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Some people face death threats due to coronavirus fears
As reports of deaths from the coronavirus increase, some folks are facing a terrible backlash. People with and without the virus who are returning home after being quarantined are receiving death threats.
LOS ANGELES - As coronavirus deaths increase, so do death threats.
Several passengers we’ve spoken to who were aboard the Diamond Princess cruise ship are finally home or on their way, returning to the place where they should feel safest and most loved after a global scare, but instead, they’re met with hate. So much so, the FBI and law enforcement are involved.
From Intermountain Medical Center in Murray, Utah, Mark Jorgensen hopes for two negative coronavirus tests in a row.
“There are an infinite amount of possibilities and one is that I could be here a while and one is that I could go home tomorrow so I’ll just take what comes,” Jorgensen said.
It’s that mindset, making the best of what he can’t change, that’s helped Jorgensen through two kidney transplants and now this. His wife Jerri, who has been under quarantine at a Japanese hospital for weeks, also with confirmed coronavirus, is finally cleared and on her way home, and like their cruise ship friends, Santa Clarita radio station owners Carl and Jeri Goldman, they’re all receiving death threats.
“We’ve been getting death threats, hate mail,” said Carl on FOX News. “It’s like we’ve got a plague or we’re lepers.”
“I’ve seen people say, ‘don’t come home’ and ‘don’t spread the virus here’ and one person even said I should be banned from St. George for life,” added Jorgensen.
He avoids looking at the more serious threats and understands people’s concerns but not their hate.
“I’m mostly sad that people could be that ignorant and be that uneducated about what this virus is. I’m the safest person you could possibly be around because I’m being tested and when I’m back home you will know I don’t have the virus. You don’t know that about your other neighbors,” said Jorgensen.
But because of the death threats and to help ease people’s fears, his wife, finally free from a Japanese hospital room, is choosing to self-quarantine when she gets home.
“The last thing Jerri would want to do is be in a grocery store and somebody recognize her and freak out and panic. So she’s just going to avoid places like that for a while,” Jorgensen said.
Jorgensen, who is getting tested every day, plans to do the same, self-quarantine, once he’s able to go home. At least then, he will be reunited with his wife.
This all started with them booking a cruise to celebrate their 20th wedding anniversary. But through the distance of coronavirus quarantine, Jorgensen says it’s actually brought them closer and made them appreciate each other more.