A California man has survived the novel coronavirus and was released from the hospital after spending three months in the facility, ABC-7 reports.
Randy Smith — from Apple Valley, California — attended a backyard barbecue with nine other family members, who all contracted the novel coronavirus at the event.
- Smith “was so close to death that his wife was told by doctors to say her goodbyes,” ABC-7 reports.
Smith will now head home after three months in the hospital.
- “Thank God,” he said. “It was life and death, and I made it out this side.”
Smith and his family are imploring for others to wear their masks and keep socially distant from others because the coronavirus can strike at anytime.
Riley McGuigan, one of family members who got COVID-19 from the barbecue, said mask wearing isn’t a laughing matter.
- “Wearing a mask isn’t a joke. People say, ‘I’m not gonna wear my mask, it’s just OK I’m not gonna get COVD.’ It’s not a joke. You can die from this. “People are dying from it.”
A similar scenario in Maine
A wedding in Maine has been linked with more than 100 cases of COVID-19. In fact, seven people all died from the spread of the virus even though they didn’t attend, as I wrote for Deseret.com.
Dora Anne Mills, chief health improvement officer at MaineHealth told The Washington Post that small events like this mean that the virus “can tear these communities apart.”
Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, a professor of medicine at the University of California-San Francisco, told USA Today that small events can have a big impact.
- “People don’t think of it in the same way as the (President) Trump rally in Tulsa, a bunch of people on the beach or in the bars, but these small events add up to a lot. It’s just invisible.”