'I Will Keep Fighting': Man Pens Final Love Letter Before Death

ACROSS AMERICA — Two weeks before Christmas, Billy Loredo, a lawyer from Edinburgh, Texas, died at the hands of the coronavirus. He was 45 years old.

But before his death, he left his wife a bittersweet gift — a final love letter.

“I want you to know that I am fighting very hard every day for my life. I do it for you so that I can see you again,” Loredo’s letter read.

“You are the most important person in my life and I miss you every day. I know I am not always the perfect man I want to be but I do my best,” the message continued. “If I make it through this I promise to be a better man, in God, in life, and as a husband. You have always deserved the best and if I get a second chance I will do it.”

Loredo didn't get the chance.

“He emailed it to me a few days before he was intubated,” Sonya Kypuros, Loredo’s wife, told HuffPost via Facebook.

Kypuros also said her husband often wrote her romantic notes and brought her “flowers several times a month.”

“We had our time and it was wonderful. I love you and miss you very much,” the note concluded. “I will keep fighting. Love, Billy.”

Reading his letter made her sad, she said, because it showed that he knew he would die. But it also prompted her to share it, wanting the world to know the "amazing human being" to whom she was married.

“Everyone either loved him, admired him, or looked up to him in some way,” Kypuros said. “So maybe God needed Billy for a bigger purpose to influence and have an impact on the world.”

Read more via HuffPost

The Latest

People around the world are celebrating Christmas, and while many are trying to make the most of the holidays amid the pandemic, it's not quite the same in some places.

In Bethlehem, a stream of marching bands joyously paraded through the city on Thursday, but few people were there to greet them as a strict lockdown dampened celebrations in the traditional birthplace of Jesus.

Similar subdued scenes were repeated across the world as the festive family gatherings and packed prayers that typically mark the holiday were scaled back or canceled altogether.

In Australia, worshippers had to book tickets online to attend socially distanced church services.
Pope Francis was set to celebrate Mass in a near-empty Vatican service early in the evening as strict new curfew rules were going into effect.

• COVID-19 Dampens Christmas Joy in Bethlehem and Around World

In the United States, however, Americans set a pandemic air travel record. As of Wednesday, the Transportation Security Administration had screened nearly 1.2 million people at airport checkpoints, the highest number since March.

The record was set as public health officials and some government leaders have pleaded with Americans to stay home for the holidays.

In other places, Americans are struggling to make ends meet as Christmas Day arrives. Earlier this week, help was on the way in the form of a $900 billion stimulus package passed by Congress; but now, the future of the package is in jeopardy after President Donald Trump unleashed new demands.

Trump posted a video to his Twitter account on Tuesday night, assailing the legislation and threatening to not sign it. He railed against a range of provisions in the bill, telling lawmakers to "get rid of the wasteful and unnecessary items from this legislation and to send me a suitable bill."

He also called on lawmakers to increase direct payments for most Americans from $600 to $2,000 for individuals and $4,000 for couples.

Democrats in Congress decided to call his bluff on Thursday with legislation that would increase payments to $2,000. It didn't take long for Republicans to block the proposal.

But the GOP also took it a step further, countering with a motion to force their own changes to foreign policy spending.

• Republicans Block $2,000 Virus Checks Despite Trump Demand
• Stimulus Package In Jeopardy After Trump Makes New Demands
• Coronavirus Stimulus Checks: How To Know If You're Eligible

The back-and-forth in Washington comes amid a Christmas Eve when more people are being hospitalized with the coronavirus than at any other point during the pandemic. According to the Covid Tracking Project, 119,463 people were hospitalized with coronavirus-related illnesses as of Wednesday.

Meanwhile, California this week became the first state to surpass 2 million confirmed cases of coronavirus, according to multiple reports. The milestone comes about six weeks after the state hit 1 million cases.

An explosion of coronavirus cases and deaths is also hitting Southern states with a perilous force, according to the New York Times. Six Southern states have seen sustained case increases in the last week: Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, Florida and Texas.

A glimmer of positive news came out Wednesday. A couple of new studies indicate that people who had COVID-19 could be protected for up to six months and perhaps longer from reinfection.

Dr. Ned Sharpless, the director of the U.S. National Cancer Institute, said research shows that people with antibodies from natural infections were "at much lower risk ... on the order of the same kind of protection you'd get from an effective vaccine" of getting the virus again.

"It's very, very rare" to get reinfected, he said.

• Getting COVID-19 May Protect Against Reinfection: Studies

As vaccinations are distributed across the country, the Trump administration on Wednesday announced a new deal with Pfizer to purchase an additional 100 million doses of its COVID-19 vaccine.

Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said in a statement that the latest deal can give people confidence "that we will have enough supply to vaccinate every American who wants it by June 2021."

The government also has the option to acquire up to an additional 400 million doses.

• Pfizer to Supply U.S. With 100 Million Additional Vaccine Doses

Newest Numbers

At least 209 deaths and 19,187 new cases were reported in the United States as of 11 a.m. ET Friday, according to a Washington Post database. The Post's reporting shows new daily cases have fallen 5.3 percent, new daily deaths are up 1.4 percent and COVID-19-related hospitalizations are up 4.9 percent.

As of Friday, 47 states and Puerto Rico remained above the positive testing rate recommended by the World Health Organization to safely reopen. To safely reopen, the WHO recommends states remain at 5 percent or lower for at least 14 days. Currently, only Hawaii, Alaska, Vermont Washington, D.C., Guam and the U.S. Virgin Islands are under that threshold.

As of Friday morning, the United States had reported more than 18.66 million cases and more than 329,000 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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