Man who lost father to COVID-19 urges public to honour ‘social contract’

As parts of Canada grapple with whether masks should be made mandatory, a Regina man who lost his father to COVID-19 in April says people have an obligation to protect each other.

Paul Gullacher’s father Noble — who was better known as Butch — was the province’s fourth death during the pandemic, after he suffered complications from the illness.

In interviews with Brent Loucks and Greg Morgan this week, Paul Gullacher says a social contract exists for Canadians to do the best thing for society at large.

Considering that wearing masks and social distancing have proven to be the two most effective ways to contain the spread of the novel coronavirus, he said people should do both.

“The only protection we have is social distancing and masks. Those are the only two proven ways to prevent transmission of the virus,” Gullacher said.

“And if we can all participate in that social contract, we can — if not eliminate — reduce the incidence of infection to the point where no one else has to go through these kinds of tragedies or survive with the long-lasting repercussions.”

After Butch got sick, so did Paul and the members of his family. All of them experienced different symptoms.

Gullacher’s wife lost her senses of taste and smell for about 10 days. His son had symptoms including a persistent cough and red eyes, although his symptoms were short-lived. Gullacher’s daughter had a mild fever.

“Her fever never exceeded 100 degrees. It was never all that serious. She was eating normal (and) she had normal energy. You’d have thought she was a healthy kid if you hadn’t taken her temperature,” he said.

Paul’s mother, Kathleen, never showed symptoms serious enough to warrant a test, he said.

“For those who know her, she’s tough as nails. She has persevered and has been a real rock for the family,” he said.

Even though Gullacher has recovered from his bout with COVID-19, some effects are still lingering.

“I’m running around with the kids and I’m able to live an almost-normal kind of life as I remember it, but I find myself short of breath all the time,” he said. “Walking four or five steps in our house, talking for long periods of time, I find myself short of breath frequently.”

He also is donating plasma for a therapy that the Mayo Clinic has found to have reduced the death rate among hospitalized patients.

“Those antibodies can give that patient the time that they need to mount their immune response and hopefully recover,” he said.

Asked how he thinks Canada has handled the pandemic so far, Gullacher said there’s room for improvement.

“I think that the lockdown in March was very wise,” he said. “To date in Canada, we’ve had almost 9,000 (deaths), which is crazy to think. That would be like 40 fully loaded 737s crashing.

“I think it could be better, but I think we’re doing OK.”