largest city to cope with the surge. State health officials reported 8,196 new cases on Sunday, another 80 deaths and a total of 10,410 people hospitalised due to the virus.
Florida broke the national record Sunday for the largest single-day increase in positive coronavirus cases in any state since the beginning of the pandemic, adding more than 15,000 cases as its daily average death toll continued to also rise.
According to state Department of Health statistics, 15,299 people tested positive, for a total of 269,811 cases, and 45 deaths were recorded. California had the previous record of daily positive cases 11,694, set on Wednesday. New York had 11,571 on 15 April.
Florida moved to new levels of the disease as it broke the national record Sunday for the largest single-day increase in positive coronavirus cases in any state since the beginning of the pandemic, adding more than 15,000 cases as its daily average death toll continued to also rise.
According to state Department of Health statistics, 15,299 people tested positive, for a total of 269,811 cases, and 45 deaths were recorded. California had the previous record of daily positive cases 11,694, set on Wednesday. New York had 11,571 on 15 April.
Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, has insisted on schools re-opening as scheduled next month, despite the rise in Covid-19 cases. He insists children have not proven to be vectors for the disease in states and countries where campuses are open.
He said while each county will have to come up with procedures, depending on their local infection rate, keeping schools closed would exacerbate the achievement gap between high- and low-performing students.
“We know there are huge, huge costs for not providing the availability of in-person schooling,” he said. “The risk of corona, fortunately, for students is incredibly low.”