On Tuesday night, Karl-Anthony Towns shared a personal story about the coronavirus pandemic, and sent a message to the world: Stay at home. Posting to his Instagram account, Towns explained that his mother has been on life support after being admitted to hospital with Covid-19.
Towns explained that his mother and father fell ill at the same time, and both sought medical treatment promptly. While his father was able to be discharged and placed in quarantine at home, his mother’s condition never improved — before taking a sharp downward course.
The Timberwolves center explained that doctors tried a variety of different anti-viral drugs and cocktails in hopes of stifling Covid-19, but none worked. He detailed how his mom would have an ongoing fever of 103, which would only drop to 101.9 with medicine, before immediately shooting back up. Finally her lungs were struggling with the infection to the point when they had to put her on a ventilator. Eventually, she was put in a medically-induced coma.
“I made this video to make people understand the severity of this disease,” Towns said, “practice social distancing, please don’t be in places with a lot of people. It just highers your chances of getting this disease, and this disease is deadly.”
Towns’ message comes at a time when doctors on the front line of fighting Covid-19, scientists and epidemiologists are imploring people in the United States to stay home to stop the spread of coronavirus. Some politicians are arguing that the country needs to re-open soon in order to boost the economy, but it should be noted that a CDC-funded epidemiologist said Wednesday morning that the peak of the coronavirus won’t come for another three weeks in the United States.
Towns said his family will keep fighting, and he knows his mother is strong enough to prevail, but he wants everyone to hear his story and make good decisions moving forward.