Dad Of 5 Thought Virus Was Fake; Now He Needs Lung Transplant

ACROSS AMERICA — Until Nathan Foote tested positive in for the coronavirus in October, he thought it was fake.

"I was a non-believer in this COVID stuff," Foote, a 42-year-old father of five from Sioux Falls, South Dakota, told KELO. "If you would have asked me before this, I thought COVID was fake. But it's not fake."

Foote developed pneumonia after contracting the virus and is now fighting for his life. His only chance for survival, the news station reported, is a double lung transplant.

That might not come easily, though.

"They say even if I make the list, lungs are hard to come by," Foote said. "They're hard to come by, so I could be waiting forever for a pair of lungs."

"He doesn't have forever," said his wife, Angie Foote.

Nathan Foote is not optimistic.

"Just so you all know, this ain’t a joke. I’m not going home," he said in a Facebook Live video from a South Dakota hospital. "I’m going to die in this room right here.”

Read more via KELO

The Latest

New coronavirus cases in the United States continue to hit daily records nearly two weeks into 2021. Daily cases hit a new record with 278,920 recorded on Saturday, according to a total from NBC News.

Top public health experts warned the situation would get worse before it gets better. So far, the numbers are proving them right.

In an interview with McClatchy on Friday, CDC director Dr. Robert Redfield warned that Wednesday's riot at the U.S. Capitol could also end up significantly spreading the coronavirus.

"I do think you have to anticipate that this is another surge event," he said. "You had largely unmasked individuals in a non-distanced fashion, who were all through the Capitol."

Both Redfield and Stephen Hahn, commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, have considered resigning in the wake of the pro-Trump riot, according to the Times.

Another top coronavirus response official, Seema Verma, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, has also contemplated leaving her post, according to the same report.

Meanwhile, another more-contagious variant of the coronavirus that originated in the United Kingdom has surfaced in several states across the nation. The CDC, however, estimates that it accounts for less than 0.5 percent of cases in the country so far.

New research suggests that Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine may actually protect against the mutation found in the U.K. as well as another more-contagious variant found in South Africa. Pfizer teamed with researchers from the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston for laboratory tests to see if the mutation affected its vaccine's ability to do so.

According to The Associated Press, they used blood samples from 20 people who received the vaccine, made by Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech, during a large study of the shots.
Antibodies from those vaccine recipients successfully fended off the virus in lab dishes, according to the study posted last week on an online site for researchers.

America's vaccine rollout has not been quick enough, and a new approach should be taken, Dr. Scott Gottlieb, former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, said on CBS' "Face the Nation," according to The New York Times.

Gottlieb said federal and state leaders should "hit the reset and adopt a new strategy."

"I think we need to take an all-of-the-above approach and push it out through different channels," he said.

President-elect Joe Biden has indicated support for releasing nearly all available COVID-19 doses when he takes office in 12 days, according to a CNN report.

The move would break with the Trump administration's strategy of holding back half of U.S. vaccine production to ensure second doses are available.

Releasing all doses could accelerate the pace at which people receive the first shot.

As of Monday, nearly 9 million Americans had received their first shot, or 2.7 percent of the U.S. population, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Experts say as much as 85 percent of the population will have to be inoculated to achieve “herd immunity” and vanquish the outbreak, The Associated Press has reported.

Biden's vaccine plan came after a group of governors wrote a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar and Operation Warp Speed Chief Operating Officer Gen. Gustave Perna pressing the federal government to distribute "reserved doses" of the vaccine to states that need them.

Biden himself received the second dose of the vaccine on Monday.

Finally, new figures from the Labor Department show that United States employers shed jobs last month for the first time since the height of the pandemic in April. About 140,000 jobs were lost, The AP reported, clear evidence the economy is faltering as the viral pandemic tightens its grip on consumers and businesses.

At the same time, the unemployment rate stayed at 6.7 percent, the first time it hasn't fallen since April.

Newest Numbers

At least 1,949 deaths and 228,991 new cases of coronavirus were reported in the United States on Sunday, according to a Washington Post database. The Post's reporting shows that over the past week, new daily cases increased 11.7 percent, new daily reported deaths rose 21.6 percent and coronavirus-related hospitalizations are up 2.9 percent.

Currently, more than 129,229 people are hospitalized with a coronavirus-related illness in the United States, according to the Covid Tracking Project.

As of Monday, 48 states and Puerto Rico remained above the positive testing rate recommended by the World Health Organization to safely reopen. Only Vermont, Hawaii and Alaska are currently below that rate. To safely reopen, the WHO recommends states remain at 5 percent or lower for at least 14 days.

As of Monday afternoon, the United States had reported more than 22.5 million cases and more than 375,200 deaths from COVID-19-related illnesses, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University.

Stay up to date on the latest coronavirus news via The New York Times or Washington Post.

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