Last week, State Sen. Garlan Gudger (R-Cullman) revealed to Alabama Daily News he had tested positive for COVID-19 earlier this month and had immediately quarantined himself after learning of his diagnosis during a meeting in the State House in Montgomery.
During an interview with Mobile radio’s FM Talk 106.5, Gudger explained how he had dealt with coronavirus, mostly free of symptoms, except lingering fatigue.
However, he also said he had a different mindset about COVID-19 than he had beforehand, and saw potential hurdles for a special session of the legislature under the current circumstances.
“I do, and it’s a great question to ask Jeff,” Gudger said when asked if it changed his view. “Beforehand, I’m a small businessman. I’m in good shape — I workout. I have not worried about getting that sick from COVID because from the numbers, again looking at the mathematics of it, it was less than one-hundredth of 1% that I would be passing away from it. And the people that did get it that I knew of were not getting sick. The first thing that happened to me was when Senator Randy Price when he got it and got put on a ventilator. It made me open my eyes a little bit more to that. During the time that I got it, my mother, when she was separated from me when I was off in Philadelphia doing some salvage work for my work, I came home, and she had it. She ended up getting double pneumonia and getting put in the hospital. She is 77 years old. It worried me. Now one of my good friends, their father, had been in good shape and on a ventilator in Birmingham.”
“It affects the people that it touches,” he continued. “And even though, a guy like myself — I feel like I’m in good shape — I was shut down for 12 days, and still feel a little fatigued. But there are people who need to be paying attention, need to be wearing masks, need to be calculated in where they go and who they’re in contact with if you have acute problems, especially with breathing and your lungs, this virus can affect you and can be deadly, period. And so, just like my mother — I am going to do everything I can to keep her in quarantine as long as I can until we know her oxygen level is up.”
“To answer your question: Did it change my mindset about this virus?” Gudger added. “Yes, it did. I was not as worried about it, to begin with. But I definitely want the people this virus can hit as a target audience, which is the elderly and anyone with acute problems with their lungs — they need to be careful.”
Later, Gudger acknowledged the need for a special session of the legislature and said he would defer to the administration at the State House to determine if legislative business could be conducted safely. He also said he was skeptical of any system that was not open to the public and did not permit full participation of the two legislative bodies could allow for the best vote possible.
@Jeff_Poor is a graduate of Auburn University and the University of South Alabama, the editor of Breitbart TV, a columnist for Mobile’s Lagniappe Weekly, and host of Mobile’s “The Jeff Poor Show” from 9 a.m.-12 p.m. on FM Talk 106.5.
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