Chamblee City Councilmember Brian Mock contracted coronavirus earlier this month and said the disease has him “absolutely exhausted” as he recuperates at home.
Mock (photo), the council’s only openly LGBTQ member, started running a fever the day after attending a May 14 council meeting. It was the council’s first full, in-person meeting since the pandemic broke out in March, according to the AJC.
By May 16, “I felt like I had been run over by a bus,” he said. He tested positive for the virus the following day.
Mock was asymptomatic at the council meeting, was not running a fever when his temperature was checked at the door, and he wore a mask, according to the AJC. He said he’s taken the pandemic seriously and doesn’t know how he got sick.
“I’ve never washed my hands so much in my life, and I should have bought stock in hand sanitizer,” he said. “I’ve done everything right, yet I’m sick. So I don’t know what to think right now.”
The City of Chamblee took precautions at the council meeting, including monitoring attendees for symptoms, checking temperatures at the door, limiting staff attendance, spacing chairs 10 feet apart, and providing hand sanitizer and Lysol spray, according to a May 18 statement.
“We believe the protocols and precautions taken at the meeting limited potential exposure, but we take this matter very seriously and will continue to monitor,” according to the statement.
Mock, who was named Chamblee’s mayor pro-tem in January, gave an update on his condition on May 23.
“This week has been pretty bad,” he wrote on Facebook. “It’s especially bad at night, I dread seeing the sun go down. I feel like I’ve been poisoned at night. I’ve lost 11 pounds this week so far, but I don’t recommend this as a weight loss plan.”
“Wouldn’t wish this on anyone. Here’s to better days ahead,” he added.
Mock sponsored a broad LGBTQ-inclusive nondiscrimination ordinance that the Chamblee City Council passed unanimously in April 2019. In October, he led a successful effort to make Chamblee the 12th local government in Georgia to decriminalize possession of marijuana.
Read more coverage of how the coronavirus pandemic is impacting LGBTQ Atlanta.
This story is made possible through a grant from Facebook Journalism Project's COVID-19 Local News Relief Fund.
Photo by Patrick Saunders
