CATCHING COVID-19 CHANGES OUTLOOK
Public figures who caught virus now offer warnings
Edward Augustus Jr. had chalked his Monday morning fatigue up to a restless night’s sleep.
But by Tuesday, the Worcester city manager had a runny nose and a sinus headache. By Wednesday, Dec. 9, he’d tested positive for COVID-19.
Augustus had followed all the rules. He said he’d spent Thanksgiving by himself, and taken the same precautions he preached each week from behind a sandy-colored podium adorned with the Worcester city seal.
He’s still not sure how he contracted the virus, though he believes it may have something to do with a handyman who’d done work at his condo and later tested positive.
“We can’t let our guard down. We can’t get that fatigue that I know a lot of people feel,” Augustus told the Herald. “Now that we know that in the United States there are cases of this more easily spreadable strain of the virus, that means it’s going to be potentially even more dangerous out there.”
Augustus is one of several public figures in Massachusetts who have contracted the coronavirus — an evergrowing list that runs the gamut from city councilors, to mayors, to activists. Their experiences with the novel — and sometimes lethal — disease have shaped their responses to the pandemic in both their personal and public lives.
“Contracting the virus certainly gives you a different perspective than looking at data and hearing secondhand stories,” Braintree Mayor Charles Kokoros said. “There is much to be said about actually experiencing the virus and being able to govern and do it in a way that allows you to help others
after knowing many of the different experiences that they’ve having.”
Five local leaders shared their experiences with the Herald this week. Here are their stories:
Edward Augustus Jr.
Worcester city manager Augustus rode out his 14day quarantine period with “relatively mild” cold-like symptoms. He returned to work just before Christmas, but soon developed pneumonia.
“You kind of thought you were done and all of a sudden it’s like it’s not done with you,” Augustus said. “You can’t predict the course.”
Nearly a month after he first developed symptoms, Augustus, 55, said he feels “maybe 90% back to normal.” He was back behind the podium Wednesday for Worcester’s weekly press conference, warning of the dangers of another post-holiday surge in cases and urging residents to limit their potential for exposure.
“Unfortunately, after every one of these holidays we’ve seen a predictable spike,” Augustus said. “Any time that you’re outside of your immediate home and the people that you live with —
and even then the extent they’re going out to work and out into the world — you’re not 100% safe because the virus is so present in the community.”
Tom Mountain vice chairman of the Massachusetts GOP
Tom Mountain was “one of the naysayers” who eschewed wearing masks in public. Now he says he’s “learned the hard way.”
The vice chairman of the Massachusetts Republican State Committee fell ill days after he attended a mostly maskless Hanukkah party at the White House in early December.
“I thought I was going to be put on a ventilator,” Mountain, 60, said. “I was someone who scoffed at the idea of wearing masks and social distancing. I always thought I could never get it. But lo and behold, I went to the White House event and I got it. I got it severely.”
Mountain’s family had warned him repeatedly about the need to wear masks and avoid crowds. They urged him not to go to the White House.
He’s now been hospitalized twice. He passed the virus on to other members of
his family. He’s still coughing.
“I was somebody who didn’t really take it seriously until I got it, and then I got it badly. Now I wear masks all the time and I do what needs to be done and I take it seriously, and I’m a big believer in the governor’s pandemic restrictions,” Mountain said. “Unfortunately it took my getting sick to really see the light.”
Charles Kokoros Braintree mayor
Kokoros tested positive for COVID-19 before he’d even developed the symptoms.
It was June 3, the day after the first-term mayor had finished his first municipal budget. A family member had tested positive, so Kokoros got swabbed, too.
Kokoros, 55, considers himself “extremely lucky.” His entire family has contracted the virus at various points. His live-in mother-inlaw was hospitalized and needed both oxygen and remdesivir. His symptoms were milder, mainly sinusrelated.
The mayor drew on his personal battle with the virus when issuing an executive order in late fall requiring weekly testing for workers in nursing homes and assisted living facilities.
“When you experience the pain of this particular virus and the symptoms of this
virus, the last thing I wanted to see repeated was to have reinfections within nursing homes and long-term care facilities,” he said. “We were able to catch at least three cases that wouldn’t have been detected if we hadn’t mandated that testing.”
Michelle Wu Boston city councilor and mayoral candidate
Michelle Wu thought she and her family just had passed around a somewhat odd cold in February.
But then in May, as part of a study about the prevalence of the virus in Boston, she got an antibody test. To her surprise, it came back positive.
“It was just a reminder of just how contagious this virus is,” Wu, 35, said. “Any given person could have this virus and everyone needs to do their part.”
Wu’s family was unable to get tests, and no one called her for any contact tracing. She’ll never know if that cold that passed around her family was COVID-19, who she could have given it to or where she got it from.
Wu, who’s since launched a bid to become mayor of Boston, says that uncertainty continues to inform her advocacy around the virus.
“My experience was a stark reminder that every single one of us needs to have the supports to quaran
tine and access face coverings, testing, contact tracing because it is so highly contagious,” Wu said.
Tito Jackson Boston community activist, former city councilor
Tito Jackson still tells people about his particularly nasty bout of coronavirus 10 months ago. His message hasn’t changed: You easily can get COVID-19 — and you certainly don’t want it.
“I felt really compelled to tell the public about my COVID diagnosis,” said Jackson, 45, a former Boston city councilor.
“There was a rumor in the Black community that you couldn’t get COVID. I wanted to tell people that COVID is real. Don’t believe the deniers — they will get you killed.”
Now he’s focusing on the vaccine. Many of his fellow Black Americans have a long-standing distrust of the medical community and the government from generations of unequal treatment, but Jackson’s adamant he’ll take the vaccine as soon as he can, and that everyone else should, too.
“We are inextricably connected to each other,” Jackson said. “We have to see ourselves as our brother and sister’s keeper — or we can possibly end up seeing each other as our brother or sister’s infector.”