Herman Cain dies after being hospitalized with Covid-19 coronavirus

Herman Cain, the previous restaurant government and 2012 Republican presidential candidate, died Thursday after being hospitalized with Covid-19.

Cain was 74, essentially the most high-profile political determine to die within the pandemic. He served for 10 years because the CEO of Godfather’s Pizza, a sequence of fast-casual eating places. He was additionally lively in politics and public coverage for a lot of his life, serving in a number of capacities on the Federal Reserve Financial institution of Kansas Metropolis and advising Bob Dole’s 1996 presidential marketing campaign, earlier than he sought the White Home himself in 2012.

In the course of the 2012 race, Cain was identified for his 9-9-9 tax plan: changing the present tax code with a 9 p.c enterprise transaction tax, a 9 p.c private revenue tax, and a 9 p.c federal gross sales tax. He briefly surged to the highest of the Republican main subject, taking a small lead over eventual nominee Mitt Romney in October 2011. However following a number of allegations of sexual harassment, Cain rapidly dropped within the polls and he suspended his marketing campaign in December earlier than voting started.

He had stayed lively in politics, enthusiastically supporting President Donald Trump. Cain attended Trump’s controversial June 20 marketing campaign rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, held over the objections of native well being officers. He examined constructive lower than two weeks after attending the rally, although it was not potential to find out the place Cain contracted Covid-19 given his journey schedule.

Nicholas Kamm/AFP by way of Getty Photos

He was admitted to an Atlanta-area hospital on July 1 and died on Thursday. Cain, who survived colon most cancers the last decade earlier than, would have been thought of at a better threat of growing extreme issues from the coronavirus because of his age and medical historical past.

“We knew when he was first hospitalized with COVID-19 that this was going to be a tough battle. He had bother respiratory and was taken to the hospital by ambulance,” Dan Calabrese, editor of HermanCain.com, wrote in a put up saying Cain’s dying. “All of us prayed that the preliminary meds they gave him would get his respiratory again to regular, however it turned clear fairly rapidly that he was in for a battle.”

Cain is certainly one of greater than 151,000 People to die to date within the Covid-19 pandemic, in keeping with the John Hopkins College coronavirus tracker. As a Black man in his 70s, he belonged to 2 teams who’re disproportionately extra susceptible to the virus.

Upon the information of his prognosis, a lot consideration was paid to the timing of Cain’s prognosis, coming so quickly after he attended Trump’s Tulsa rally (the place he didn’t at all times put on a masks). However it’s going to doubtless by no means be identified how he contracted Covid-19. Cain was nonetheless touring regularly, in keeping with his household, and coronavirus circumstances have been rising in most states, together with his native Georgia.

Consultants have mentioned that occasions like Trump’s indoor, largely maskless rally might develop into superspreading occasions. As a result of the coronavirus is airborne and folks could be infectious earlier than they present signs, the virus is especially adept at spreading undetected. As Katherine Harmon Braveness just lately wrote for Vox, analysis signifies discovered that closed-air occasions are as much as 20 occasions extra prone to trigger elevated Covid-19 infections in comparison with open-air settings, and a really small variety of individuals could also be in the end chargeable for a lot of the reported circumstances.

Tulsa well being officers have mentioned {that a} spike in native coronavirus circumstances within the days following Trump’s rally was “greater than doubtless” linked to the occasion.

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