Stephenville resident fights to survive after contracting COVID from asymptomatic relative.
Updated: Jul 8, 2020
A Stephenville resident in their 50s is fighting for their life after contracting COVID-19 from a young relative who had the virus, but showed no symptoms.
“This person is now in the ICU in a Metroplex hospital and is in respiratory failure, spiraling downhill and doing very poorly,” Dr. Doggett told BTS News. “This is why we wear masks, so asymptomatic people won't spread COVID-19 to others that may not be so fortunate as to have no symptoms.”
Doggett said he was disappointed to learn that Erath County officials did not make wearing a mask in public a requirement.
“I can’t fathom why a group of reasonable folks that have the power to intercede and change the course of this disease locally choose not to,” Doggett said. “I hope these individuals don’t look back in a couple of weeks and wish they’d done more to protect our citizens. It’s frustrating from my point of view.”
Doggett said city officials have done all they can to help stop the spread of the virus, and now it’s up to the county.
“This is not a matter of infringement of rights. It's a matter of respecting our fellow citizens and doing whatever we can to get through this,” he said. “Our only hope of avoiding another shutdown is to stay home when possible, wear masks, maintain social distancing and perform good hand hygiene measures.
“I understand the economic hardships. I understand the frustration. But if we don’t want the situation to get much, much worse, we are going to have to pull together as a community and do as the top health experts are recommending.
“A study released from UT Southwestern last week concluded that if we just moved the needle a few percentage points with regard to effectiveness of our mitigation measures, COVID would be almost non-existent in our region of Texas by November.”
Another Stephenville resident was admitted to the hospital in Stephenville on Sunday night after contracting the virus.
“If the rate of infection continues to increase, we’ll be in serious trouble,” Doggett said. “Our resolve must never weaken.”