Virginia Sherwood/NBC(NEW YORK) — Ice-T is hoping to convince more followers to mask up and take COVID-19 seriously after his father-in-law, 63-year-old Steve Austin, battled the infectious virus and is now permanently on oxygen.
The Law & Order: SVU star revealed on Twitter that Austin was among the crowd of people who believed the fallacy that masks provide no protection against COVID-19.
“My father-in-law ‘Coco’s dad’ was a serious ‘No Masker’ COVID hit him,” Ice-T explained on Sunday. “Pneumonia in both lungs.. 40 days in ICU close to death.. Now he’s on Oxygen indefinitely.”
The actor also attested that the virus has made Austin “a Believer now” and warned fans via the hashtag, “#COVIDisNotAGame.”
He added in a followup tweet that Austin was “close to death” and slammed those who thought his father-in-law’s health ordeal was made up for attention.
T’s wife, Coco, first alerted fans about her father’s diagnosis over the summer, explaining via Instagram that he was in the ICU after he “developed Covid pneumonia in both lungs, and from there couldn’t breathe and needed to be put on [an] oxygen machine.”
Coco elaborated in a subsequent August update that her father’s lungs were severely damaged by COVID-19 and that he had lost 30 pounds during his month-long hospitalization.
“He said being in the hospital for a month was like jail.. No windows No visitors and laying in one spot and not being able to walk around was getting to him,” she described. “He also adds you could hear people moan in pain during the night.”
As for why Coco, in tandem with Ice-T, provided an unflinching look at Austin’s COVID-battle, they hope to convince more people that the virus is not a hoax.
By Megan Stone
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