Another Moron Has Died

Guess who’s saying “Death to Republicans!“?

The coronavirus.

Morons.

---

The leader of an anti-mask movement in Texas has died from COVID-19.

Caleb Wallace, 30, who created a group called the San Angelo Freedom Defenders that conducted a rally to combat what he called “COVID-19 tyranny,” has died after spending over a month in the hospital, according to a message posted by his wife, Jessica Wallace, on a GoFundMe page to raise money to cover his hospital bills.

“Caleb has peacefully passed on. He will forever live in our hearts and minds,” Jessica Wallace wrote in a post on Saturday.

Caleb Wallace checked into the Shannon Medical Center on July 30 after contracting COVID-19, according to The New York Times.

Earlier that month, he organized a rally for people who were frustrated with the COVID-19 mitigation measures that had been put in place to contain the current surge in infections.

Caleb Wallace reportedly started feeling symptoms associated with COVID-19 — shortness of breath, high fever and a dry cough — on July 26, and they worsened the next day, according to the San Angelo Standard-Times.

He initially refused to go to the hospital and get tested for the virus, instead opting to take ivermectin — an anti-parasite medication used mostly in livestock that the Food and Drug Administration recently urged people not to take to treat COVID-19 — along with high doses of Vitamin C, zinc, aspirin, and an inhaler.

“Every time he would start to cough, it would turn into a coughing attack, and then that would cause him to completely go out of breath,” his wife Jessica said. “He was so hard-headed. He didn’t want to see a doctor, because he didn’t want to be part of the statistics with COVID tests.”

On July 30, however, a relative took him to the hospital, where he remained until his death.

Within days after his hospital admission, he was placed on a ventilator – a “breathing machine” that mechanically inflates the lungs with oxygenated air through a tube stuck down the throat.

“He couldn’t breathe on his own,” Jessica said. “The first week he was able to be on oxygen. By the morning of (August 8), he had to be ventilated.”

In a FaceBook post she wrote in part that, “It’s not looking in our favor, his lungs are stiff due to the fibrosis.”

A medical device called an ECMO was Jessica’s “last hope,” but all her efforts to find an available machine were unsuccessful.

Also known as a “heart/lung machine” it is used during open heart surgery, ECMO is short for ExtraCorporeal Membrane Oxygenation. The ECMO works by inserting a large plastic tube (a catheter) into a large vein and/or artery through the neck, chest or groin of the patient. Essentially, the device acts as the patient’s heart and lungs, the idea being, giving organs a chance to rest and heal.

As of August 21, 2021, the number of hospitals who have available ECMO machines were scarce, and thanks to COVID-19, the waiting list is long. Doctors treating him had said that, even if one were available, Caleb was not a good candidate for such treatment because of the length of time he’d been on a ventilator.

Around 6 p.m. Friday, August 27, Jessica wrote that her husband Caleb had only hours to live, in a GoFundMe post, stating that her husband “won’t make it much longer,” and that he would be moved to comfort care the next day. “Comfort care” is making the dying patient comfortable during their last days/hours.

At about 3 p.m. CST, Saturday, August 28, on a GoFundMe page where she had been posting updates on his condition, Jessica wrote that her husband died. She had established the page to help defray living expenses while she was pregnant, and unable to seek employment.

The 30-year-old had been unconscious and heavily sedated since August 8, and doctors reportedly told his heartbroken family that his chances of recovery were “slim to none.”

He left behind a pregnant widow, and three orphaned little girls.

“To those who wished him death, I’m sorry his views and opinions hurt you. I prayed he’d come out of this with a new perspective and more appreciation for life,” she wrote.

Caleb Wallace, who was employed locally with a welding supply sales company, and a lifelong area resident, was a staunch critic of wearing face/nose coverings to curb the spread of the virus, and frequently questioned the science behind the coverings, and dismissed them as an effective way to fight the pandemic.

He organized a “Freedom Rally” in July 2020 for people who were “sick of the government being in control of our lives,” the San Angelo Standard-Times reported.

Protesters at the event reportedly carried signs that criticized the use of face coverings, businesses being closed, the science behind COVID-19 and the media.

The group he founded was meant to “to educate and empower citizens to make informed choices concerning local, statewide, and national policy and to encourage them to actively participate in their duty to secure God-given and constitutionally protected rights,” the San Angelo Standard-Times reported, citing the group’s Facebook page.

“Show me the science that masks work,” Caleb Wallace wrote on Facebook in December 2020, according to the San Angelo Standard-Times.

The CDC reported in the August 27, 2021 edition of their publication MMWR (Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report), that an unvacinated teacher of elementary-aged school children in Marin County, California spread the delta variant COVID-19 virus to her pupils by reading aloud without wearing a mouth/nose covering, in contravention of school policy.

“During May 23–June 12, 2021, 26 laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 cases occurred among Marin County, California, elementary school students and their contacts following exposure to an unvaccinated infected teacher. The attack rate in one affected classroom was 50%; risk correlated with seating proximity to the teacher.”

“On May 25, 2021, the Marin County Department of Public Health (MCPH) was notified by an elementary school that on May 23, an unvaccinated teacher had reported receiving a positive test result for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. The teacher reported becoming symptomatic on May 19, but continued to work for 2 days before receiving a test on May 21. On occasion during this time, the teacher read aloud unmasked to the class despite school requirements to mask while indoors. Beginning May 23, additional cases of COVID-19 were reported among other staff members, students, parents, and siblings connected to the school.”

“A total of 27 cases were identified, including that of the teacher. During May 23–26, among the teacher’s 24 students, 22 students, all ineligible for vaccination because of age, received testing for SARS-CoV-2; 12 received positive test results. The attack rate in the two rows seated closest to the teacher’s desk was 80% (eight of 10) and was 28% (four of 14) in the three back rows (Fisher’s exact test; p = 0.036). During May 24–June 1, six of 18 students in a separate grade at the school, all also too young for vaccination, received positive SARS-CoV-2 test results. Eight additional cases were also identified, all in parents and siblings of students in these two grades.”

“Show me the evidence that school closures work. Show me the evidence that lock-downs work,” he added.

The nation of New Zealand has a significantly lower national rate of vaccination – only about 23% of the eligible population aged 12+ of its 5,116,300 people have been fully vaccinated, which is the lowest rate among the 38 members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). And because of New Zealand’s strict national COVID-19 prevention guidelines which include “lockdowns,” Kiwis, as they affectionately call themselves, have seen very little spread of infection, and a significant reduction of incident cases.

Reuters reported that “Eleven new cases were reported on Thursday, taking the total to 21 in the latest outbreak that ended the country’s six-month, virus-free run. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said the virus has not been in the community for long as authorities had linked its origin to a traveler returning from Sydney on August 7.”

“The last reported community case of COVID-19 in New Zealand was in February. Its citizens have been living without restrictions although international borders have largely remained closed.

“The country has overall reported about 2,500 confirmed coronavirus cases and 26 related deaths.

“Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said that under the level-four lockdown, people must stay at home, leaving only for essential services. Protective face masks should be worn at all times when leaving home.”

The U.S. is seeing a surge in COVID-19 cases, largely driven in two parts: 1.) By the highly infectious delta variant that has taken hold as the dominant strain in the country, and; 2.) Low vaccination rates.

Health experts have touted the effectiveness of vaccines in protecting against serious COVID-19 infections. The vast majority of recent coronavirus hospitalizations and deaths have been among individuals who are not inoculated.

Texas anti-mask movement leader dies of COVID-19
https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/569921-texas-anti-mask-movement-leader-dies-of-covid-19