Family makes a plea to wear masks after 7 members get virus

‘I don’t think enough people are taking this seriously.’

‘PLEASE WEAR A MASK. It’s not about your rights as an American, it’s to protect those around you. We’re living proof and hope to continue to be living. Please don’t be selfish to prove a point. Be considerate of others.’

Cathy Primm Stansbury, 50, of Newark,

wrote a Facebook post chronicling her family’s experience with COVID-19

A Licking County family of seven has all tested positive for the novel coronavirus, prompting the matriarch to post a plea on social media for people to wear masks and take care of one another.

Cathy Primm Stansbury, 50, of Newark, wrote a Facebook post chronicling her family’s experience with COVID-19. The July 6 post has since been shared more than 4,500 times.

“I don’t think enough people are taking this seriously. Most people think it’s a New York problem, it’s a Florida problem,” Stansbury told The Dispatch. “The further we think we are from the problem, the less people seem to care.

“But we’re your neighbors.”

Licking County has had 560 confirmed COVID-19 cases, including 61 hospitalizations and 12 deaths, according to the Ohio Department of Health.

The family’s story with COVID-19 began when Stansbury’s father, Rich Primm, 73, and his wife, Mona, 56, drove up from Florida to visit in late June. Stansbury said she is confident her dad and stepmom didn’t bring the virus from with them from Florida because they had been quarantining

for weeks in their Cape Coral home in southwestern Florida.

But on their way, the couple stopped in Portsmouth to visit some family members and went to dinner at a Buffalo Wild Wings. A man sat next to Rich and told him he’d just returned from a trip to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. The man was told to quarantine, Stansbury wrote in her post, but didn’t because “no one can tell me what to do,” he told her father.

Still in Portsmouth, Rich started feeling poorly a couple of days later, Stansbury said. He got a coronavirus test, but it came back negative, so the couple continued on their way to Newark. Once at the Stansburys’ Newark home, they isolated themselves in a bedroom.

Stansbury only saw her dad and stepmom for a few hours on June 29 before she left for her job administering IV therapies to patients in their homes. Later that day, she took Rich to the emergency department because his breathing was labored.

Another coronavirus test was taken. This time, it came back positive.

Stansbury said she and

the rest of the family, her husband, Licking County Municipal Court Judge David Stansbury, 50; son Josh, 20, and his pregnant girlfriend Emily Climer, 18; and her 13-year-old daughter, Catie all began furiously disinfecting the house. But the virus had already started its war path.

David developed a lowgrade fever. Mona’s left side of her body kept giving out because of muscle failure. Emily was taken to the emergency department for a cough and dehydration.

Within a week, all seven members of the family would test positive for COVID-19.

Stansbury said the entire experience has been eye-opening. The only symptoms she experienced before testing positive were headaches and knee pain, she said. No fever, no cough, no shortness of breath.

“The point of all of this is that we had no idea we had been exposed to COVID,” Stansbury said. “If it weren’t for the fact that ‘luckily’ dad tested positive, we would’ve gone to work.”

Thankfully, Stansbury said, none of her patients

or any of her husband’s coworkers said they tested positive. She attributes that to mask wearing.

“I never would’ve qualified myself as sick,” she said. “Who knows how many people I could’ve given it to.”

It was this realization that prompted Stansbury to share her story on social media.

“PLEASE WEAR A MASK. It’s not about your rights as an American, it’s to protect those around you,” she wrote in her post. “We’re living proof and hope to continue to be living. Please don’t be selfish to prove a point. Be considerate of others.”

For now, the family is recovering at home. Some are doing better than others, Stansbury said, and every day brings its own challenges.

Rich, a strong 240-pound man, has lost 30 pounds, she said. He hallucinates at night and his oxygen levels are low, but not enough to take him to the hospital.

Their mandatory quarantine expires July 15, but Stansbury said that doesn’t mean much.

“No one is leaving this house any time soon,” she said.