Man who said 'coronavirus is hoax' changes mind when he's hospitalised with wife

A man who claimed coronavirus is a government hoax has changed his mind - after he and his wife were hospitalised with the disease. Bria...

A man who claimed coronavirus is a government hoax has changed his mind - after he and his wife were hospitalised with the disease.

Brian Hitchens previously said he didn't think Covid-19 was real, and stated that "God is bigger than this virus will ever be."

But just a few weeks later, Brian and his wife were both hospitalised after contracting coronavirus.

From his hospital bed, Brian, a rideshare driver from Florida, is now urging people to take the virus seriously.

He told WPTV : "I thought it was maybe the government trying something, and it was kind of like they threw it out there to kinda distract us."

Brian Hitchens speaking from hospital 

Brian took to Facebook in April to play down any concerns about the virus, which has so
far killed almost 89,000 people in the US.

“I'd get up in the morning and pray and trust in God for his protection, and I’d just leave
it at that. There were all these masks and gloves. I thought it looks like a hysteria," one post
 read.

However, Brian and his wife are now recovering from the disease at Palm Beach Gardens
 Medical Center.

"I don’t want to see anyone go through what I went through," he said.

"My wife’s on a ventilator. It’s been like that for three weeks, and it’s tough. It’s sad,” he
added.

The couple were still in hospital as of Wednesday, and are unable to see eachother. Brian
is unsure when they will be discharged.

“This wasn’t some scare tactic that anybody was using. It wasn’t some made-up thing.
This was a real virus you gotta take seriously,” Brian recently said on Facebook.

More than 44,000 coronavirus cases have been reported in Florida, along with 1,917 deaths.

It comes as US President Donald Trump set experts a target of delivering a coronavirus
vaccine by the end of the year.

Under "Operation Warp Speed", the US government will invest in leading vaccine
candidates and get ready to distribute them on a mass scale, the President announced
yesterday.

A crack team drawing from the government, military and pharmaceutical industry will
 work with other countries to find a jab that can prevent Covid-19, widely seen as the only
long-term way to bring the global pandemic under control.

At an event in the White House Rose Garden, President Trump revealed that former
 GlaxoSmithKline executive Dr Moncef Slaoui and army general Gustave Perna will
head up the operation.

Most health experts believe it will take 12 to 18 months or more to get a vaccine ready
for the public.

However Dr Slaoui, who will be the team's chief scientist, claims he is "confident" that
millions of vaccines can be delivered by the end of the year.

"I have very recently seen early data from a clinical trial with a coronavirus vaccine," he said.

"And these data made me feel even more confident that we will be able to deliver a few
 hundred million doses of vaccine by the end of 2020."

Trump then played down the importance of a vaccine.

"Vaccine or no vaccine, we're back," he added.

"We've got countries that are allies ... we have some countries, frankly, that aren't allies
where we're working very closely together.

"We have no ego. Whoever gets it, we think it's great. We're going to work with them.
They're going to work with us.

"While we accelerate the final phases of vaccine trials, Operation Warp Speed will be
 simultaneously accelerating its manufacturing and manufacturing process.

"In other words, we're getting ready so that when we get the good word - that we have
the vaccine, we have the formula, we have what we need - we're ready to go."