A Kansas man criticized people who refused to wear masks in public in his father’s obituary after his father died of COVID-19.
Courtney Farr wrote the obituary after his father died of the virus on Tuesday at the age of 81, The Kansas City Star reported. Farr wrote that his father “died in a world where many of his fellow Americans refuse to wear a piece of cloth on their face to protect one another.”
Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly (D) issued two statewide mask mandates since the pandemic began, and the most recent one went into effect on Nov. 25. Most counties opted out of her earlier order in July.
Farr wrote that his father’s last days “were harder, scarier and lonelier than necessary,” according to The Kansas City Star.
“He died in a room not on his own, being cared for by people dressed in confusing and frightening ways,” Farr wrote. “He was not surrounded by his friends, and family.”
Farr painted his father, who was a veterinarian, as a “man of the community” and one fascinated by science, according to the newspaper.
“He would look after those who had harmed him the deepest, a sentiment echoed by healthcare workers struggling to do their jobs as their own communities turn against them or make their jobs harder,” the obituary read.
Farr said in a Facebook post that he spent the past few months hearing people claim that the virus wasn’t real and that masks don’t work, according to the newspaper.
“Because of the prevalence of those attitudes, my father’s death was so much harder on him, his family and his caregivers than it should have been,” he wrote.
The scathing critique comes as the Kansas Department of Health reported 162,061 cumulative COVID-19 cases and 1,679 deaths.
A report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last month said that masks not only protect the general public from COVID-19 but also protect mask wearers.