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ATLANTA (AP) – As her father died of coronavirus in a Georgia hospital last August, Lindsay Schwarz put her hands on her arms and softly sang lines to her from their favorite songs.
Eugene Schwarz had been admitted three weeks earlier, but the hospital had not allowed his daughter to visit him for fear of spreading the virus. The 72-year-old looked nothing like the exuberant, immaculately dressed cardiologist who kissed her forehead before heading to work.
“I hugged my dad, and I didn’t really feel like my dad,” Schwarz said.
Less than an hour after she was allowed to see him, he died.
Schwarz recalled the painful experience in a telephone interview on Friday to raise awareness of the devastating effects of COVID-19. She and other victims of the virus, including people infected months ago and still showing severe symptoms, held rallies in Atlanta, New York, Washington DC, Denver and more than a dozen on Saturday. other cities across the country to encourage people to get vaccinated and wear a mask.
“I promise you you don’t even want to live ten minutes of what I’ve been through,” said Tanya Washington, with the COVID Survivors for Change group.
Washington helped organize the rally in Atlanta. She lost her father to coronavirus in March and recalled her last heartbreaking moments with him.
“Never in a million years have I thought that I should take my father off the oxygen clad head to toe in PPE and say goodbye to him,” she said. “I couldn’t touch it except with gloves on. I couldn’t kiss her except through a mask.
The rallies come amid an upsurge in infections across the country that are again straining hospitals, especially in the south, where vaccination rates remain low. COVID survivors and those who have lost loved ones to the disease say they are frustrated by continued vaccine resistance and misinformation about the virus.
“It has become a political issue, and it is not about that. It’s a real virus, and it kills everyone, whatever your political ideas, ”said Paula Schirmer.
Schirmer, 50, from Marietta, Georgia, her husband and three children contracted the virus in March 2020, but her symptoms have not gone away even more than a year later. She has trouble remembering dates and key words in her job as an interpreter and suffers from bowel problems. The virus has also wreaked havoc on his mental health.
Schirmer’s husband was hospitalized for almost two months and she twice received calls from nurses informing him he was in critical condition. The experience left her with post-traumatic stress disorder, she said.
“It was horrible not knowing what was going to happen,” she said.
The rallies are also aimed at pushing lawmakers to seek financial and medical assistance for victims of COVID.
Marjorie Roberts, 60, said she continued to need regular medical attention for damage from COVID. She has lung and liver problems and has lost seven teeth. She can now barely walk several blocks and sometimes has no energy for hours after waking up.
“I was living my life like it was gold. I was traveling, “she said.” I literally have to start my life over. “
Due to the pandemic, Schwarz postponed his trip to New York to bury his father’s ashes in a cemetery where other family members were buried. It made it difficult to move forward.
“It’s a delayed shutdown,” she said. “I don’t want people going through this.”
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