Florida man who called Covid-19 a hoax tests positive, says he infected wife who's now fighting for life in ICU
A man who claimed that coronavirus was nothing more than a hoax created by the government, changed his mind after he and his wife were hospitalized with the virus.
Despite the growing death toll in the United States, Brian Hitchens, of Florida, who is a rideshare driver, said in April that he thought Covid-19 was a fake pandemic. “I thought it was maybe the government trying something, and it was kind of like they threw it out there to kinda distract us,” he told WPTV. He also took to Facebook and wrote that according to him, coronavirus was not that serious a disease and that God was mightier than the infection that had taken over the globe.
"I'm honoring what our government says to do during this epidemic but I do not fear this virus because I know that my God is bigger than this virus will ever be. Jesus is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords," he wrote on April 2. "I'd get up in the morning and pray and trust in God for his protection, and I’d just leave it at that. In addition, he told a local newspaper: "There were all these masks and gloves. I thought it looks like a hysteria.”
Hitchens recently said that he had been hospitalized at the Palm Beach Gardens Medical Center with coronavirus. Earlier he had said that he had tested negative but last week, he confirmed that he gotten tested again and he had the virus. After contracting the virus, Hitchens said that he had changed his perspective on it. "I don’t want to see anyone go through what I went through," Hitchens said. "This wasn’t some scare tactic that anybody was using. It wasn’t some made-up thing. This was a real virus you gotta take seriously."
Along with him, his wife was also hospitalized and had been put on a ventilator to aid her breathing for the past three weeks. He took to Facebook to say that he was "sad and frustrated" on being unable to visit his wife in the hospital on Mother's Day, despite being separated by two rooms. Later, however, he seemed to have been allowed to see his wife in the ICU.
"I have come to accept that my wife may pass away and the peace I have about it is that I know without a shadow of a doubt that she will be going home to be with the Lord but I also do believe in miracles and I'm holding on to the chance that she may get healed. This thing is nothing to be messed with please listen to the authorities and heed the advice of the experts," he added. "We don't have to fear this and by heeding the advice doesn't mean that you fear it. That means you're showing wisdom during this epidemic time."
He added that he regretted his callousness and ignoring protective rules like wearing masks, which could have protected him from catching the virus.
"Looking back I should have worn a mask in the beginning but I didn't and perhaps I'm paying the price for it now but I know that if it was me that gave it to my wife I know that she forgives me and I know that God forgives me. Whether man forgives me or not that's out of my control but as long as I have the assurance that God forgives me and my wife forgives me I am good. So just think about what I said and if you have to go out please use wisdom and don't be foolish like I was, so the same thing won't happen to you like it happened to me and my wife," he said.