Chief Medical Officer of Methodist Healthcare, Dr. Jane Appleby, explained in a video message that people organise these events to check whether or not the pandemic is real. In her words: “This is a party held by somebody diagnosed by the COVID virus and the thought is to see if the virus is real and to see if anyone gets infected.”
The patient, who was unnamed, reportedly became severely ill after the party. According to Appleby, shortly before the patient’s death, “they looked at their nurse and said ‘I think I made a mistake, I thought this was a hoax, but it’s not.”
The chief medical officer appealed to the younger generations to take the virus seriously as “none of us are invincible.” She added: “I don’t want to be an alarmist and we’re just trying to share some real-world examples to help our community realize that this virus is very serious and can spread easily.”
San Antonio recorded 923 new infections on Friday. 1240 people are hospitalized.
