“You’re putting yourself, your home, your children, your loved ones, at risk,” brother of COVID-19 patient says

FRANKLIN — West Carrollton native Jay Webb said his sister, Darlene, of Franklin, always wore her mask. She took the COVID-19 guidelines seriously, he said. But there was something he said she did that made him nervous.

“She kept attending her choir practice,” Webb told News Center 7′s Sean Cudahy over video chat from his current home in New Jersey.

He said his fears played out when one of the choir members at practice infected his sister and others there with coronavirus.

“It first started out to her as a flu like symptom. It quickly progressed into pneumonia. And then it just progressed to where she couldn’t even take a breath,” Webb said of his sister’s battle with the virus.

He said Darlene has been sick for five weeks now, and undergone two surgeries in Cincinnati.

“She’s not getting a lot better but she’s not getting worse,” he said.

Now Webb is warning about the danger of mass gatherings.

If you go, he said, “You’re putting yourself, your home, your children, your loved ones, at risk. It is not necessary,”

Governor Mike DeWine issued a similar warning at his regular coronavirus news conference Thursday, when he mentioned Ohio’s cases, positivity rate and hospitalizations are on the rise. DeWine said the state is seeing new cases primarily from gatherings like weddings, funerals, churches, sporting events and backyard functions.

“We’ve just got to be very careful,” DeWine said. “That may mean reconsidering attending a crowded event. Reconsidering going to a party.”

For his part, Webb said he hopes others take his sister’s case of COVID-19 as an example of the illness COVID-19 can cause.

“This virus is capable of taking everyone you love,” he said. “Period.”

Cox Media Group