Pennsylvania man loses father, son to COVID; one was vaccinated, and the other was not
His father, who had a kidney transplant, died a day before his son, who was debating whether to get the vaccine
A Pennsylvania man lost both his father and son to COVID-19 last month. The grandfather and grandson died within 36 hours of each other.
Alan Collins, Sr., died on September 28, and his grandson, Alan David Brown, Sr., died the next day.
Alan Collins, Jr., a restaurant owner in the Pittsburgh area, told CNN that his son was married with four children. The 35-year-old man was not vaccinated. “He had a lot to live for, believe me, he was a great kid. He did so much for the public,” Collins said of his son. “He’s a good man. A very, very good father.”
Brown worked at a bank, where he had recently gotten a promotion. He also ran a local Facebook group for sneakerheads.
His grandfather had been vaccinated, and had recently gotten a third shot, a booster. However, he previously had a kidney transplant, which may have weakened his immune response, Collins said of his father.
“He was a good man and he was very loved also,” Collins said of his father. “Anybody who came in contact with him loved him. I’m still getting texts from people that he worked with, and people that knew him over the years.”
The two men did not live in the same household, and Collins said it was a tragic coincidence that they got sick around the same time.
He noted that both his father and son had to be put on a ventilator after their symptoms worsened. Collins Jr. said that before his infection, his son was still debating whether or not to take one of the three COVID vaccines.
Collins added that the community in the Pittsburgh area has shown him and his family an outpouring of support in the wake of their tragic losses.
A GoFundMe has been set up by the family to support funeral costs as well as to help support Brown’s four children. The organizer of the fundraiser is the man’s mother-in-law, who wrote an update saying, “Thank you so much for your donations. Please share, wear a mask, and get vaccinated. I pray no one has to live this nightmare.”
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