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Days After a Funeral in a Georgia Town, Coronavirus ‘Hit Like a Bomb'
Forget the wings and key lime cake. Stay at home and live ![NYT] It was an old-fashioned Southern funeral. There was a repast table crammed with casseroles, Brunswick stew, fried chicken and key lime cake. Andrew Jerome Mitchell, a retired janitor, was one of 10 siblings. They told stories, debated for the umpteenth time how he got the nickname Doorface. People wiped tears away, and embraced, and blew their noses, and belted out hymns. They laughed, remembering. It was a big gathering, with upward of 200 mourners overflowing the memorial chapel, so people had to stand outside. Dorothy Johnson has gone over the scene in her mind over the last month, asking herself who it was who brought the virus to her brother’s funeral. "We don’t know who the person was," she said. "It would help me to know." During the weeks that followed, illnesses linked to the coronavirus have torn through her hometown, Albany, Ga., with about two dozen relatives falling ill, including six of her siblings. Ms. Johnson herself was released from an isolation ward to the news that her daughter, Tonya, was in grave condition, her heart rate dropping. Like the Biogen conference in Boston and a 40th birthday party in Westport, Conn., the funeral of Andrew Jerome Mitchell on Feb. 29 will be recorded as what epidemiologists call a "super-spreading event," in which a small number of people propagate a huge number of infections. This rural county in southwest Georgia, 40 miles from the nearest interstate, now has one of the most intense clusters of the coronavirus in the country. With a population of only 90,000, Dougherty County has registered 24 deaths, far more than any other county in the state, with six more possible coronavirus deaths under investigation, according to Michael L. Fowler, the local coroner. Ninety percent of the people who died were African-American, he said. The region’s hospitals are overloaded with sick and dying patients, having registered nearly 600 positive cases. Last week, Gov. Brian Kemp dispatched the National Guard to help stage additional intensive care beds and relieve exhausted doctors and nurses. Ms. Johnson said that she assumed one of the guests had brought the virus to her brother’s funeral, where "you hug and you kiss and you embrace." But she had no more information than that. "Really, there is no face to what is going on in Albany," she said. Posted by: Besoeker 2020-03-31 |
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