‘Please don’t be like my family’

© Alexa Aragonez / Alexa Aragonez
The Aragonez family hosted a relaxed indoor birthday reunion in early November. A few days later, all of them tested positive for the coronavirus.

Enriqueta Aragonez lay down in a hospital bed in Arlington, Texas, with plastic tubes snaking from her nose and pneumonia in both of her lungs. The 57-year-old had a message for everyone doubting the need for covid-19 restrictions.

“I went to my nephew’s house and loved seeing my family, but now I’m fighting covid-19,” Aragonez said in a video message. “Please protect yourself. It is true.”

Aragonez is one of 15 family members who contracted the coronavirus after a small indoor birthday party earlier this month where no one was wearing a mask. Weeks later in an emotion video shared by the city of Arlington, the family pleads with others to avoid reuniting with anyone outside of their immediate home.

“Of course, we regret that we got together, but we all have in mind that this could be a lesson for all of us,” Alexa Aragonez, Enriqueta’s daughter, told the Washington Post on Sunday. “A carefree moment cost us a month of peace, cost us sleep, made us laugh, cost us a lot of money.”

As coronavirus cases in the United States continue to rise in record numbers, the situation in Texas is dire. This weekend, the state National Guard deployed a 36-member team to help morgues in El Paso, as the state reported 13,763 new cases on Saturday, according to the Post’s coronavirus tracking. At least 20,556 Texans have died from covid-19. People of color, including Latinos like the Aragonez family, who are Americans of Mexican descent, continue to suffer from increased death rates from covid-19, according to a Post analysis.

While health officials continue to monitor mainstream events at large gatherings like weddings, smaller gatherings like lunch inside Aragonez have caused the latest spike in coronavirus cases – a trend which could dramatically worsen, health experts warn, if Americans ignore the Centers for Disease Control guidelines urging people not to travel for vacation this year.

Alexa Aragonez, 26, who did not attend the event and has not tested positive for the virus, says her family have learned the hard way how dangerous small indoor gatherings can be.

On November 1, one of her cousins ​​texted a group of parents inviting them over to her home for an impromptu and late birthday party. “Do you want to come for fajitas?” He asked.

The Aragonez family had all agreed at the start of the pandemic to avoid any gatherings with people outside the family, including church services, bars, and indoor and outdoor dining, and also planned to work. at home as much as possible, Aragonez said. They have also reduced their usual weekly family gatherings to once-a-month outdoor and socially distant gatherings.

“Everyone said yes, just because we’ve all been taking very good care of ourselves since the start of the pandemic …” Aragonez said of his cousin’s invitation. “Our family places a strong emphasis on taking care of ourselves on a daily basis so that we can see each other with more peace and not be afraid of contracting covid-19.”

Eight members of the Aragonez family drove from Arlington to Fort Worth for the birthday lunch at his cousin’s house, where four other relatives lived. The plan was never to gather indoors, Aragonez said, but when family members arrived people gathered in the living room, where for a few hours everyone sat around. from the maskless sofa, sharing fajitas and chocolate cake.

“It was really, ‘Hey, I’m coming on’ and everyone started talking,” Aragonez said. “They naturally went to the living room. … It wasn’t like we were, “Let’s all treat inside”. We have fallen back into our old ways.

The next day, one of the cousins ​​who had attended the lunch texted the group. “I didn’t wake up well,” she wrote. “How are you?”

More and more parents quickly rang the bell saying that they too had fallen ill. And within five days, all 12 relatives who attended the rally, including four children and a pregnant woman, had tested positive for the coronavirus.

“All the people. He didn’t miss a single one,” said Aragonez. “Everyone who went to the event tested positive.”

Three other parents who did not go to the birthday party also caught the virus.

Aragonez’s mother, Enriqueta, had the most dangerous case. On November 12, she was diagnosed with severe pneumonia in both lungs. A day later, she was admitted to an Arlington hospital because she was also coughing up blood and the virus had caused damage to her heart. She was there for a week, but has since started to recover and has returned home.

The rest of the Aragonez family, Aragonez said, had milder cases. Everyone else who tested positive lost their sense of taste and smell, suffered body aches and migraines, and experienced extreme fatigue.

Aragonez, who works for the Arlington City Communications Department, believed her family’s first-hand experience with covid-19 could educate others. So she asked her relatives to film short testimonials about their illness and their regret for attending the lunch, which was combined into the clip shared by the city.

“Please don’t be like my family and ignore CDC guidelines,” she says at the end of the video.

Aragonez said she hopes her family history can help others make a safer choice.

“We have to get creative this holiday season,” Aragonez said. “Find ways to come together safely and virtually. You don’t have to be in the physical presence of other people to feel closeness. Changing the way we celebrate the holidays this year can guarantee us many more vacations in the future. ”

This year, Aragonez and his sister, who has also tested negative for the virus, will cook and deliver meals to parents who are still recovering and in quarantine. They will be hosting a Zoom party after the Cowboys football game, she said.

“We followed all of the guidelines except seeing our main family,” Aragonez said. “We are like any other family who believe that if they keep their social circle tight, we will be safe. Unfortunately, this is not enough.