Most NYC coronavirus testing done in whitest and wealthiest zip codes, Post analysis finds
Staten Islanders are getting tested for coronavirus more often than any other borough — and at twice the rate of Brooklynites and Manhattanites, an analysis of data from the city Department of Health by The Post shows.
Additionally, the paper’s analysis found that more than two-thirds of the 30 zip codes with the highest per-capita rates of testing were either whiter or wealthier — and frequently both — than the city average population.
“As the data shows, the COVID-19 crisis is hitting communities of more color the hardest – while those same communities have less testing to diagnose the virus or resources to fight it,” said Public Advocate Jumaane Williams (D-Brooklyn), the city’s highest-ranking elected black official. “The city needs a task force in place to rapidly implement an action plan to mitigate racial disparities in COVID-19 exposure, testing, access to resources, and fatalities.”
City officials and civil rights leaders have been sounding the alarm about COVID-19’s disparate impact on the Big Apple’s minority communities after an analysis of death certificates revealed that black and brown New Yorkers are dying at twice the rate of their white counterparts.
“There is absolutely no question that people of means have found a way to get a test during the most restrictive times and that the vast majority of people who are low income or people of color had no opportunity for testing unless they were sick enough to be hospitalized,” said Councilman Mark Levine (D-Manhattan), who chairs the health committee.
On Monday, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced City Hall was launching a new $10 million advertising and outreach effort targeting the 88 zip codes hardest hit by the virus to try to slow the virus’s spread in minority communities.
Nearly four out of every 100 residents — 3.8 — Staten Islanders have gotten a hard-to-score test for COVID-19, far exceeding the per-capita rates in other boroughs, the paper’s analysis found.
Just 2.5 per 100 people in Queens have gotten a test, while testing is slightly more prevalent in The Bronx, where 2.9 people per 100 have been checked.
Both boroughs have been hard-hit by the outbreak and an analysis by a nonprofit news organization, The City, found that Bronxites were more likely to die of COVID-19 than residents in any other borough.
Testing rates in Brooklyn and Manhattan are even worse, averaging just 1.9 tests per 100 people — half the rate of Staten Island.
The analysis also found that Staten Island residents tested positive for the disease at a slightly higher per-capita rate than any other borough — 1.8 per 100 people. The Bronx came in a close second with 1.7 positives per 100 people.
New York’s smallest borough is home to many first responders, possibly explaining the disparity in both testing availability and the rate of positives.
But even in New York’s most tested borough — only one in every 25 people have been checked for the disease.
Additionally, the analysis revealed that 22 of the 30 most tested zip codes are either whiter or wealthier than the city’s average population.
New York’s most tested zip code per capita is The Bronx’s 10464, which includes City Island and Pelham Bay Park. Its least tested zip code was Manhattan’s 10280, which covers a swath of the Financial District that stretches from Battery Park to the World Trade Center.
The Post conducted its analysis by marrying the city’s testing data for each of its 177 zip codes with the U.S. Census Bureau’s population and demographic estimations for each zip code.
“We are deeply concerned about the disparities of the impact of this virus and are working hard to ensure the resources are available to communities experiencing the worst outcomes,” said Health Department spokesman Patrick Gallahue. “With respect to testing, we have given guidance to providers on when it is appropriate to test, however, it is ultimately the judgment of the physician.”
He added: “While we have recently expanded testing we urge providers to limit tests to seriously ill people as well as healthcare workers, first responders, and other especially vulnerable communities.”
via: https://nypost.com/2020/04/16/most-nyc-coronavirus-testing-done-in-wealthiest-zip-codes-analysis/
Photo Credit: REUTERS/Marco Bello
NYC nurse who beat coronavirus pummeled, robbed by group of thugs
A New York City nurse who recently recovered from the coronavirus was attacked on her way to work by a group of vicious youths who badly beat her and ran off with her purse, police sources and the victim told The Post.
Martha Toscano had just gotten out of the 6 train station on her way to work at Bellevue Hospital Wednesday around 10:30 p.m. when about 15 thugs ran her down and pummeled her to the ground.
“I thought they were going to kill me,” Toscano, 60, said in a phone call from her Queens studio Thursday.
“They hit me on the head, on the face, I run and fell on the floor and they keep hitting me.”
The beatdown was interrupted by three men driving down the street, who screamed “Stop it, stop it,” Toscano recalled.
“Thank God these angels came, because nobody was in the street, nobody.”
The good Samaritans pulled the woman up and tried to chase the muggers to retrieve her purse, to no avail.
Police on Thursday arrested three of the alleged assailants, including two teenage girls, aged 14 and 15, and a 19-year-old man named Deshaun Harrison. All three suspects are residents of a nearby group home run by the city’s Administration for Children’s Services (ACS), sources said.
Harrison — who has a lengthy rap sheet — was charged with robbery in the second degree, the sources said. An ACS spokeswoman said the agency couldn’t legally comment.
Toscano suffered scrapes and bumps all over her body but was able to escape the bruising without serious injuries.
“I have pain in all my body,” she said. “My back, my neck, bumps on my head, even on my elbows.”
The brave healthcare worker said she’d been out of work for two weeks after catching COVID-19 but had just gotten the OK to return to her job Friday.
“My first day back was Sunday… and then this,” Toscano said, breaking into tears.
Her three adult children had begged her to stop working, afraid that she would catch the deadly disease, she said.
After getting checked out at her hospital, Toscano said she returned home around 4 a.m. and had to call her landlord to get into her apartment, since her keys — as well as her ID and credit cards — were in the purse the thugs swiped.
Toscano was recovering at home with her fiance, adding that she didn’t know when she would return to work because of how terrified she was.
“I’m so afraid,” she said.
via: https://nypost.com/2020/04/16/nurse-who-beat-coronavirus-pummeled-robbed-by-group-of-thugs/
Photo Credit: nypost
Kellyanne Conway Raises Eyebrows With ‘COVID-1’ Remark On Fox News – “This is COVID-19 ― not COVID-1, folks”
Top White House aide Kellyanne Conway made a baffling ― and misleading ― statement during an appearance Wednesday on Fox News, suggesting COVID-19’s name is derived in part from the number of known coronavirus diseases.
“This is COVID-19 ― not COVID-1, folks,” Conway said during an appearance on “Fox & Friends.” “And so you would think the people charged with the World Health Organization would be on top of that.”
But COVID-19 stands for “coronavirus disease 2019” and is reflective of the year it was identified, not the number of previously documented diseases.
It seemed as though Conway, a high-ranking adviser to the president, was either alarmingly unaware of this or she feigned ignorance in front of the show’s more than 1 million average daily viewers.
In a subsequent interview on the Fox Business Network, Conway acknowledged that the disease’s name partially refers to the year 2019.
“It is called COVID-19 – not COVID-20 ― yet it took WHO until March to call it a global pandemic,” she said.
Conway later tweeted that she knows the “19 refers to the year” in response to Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Ill.), who called on her to “do better” after her “COVID-1” remark.
“Which felt better: insulting me or endorsing Bloomberg for president?” Conway tweeted at the congressman. “God bless.”
“It’s telling that you perceive the truth as an insult,” Rush tweeted back.
Conway’s eyebrow-raising comments Wednesday were part of a larger attack against the World Health Organization’s response to the coronavirus pandemic.
President Donald Trump on Tuesday announced the U.S. is placing a hold on funding to the organization while his administration investigates what he claimed was the group’s mismanagement of the crisis.
“The WHO failed in its basic duty and must be held accountable,” Trump, who has been sharply criticized for initially downplaying the threat of the pandemic, said during a news conference at the White House. “So much death has been caused by their mistakes.”
The WHO has faced criticism for being overly deferential to China, even as the country initially concealed news about the coronavirus and failed to disclose alarming data about infections among health care workers for more than a month.
The group has also lagged in making some key recommendations: Its guidelines still say people don’t need to wear face masks in public unless they are sick, while the CDC has recommended all Americans do so. What’s more, the group waited until mid-March to declare COVID-19 a pandemic, which some experts thought came too late.
However, public health experts have warned against freezing WHO funding in the middle of a pandemic.
Conway on Wednesday tore into the agency for being reluctant to support travel restrictions as the virus continues to spread across the world.
“The president took decisive and immediate action in the end of January to shut down flights from China that was criticized by the WHO, it was criticized by other people, as xenophobic and racist and ‘travel bans don’t work,’” she said. “Well, this one sure did.”
In fact, scientists believe most coronavirus cases came into the U.S. from Europe, not Asia. Trump did not impose travel restrictions on Europe until March 11.
Of the world’s more than 2 million confirmed cases of COVID-19, roughly 30% ― or about 600,000 people ― are in the U.S., making it the country with the most known infections. Spain is a distant second with more than 177,000 confirmed cases.
“Some of the scientists and doctors say there could be other strains later on,” Conway said Wednesday. “This could come back in the fall in a limited way.”
“Limited” may prove to be an understatement. Some experts have suggested a possible second wave could be even deadlier than the first. Others have suggested outbreaks will emerge sporadically until there is a vaccine.
via: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/kellyanne-conway-covid-19-who_n_5e96fc65c5b65eae709d1183
Photo Credit: dailymail.co.uk
Nurses suspended for refusing to treat coronavirus patients without N95 masks
Nurse Mike Gulick was meticulous about not bringing the novel coronavirus home to his wife and their 2-year-old daughter. He’d stop at a hotel after work just to take a shower. He’d wash his clothes in Lysol disinfectant. They did a tremendous amount of handwashing.
But at Providence Saint John’s Health Center in Santa Monica, California, Gulick and his colleagues worried that caring for infected patients without first being able to don an N95 respirator mask was risky. The N95 mask filters out 95 percent of all airborne particles, including ones too tiny to be blocked by regular masks. But administrators at his hospital said they weren’t necessary and didn’t provide them, he said.
His wife, also a nurse, not only wore an N95 mask, but covered it with a second air-purifying respirator while she cared for COVID-19 patients at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center across town in Los Angeles.
Then, last week, a nurse on Gulick’s ward tested positive for the coronavirus, which causes the disease COVID-19. The next day doctors doing rounds on their ward asked the nurses why they weren’t wearing N95 masks, Gulick said, and told them they should have better protection.
For Gulick, that was it. He and a handful of nurses told their managers they wouldn’t enter COVID-19 patient rooms without N95 masks. The hospital suspended them, according to the National Nurses Union, which represents them. Ten nurses are now being paid but not allowed to return to work pending an investigation from human resources, the union said.
They are among hundreds of doctors, nurses and other health care workers across the country who say they’ve been asked to work without adequate protection. Some have taken part in protests or lodged formal complaints. Others are buying — or even making — their own supplies.
Guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention don’t require N95 masks for COVID-19 caregivers, but many hospitals are opting for the added protection because the infection has proven to be extremely contagious. The CDC said Wednesday at least 9,200 health care workers have been infected.
Saint John’s said in a statement that as of Tuesday it’s providing N95 masks to all nurses caring for COVID-19 patients and those awaiting test results. The statement said the hospital had increased its supply and was disinfecting masks daily.
“It’s no secret there is a national shortage,” said the statement. The hospital would not comment on the suspended nurses.
Angela Gatdula, a Saint John’s nurse who fell ill with COVID-19, said she asked hospital managers why doctors were wearing N95s but nurses weren’t. She says they told her that the CDC said surgical masks were enough to keep her safe.
Then she was hit with a dry cough, severe body aches and joint pain.
“When I got the phone call that I was positive I got really scared,” she said.
She’s now recovering and plans to return to work next week.
“The next nurse that gets this might not be lucky. They might require hospitalization. They might die,” she said.
As COVID-19 cases soared in March, the U.S. was hit with a critical shortage of medical supplies including N95s, which are mostly made in China. In response, the CDC lowered its standard for health care workers’ protective gear, recommending they use bandannas if they run out of the masks.
Some exasperated health care workers have complained to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
“I … fear retribution for being a whistleblower and plead to please keep me anonymous,” wrote a Tennessee medical worker, who complained staffers were not allowed to wear their own masks if they weren’t directly treating COVID-19 patients.
In Oregon, a March 26 complaint warned that masks were not being provided to nurses working with suspected COVID-19 patients. Another Oregon complaint alleged nurses “are told that wearing a mask will result in disciplinary action.”
One New Jersey nurse who asked not to be named out of fear of retribution, said she was looking for a new job after complaining to OSHA.
“Do I regret filing the complaint? No, at least not yet,” she said. “I know it was the right thing to do.”
Some are taking to the streets.
On Wednesday, nurse unions in New York, Massachusetts, Michigan, Illinois, California, and Pennsylvania scheduled actions at their hospitals and posted on social media using hashtag “PPEoverProfit.”
Nurses at Kaiser Permanente’s Fresno Medical Center in central California demanded more protective supplies at a protest during their shift change Tuesday. The hospital, like many in the U.S., requires nurses to use one N95 mask per day, which has raised concerns about bringing the infection from one patient to the next.
Ten nurses from the facility have tested positive with COVID-19, Kaiser said. Three have been admitted to the hospital and one is in critical care, protest organizers said.
Wade Nogy, a Kaiser senior vice president, denied union claims that nurses have been unnecessarily exposed.
“Kaiser Permanente has years of experience managing highly infectious diseases, and we are safely treating patients who have been infected with this virus, while protecting other patients, members and employees,” Nogy said.
Amy Arlund, a critical care nurse at the facility, said that before the pandemic, following infection control protocols they’re currently using would have been grounds for disciplinary action.
“And now it’s like they’ve thrown all those standards out the window as if they never existed,” Arlund said. “It’s beyond me.”
via: https://nypost.com/2020/04/16/nurses-suspended-for-refusing-to-treat-patients-without-n95-masks/
Photo Credit: Lizabeth Baker Wade via AP
Stimulus checks are being spent on dildos, tigers, guns and stripper poles
Americans began receiving the first batch of coronavirus relief funds this week, and now many are taking to social media to brag about the assortment of purchases — both strange and savvy — they’ve already made with them.
While many are using the emergency cash to pay bills for necessities and living expenses, others are putting the money toward wild splurges.
Among the more trivial items people have reportedly used the extra bucks on is an inflatable dinosaur costume — although the buyer argues the $35 getup was totally worth it. “I actually have good use for it plus look at that price! I shoulda bought 2,” the proud dino suit owner tweets.
“F - - k it I’m buying a stripper pole with my stimulus check. We have to invest in our future,” tweets a future exotic dancer.
Some are jokingly planning to team up, so they can use their economic impact payments to buy a baby tiger. “Hear me out — Who wants to combine their stimulus checks with me, and we can buy a tiger,” writes one likely fan of “Tiger King.”
It’s hard to argue a canopied bed is ever essential, but one mom bought a princess-themed one for her kid. The same argument goes for a woman who used her check to buy a high-end sex toy, although she concedes she bought the stimulator only after paying off a credit card.
One hobbyist “burning through” their stimulus check indulged in paintball equipment, while another caved and bought a pricey pair of Yeezy shoes. At least one entire stimulus check, and possibly additional cash, went towards buying a Bird One e-scooter, which retails for $1,299.
Others are considering purchasing personalized insight from celebrities. “Thinking about buying myself a cameo from Big Ed with this stimulus check,” writes a fan of reality show star Ed Brown.
Another early check recipient spent her cash on a “warm and cozy” coat which, while arguably an essential buy, might be out of season.
Some opted for much more practical decisions, choosing pragmatism over indulgences.
One woman has already spent her entire check on her electric bill, car payment and a credit card bill, with enough leftover to buy tank tops and a bidet. “And just like that, it’s gone,” she tweets. Another woman treated herself to two Walmart stuffed animals after paying her water and electric bills.
Media worker Ryan Cole put his check towards paying off Sallie Mae like a boss. “Put that #Stimuluscheck to good use,” he tweets with a screenshot of his payment confirmation.
One woman chose to put part of her check back into the stock market and some in her savings for a savvy investment.
After joking she’d spent her money on a house, a good Samaritan revealed she and her boyfriend had actually both donated their checks to Feeding America.
Others are still in the planning stages for what they’ll do with the money.
“Looking forward to using my #Stimuluscheck to purchase another AR-15 and some 30rd mags,” writes one gun-lover.
For those without direct deposit, checks may not arrive until mid-August or later. You can check the status of yours and even speed up getting the dough, but be sure not to fall for these scams.
Photo Credit: nypost.com
Nebraska mall plans to reopen despite rise in coronavirus cases
A Nebraska outlet mall plans to reopen as the number of coronavirus cases continues to rise in the state.
The Nebraska Crossing Outlets, located about halfway between Lincoln and Omaha, announced that it aims to reopen on April 24 — when health officials predict cases to peak in the state.
Outlet owner Rod Yates said the mall would hold a “soft opening” and could serve as a test site for how businesses can best go about reopening during the pandemic.
“We’re looking at the great opportunity to set some best practices and help our retailers open their portfolios across the country,” Yates told the Omaha World-Herald.
Nebraska is among a select few states that still allow malls to remain open even if most businesses are closed because of the restrictions on gatherings.
The state had documented more than 890 coronavirus cases as of Tuesday night, alongside 20 related deaths, after recording its first patient back on March 6.
Gov. Pete Ricketts, a Republican, has urged residents to only shop once a week and to do so alone, though he hasn’t issued any formal restrictions beyond the state’s gathering limit.
Ricketts said the mall and other stores are free to open as long as they follow the social-distancing order.
“We didn’t ask them to close, and we didn’t ask them to open,” he said at a coronavirus news briefing.
“If companies are looking to be able to get prepared for some point down the road when those restrictions are loosened, that’s OK, but anybody who’s operating still needs to continue to follow all the guidelines.”
Local health experts sounded the alarm that the opening could undo any positive containment that has come from people staying home.
But representatives from the mall said they’re taking precautions. The mall has purchased 100 thermometers for each store to use to check employees at the start of each day. They also will install 200 plastic shields at registers to separate shoppers and workers.
Both shoppers and employees will be encouraged to wear masks and gloves.
“Anything we do is going to be very controlled,” Yates said. “We’re not going to do any mass events that attract hundreds of people. We’re going to slowly ease ourselves into the process of getting ourselves open.”
The open-air mall features stores from Coach, Nike, Kate Spade and others.
Mall officials already pushed back its soft opening once, from a planned April 18 date, and could do so again if cases spike, according to Johanna Boston, the chief strategy officer for Nebraska Crossing.
“If tomorrow our numbers jump and we have a conversation with the governor, it could change,” she told the World-Herald.
“But right now, we’re doing what we’ve been asked to do, which is to start getting people back to work in the safest environment we can create.”
via: https://nypost.com/2020/04/15/nebraska-mall-plans-to-reopen-amid-coronavirus-pandemic/
Photo Credit: nypost.com
US officials raised alarms about Wuhan coronaviruses lab in 2018
A lab that researches bat coronaviruses in Wuhan, China had come under scrutiny by US officials two years before the current global outbreak, a report said Thursday.
Diplomats sent two “sensitive but unclassified” cables to Washington in 2018, sounding the alarm about the Wuhan Institute of Virology and asking for assistance to help the lab tighten its safety protocols, the Washington Post reported.
“The cable was a warning shot,” a US official told the paper. “They were begging people to pay attention to what was going on.”
One of the cables warned that the lab’s work on bat coronaviruses and their potential human transmission represented a risk of a new SARS-like pandemic.
In recent months, the cables have recirculated inside the US government and sparked a discussion about whether the novel coronavirus could have originated at the lab or another in Wuhan, the epicenter of the outbreak, according to the report.
A senior Trump administration official said the cables support the theory that the pandemic was sparked by a lab accident in Wuhan.
“The idea that it was just a totally natural occurrence is circumstantial. The evidence it leaked from the lab is circumstantial. Right now, the ledger on the side of it leaking from the lab is packed with bullet points and there’s almost nothing on the other side,” the unnamed official told the paper.
The intelligence community has provided no evidence to confirm that the virus originated in a lab, according to The New York Times. The Chinese government claims it emerged from a fresh-food market in Wuhan.
Scientists largely agree the virus came from animals. But the newly reported cables show officials were worried about the lab’s research posing a public health risk.
“The cable tells us that there have long been concerns about the possibility of the threat to public health that came from this lab’s research, if it was not being adequately conducted and protected,” Xiao Qiang, a research scientist at the School of Information at the University of California at Berkeley, told The Post.
There are similar concerns about the nearby Wuhan Center for Disease Control and Prevention lab, Xiao said.
No extra assistance was provided by the US government to the labs in response to the cables.
Shi Zhengli, the head of the research project at WIV, and other scientists at the lab have denied that the virus originated there. Her team was the first to publicly report on Feb. 3 that the novel coronavirus was bat-derived.
The Chinese government must be transparent and answer questions about the Wuhan labs, Xiao said.
“I don’t think it’s a conspiracy theory. I think it’s a legitimate question that needs to be investigated and answered,” he said.
“To understand exactly how this originated is critical knowledge for preventing this from happening in the future.”
via: https://nypost.com/2020/04/14/us-officials-raised-alarms-about-wuhan-coronaviruses-lab-in-2018/
Photo Credit: OSCAR DEL POZO/AFP
Florida man freed from jail over coronavirus allegedly murdered someone the next day
A Florida man released from jail last month to help limit coronavirus outbreaks in county lockups was arrested again Monday — accused of murdering a man the day after his release, a report said.
Joseph Edwards Williams was facing drug charges when he and 163 other inmates — considered low level offenders — were sprung from Hillsborough County Jail on March 19, according to WFLA, citing the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office.
Authorities believe that Williams was the triggerman who fatally shot a man the next day in the Progress Village area, the report said.
Williams was arrested on a warrant Monday in Gibsonton.
Hillsborough County Sheriff Chad Chronister slammed Williams, claiming “he took advantage” of the administrative order to free inmates amid the coronavirus pandemic to “commit crimes.”
“As a result, I call on the State Attorney to prosecute this defendant to the fullest extent of the law,” Chronister said.
Williams was arraigned via video appearance Tuesday and ordered held on a more than $250,000 bond, WFLA reported.
via: https://nypost.com/2020/04/14/florida-inmate-freed-from-jail-over-coronavirus-allegedly-murders-man/
Photo Credit: Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office
March 2020 was the first March without a school shooting in the U.S. since 2002
March 2020 was apparently the first March in nearly two decades without a school shooting in the U.S. Schools across America have been shut down since early March as a prevention measure to slow the spread of coronavirus. Since then, kids of all ages have adjusted to homeschooling and online classes — a new normal that could extend through the rest of the school year.
For most of those students, this is one of the longest stretches in their lifetimes without a school shooting. As first reported on Twitter by Washington Post reporter Robert Klemko, there hasn’t been a March without a school shooting since 2002 — the year most current high school seniors were born.
Data from the National School Safety Center and National School Safety and Security Services confirm that there have been school shootings every March since 2002. That year, a 13-year-old student brought a gun and a hit list to school but was subdued by a school resource officer deputy before he could pull the trigger.
In March 2020, there were several instances of shootings on school campuses — but none that fit the typical description of a school shooting.
According to Everytown for Gun Safety, an organization that tracks gun violence in the U.S., there were a total of seven shootings that took place on school campuses in March 2020. Four of those shootings were classified as unintentional discharges, one took place between adults on a high school football field over the weekend and two occurred on college campuses but involved no students.
According to a 2018 paper published in the New England Journal of Medicine, firearms are the second-leading cause of death among youths in the U.S., behind motor vehicle crashes. Everytown calls the problem “uniquely American.”
While school shootings are down, gun dealers around the country said they are seeing record numbers of customers. One store manager told CBS News that the main reasons customers said they were buying firearms is for protection during quarantine and fear of the unknown.
Given the spike in sales, gun safety advocates fear students are not only facing more dangerous situations at home, but could also face a major increase in shootings when they return to school.
“When this pandemic ends and we emerge from this physical distancing reality, the guns will remain,” said Guns Down America executive director Igor Volsky. “Will there be increased mass shootings, school shootings, shootings at home, at work, at concerts?”
Photo Credit: cbsnews.com
‘He kept saying ‘I’m fine’ – Mother hasn’t spoken to son since walking him to ambulance two weeks ago
ST. LOUIS COUNTY, Mo. – A north St. Louis County mother fears she may never see her son again. She said he was put on a ventilator hours after being diagnosed with COVID-19.
Anna Williams hasn’t seen or talked to her 25-year-old son, Kaleb Williams, since April 1. Kaleb was in acting school in New York, pursuing dreams of being on Broadway.
His mom called him last month.
“I said, ‘Maybe you should come home with family because we don’t have any other family in New York.’ He was like, ‘No mom, because if I get sick your health is not as good as mine. I don’t want to come there,’” she said. “I said, ‘I’m really concerned, I’d rather you be here with family than to sit there alone. Please come home and we got him a flight the same day.”
That was March 20. Nine days later, Anna said her son got a fever, lower back pain, and then began vomiting blood. She took him to the Christian Northeast Hospital emergency room.
“I stayed on Facetime with him for seven hours as a virtual visit to make sure I was by his side to comfort him,” she said.
Williams said he was tested for COVID-19, diagnosed with pneumonia, and sent home with antibiotics. She said she watched him closely because her son is asthmatic and suffers from sleep apnea. She said his fever continued rising and she called 911.
“He kept saying, ‘I’m fine. I’m fine.’ He didn’t look in distress,” Williams said. “He walked to the ambulance. He was walking; the last time I saw my son.”
That was Wednesday, April 1. She said the COVID-19 test then came back positive. She said Kaleb was put on a ventilator at Missouri Baptist Hospital and she hasn’t spoken to him since. For more than a week, she’s relied on phone call updates from nurses and the doctor.
“(The doctor) told me he was going to try all he could to bring him back but he couldn’t make any promises,” she said.
“I love him so much and please just pull through. We don’t know what’s going on and if mommy could save you, I’ve tried everything. We’re praying that you pull through. We love him.”
Photo Credit: fox2now.com