COVID Almost Kills Man Who Lost Unvaccinated Brother, Great-Nephew to Virus

A man who nearly died from COVID-19 subsequently lost his brother and a teenage relative to the disease, he revealed.

David Lopes, 58, who lives near Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, spent 31 days in hospital with the disease back in early 2020, PennLive reported. At the time, he was one of the first people in the state to become severely ill from COVID.

For 17 of those days, Lopes was unconscious and on a ventilator. He also spent nine days on an extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) machine—a treatment used to support seriously ill COVID-19 patients.

An ECMO is a life support device that pumps and oxygenates a patient's blood outside the body, in cases where the heart and lungs are unable to do so adequately.

During much of his hospital stay, doctors were unsure if he would survive. Lopes eventually pulled through and after four months, he was well enough to return to work.

But like many survivors of the disease, Lopes has been left with lingering health problems—what doctors refer to as "long COVID."

"I'm still very fatigued. I still have brain fog issues and a lot of joint pain," Lopes told PennLive. "Every joint—it makes it hard to walk. My shoulders are always in pain. My left hip is horrible. It's just constant inflamed joints."

"It totally shuts me down," he said of the brain fog. "I have trouble seeing. I can't really think. It's just really, really strange. It's like the world just closes in around you and you can't get out of it."

In addition to dealing with the health problems arising from long COVID, the virus dealt Lopes another blow after it took the life of his brother and a 17-year-old great-nephew—both of whom were unvaccinated.

Despite Lopes' ordeal with the disease, his brother had declined to get vaccinated when the shots became available. Lopes said his brother believed the shots contained harmful ingredients.

Lopes and other vaccinated family members tried to convince the brother to change his mind, but their attempts were unsuccessful.

"I kept saying to my brother, 'You guys sat around and prayed for me. And now they come out with something that could possibly prevent it, or at least prevent death, and you don't want it?'" he said.

The brother, Dennis Lopes, who lived in New Jersey, ended up contracting COVID last year and passed away in September at the age of 66.

Following the death, David Lopes sought help from a mental health counselor as he tried to deal with the grief of losing his brother, while dealing with long COVID.

But in January this year, tragedy struck again as his brother's 17-year-old grandson also died of the disease.

"The virus, for lack of a better term, just [screwed] my family beyond measure," Lopes said.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC,) all currently approved or authorized COVID-19 vaccines are safe, effective and reduce the risk of severe illness.

As such, the CDC recommends vaccination for all people aged five years or older, including individuals who have been infected before.

The CDC also recommends that everyone aged 16 years and older should get a booster shot either six months after their initial Pfizer or Moderna series, or two months after their initial Janssen vaccine.