Caleb Wallace, a frontrunner within the anti-mask motion in central Texas, grew to become contaminated with the coronavirus and has been in an intensive care unit for the previous three weeks, barely clinging to life, his spouse, Jessica, stated.
Mrs. Wallace stated her husband’s situation was declining and medical doctors have run out of therapy choices. On Saturday he will likely be moved to a hospice at Shannon Medical Heart in San Angelo, Texas in order that his household can say their goodbyes, she stated.
Mr. Wallace, 30, has lived in San Angelo for many of his life and works at an organization that sells welding gear. He checked into the Shannon Medical Heart on July 30. Mrs. Wallace arrange a GoFundMe web page that has collected over $27,000, to cowl the price of medical payments.
Earlier that month, Mr. Wallace had organized a “Freedom Rally” for individuals who had been “sick of the federal government being in charge of our lives.”
He based the San Angelo Freedom Defenders, a gaggle that hosted a rally to finish “Covid-19 tyranny” in accordance with a YouTube interview with him.
“They believed the coronavirus was a hoax and so they felt that the federal government was being too heavy-handed when it got here to masks,” San Angelo’s mayor, Brenda Gunter, stated in an interview.
In April, Mr. Wallace penned a letter to the San Angelo Impartial College District demanding they “rescind ALL COVID-related insurance policies instantly,” and questioning the science and efficacy of masks for varsity youngsters.
Mr. Wallace’s father, Russell Wallace, stated his son firmly believes masks and vaccination necessities are a violation of non-public liberties. “After watching all the federal government overreach right here he determined he needed to do one thing about it,” Russell Wallace stated.
Mrs. Wallace, who’s pregnant with the couple’s fourth little one, informed the San Angelo Standard-Times that when her husband first felt in poor health, he took a mixture of vitamin C, zinc, aspirin and ivermectin — a drug sometimes used to deal with parasitic worms in each individuals and animals that has been touted as coronavirus therapy however was lately confirmed ineffective towards the virus.
She stated her husband revered her personal determination to put on a masks. “We joked round about how he was on one aspect and he was on the opposite, and that’s what made us the right couple and we balanced one another out,” she stated.
She added that her three youngsters are up-to-date on their vaccines and that she herself deliberate to get the coronavirus vaccine after her child is born in late September. “We aren’t anti-vaxxers,” she stated.
Nonetheless, Mrs. Wallace stated her husband strongly believed the choice to get vaccinated or to put on a masks ought to relaxation with a person and never with the federal government. “That is without doubt one of the few issues I agreed with my husband on.”
Mayor Gunter stated Mr. Wallace had an amazing love for his metropolis. In the course of the state’s record-breaking winter storm in February, Mr. Wallace and his father volunteered to drive out to residents trapped of their houses.
“Once we are known as to motion, we neglect about these variations and simply do the appropriate factor,” she stated. Shannon Medical Heart at present has 70 % of its intensive care beds full. This August, Tom Inexperienced County, which comprises San Angelo, has seen its seven-day average of new cases rise to the highest level since November 2020, in accordance with a New York Instances database.
Russell Wallace, who additionally got here down with Covid-19, stated that he was within the hospital together with his son for 13 days, however his situation has improved sufficient for him to return residence.
Regardless of his personal sickness and his son’s dire situation, Mr. Wallace stated he nonetheless firmly believes that masks are ineffective and that the federal government shouldn’t mandate masks or vaccinations. He himself, nonetheless, has determined to “look into” getting the pictures.
“Personally for me, I’m not so hesitant concerning the vaccinations now,” he stated. “I’ve stared down that barrel and fairly truthfully, it scared the hell out of me.”
