By the time Mark Korin leaves the hospital, he will have lost 40 pounds and spent nearly two months battling COVID-19. And he still has a long recovery ahead.
The former Oak Grove mayor, chair of the Senate District 31 Republican Party and Trump supporter had refused the COVID-19 vaccine, believing he did not need it. Korin said he took zinc, Vitamin D, and Vitamin C supplements to boost his immune system, declining an opportunity to get vaccinated at a Walgreens in July when he was there to pick up some medications.
“You're talking to a guy who should be dead," Korin, 64, said in a Reformer interview from his hospital room, with his wife, Deb, present.
He first experienced shortness of breath and a cough on July 29. Within days, his oxygen saturation level had dipped to 78%, far below the 95% or higher expected in someone healthy. He was admitted to the hospital on Aug. 7, and about 10 days later he was placed on a ventilator, worrying he might die while he was intubated. He spent seven days on the ventilator, and has so far spent 44 days at Mercy Hospital in Coon Rapids.
“I always believed, it's just another virus," he said. “I was wrong. I will be the first to admit: If I had taken the vaccine, I believe that I may have gotten sick, I probably wouldn't be in the hospital. If I was in the hospital, I probably wouldn't be on the ventilator."...
