A 30-year-old Texas man who organized the Freedom Rally and who protested against the use of face masks and other COVID-19 restrictions died Saturday after a month-long stay in the hospital.
Calleb Wallace’s death was announced by his wife, Jessica, on their family’s GoFundMe page. “Caleb has peacefully passed on,” she wrote. “He will forever live in our hearts and minds.”
According to the San Angelo Standard Times, Caleb had been battling the virus and had been in the ICU for weeks. He had been “unconscious, ventilated, and heavily sedated” since August 8. His wife, who is pregnant with their fourth child, said that Caleb began showing symptoms of the virus on July 26. According to the family’s GoFundMe page, he had been in the hospital since July 30, Business Insider reported.
Jessica also mentioned to the Standard-Times that her husband did not want to be tested for the virus. Calleb went on treating his symptoms with unproven home remedies such as taking high doses of Vitamin C, zinc, aspirin, and Ivermectin – a medicine meant to treat animals.
The administration has been telling people not to use Ivermectin to treat COVID-19 since it is not an anti-viral medicine and may cause serious harm when taken in large doses.
Calleb Wallace was known as the founder of San Angelo Freedom Defenders and organizer of various protests “to end COVID tyranny,” according to San Angelo LIVE! and the Standard-Times. He had been very outspoken in criticizing the pandemic restrictions and other mandates. He also appeared in interviews condemning the school closures and mask policies implemented. Calleb was also the organizer of the July 4 “Freedom Rally” last year.
The deceased man’s wife said she has realized that the virus “does not discriminate.”
“I’m from the border town of Del Rio, and my views are less conservative,” she told the Standard-Times. “I’m not a liberal. I stand somewhere in the middle… Caleb would tell me, ‘You know masks aren’t going to save you,’ but he understood I wanted to wear them. It gives me comfort to know that maybe, just maybe, I’m either protecting someone or avoiding it myself.”
She also said, “whether he was a hardcore conservative or not, he was an amazing man.”
Jessica also posted an update on Saturday and told the New York Times that Calleb was scheduled for transfer to a hospice at the hospital where the family will say their final goodbyes.
The surge in COVID19 cases has severely impacted Texas, resulting in hospitals struggling to provide hospital beds for patients.
