Anti-mask rally organizer Caleb Wallace dies of COVID in Texas, his pregnant wife says
A 30-year-old Texas man who earlier this summer organized an anti-mask rally has died after catching COVID-19, his pregnant wife announced.
Caleb Wallace died Saturday after weeks on a ventilator at a San Angelo hospital, the San Angelo Standard Times reported. His wife, Jessica Wallace, posted the news to the family’s GoFundMe page.
“Caleb has peacefully passed on. He will forever live in our hearts and minds,” she wrote.
“He was an imperfect man but he loved his family and his little girls more than anything,” Jessica Wallace wrote in an earlier update saying he was being moved to comfort care.
Wallace was a known mask opponent and founder of the “The San Angelo Freedom Defenders,” the Huffington Post reported.
“Caleb Wallace, an organizer of the San Angelo Freedom Defenders, is leading a group to educate and empower citizens to make informed choices concerning local, statewide, and national policy,” San Angelo Live! said in an October 2020 video interview with him.
In the video, Wallace said his group was “fed up” with mandatory coronavirus precautions in what was described as “COVID-19 tyranny.” His group organized a rally to fight for “the basic rights of breathing free air, moving about freely, going into businesses without being harassed about a mask.”
In November, Wallace spoke at a San Angelo City Council briefing on the pandemic, KXAN reported.
“My health has nothing to do with you. As harsh as that sounds, but our constitutional, fundamental rights protect that. Nothing else.” Wallace said, according to the publication. “I’m sorry if that comes off as blunt and that I don’t care. I do care. I care more about freedom than I do for your personal health.”
More recently, Wallace wrote a letter to the San Angelo Independent School District published in San Angelo Live! in April.
“We are demanding that San Angelo ISD rescind ALL COVID-related policies immediately! Nothing less would be acceptable,” he said.
When he first fell ill in late July, Wallace initially refused to get tested or see a doctor because he didn’t want to be part of COVID-19 statistics, the San Angelo Standard-Times reported, so he self-treated with Ivermectin, Vitamin C, zinc aspirin and an inhaler.
Soon, he had no choice but to seek medical treatment and was hospitalized.
On Wednesday, Jessica Wallace posted a “heartbreaking update” to her Facebook.
“It’s not looking in our favor, his lungs are stiff due to the fibrosis. They called and said they’ve run out of options for him and asked if I would consent to a do not resuscitate. And it would be up to us when to stop treatments,” she wrote.
“You all have the right to feel the way you feel as Caleb once fought for his beliefs,” Jessica Wallace wrote in another GoFundMe update. “To those who wished him death, I’m sorry his views and opinions hurt you. I prayed he’d come out of this with a new perspective and more appreciation for life.”
She is expecting the couple’s fourth child in September.
This story was originally published August 29, 2021 at 12:43 PM with the headline "Anti-mask rally organizer Caleb Wallace dies of COVID in Texas, his pregnant wife says."