A Texas millennial died after attending a “COVID party” and later contracting the illness.
“I thought it was a hoax,” the patient, who was in their 30s, told their nurse moments before passing away.
Chief Medical Officer of Methodist Healthcare in San Antonio Dr. Jane Appleby told the local NBC affiliate: “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.”
COVID parties are held by young people to intentionally get sick and produce antibodies. While it was first thought COVID-19 only caused death in older people and people with underlying health issues, more and more formerly healthy young people are filing hospitals and morgues.
“Just before the patient died, they looked at their nurse and said ‘I think I made a mistake, I thought this was a hoax, but it’s not,’” Appleby told NBC.
There has been a huge spike in COVID-19 cases across Texas and San Antonio currently is overloaded with 18,000 cases, and more than 1,200 patients in the hospital.
“It doesn’t discriminate and none of us are invincible,” Appleby said. “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.”
