Diner owner who kept restaurant open amid shutdown dies of coronavirus

The restaurant owner felt pressured to stay open to pay for his wife’s cancer treatments

A diner owner who kept his Michigan restaurant open despite coronavirus shutdown orders in order to pay for his wife’s cancer treatments has died after a two month battle with Covid-19.

John Parney Sr, 62, died on 14 December, according to MLive. He was the owner of the Quincy Diner in the village of Quincy.

According to previous statements by Mr Parney, he was struggling to pay for his wife's cancer treatments and wanted to continue to keep his workers employed, so he kept the restaurant open.

“My wife’s fighting stage-four colon cancer,” Mr Pareny said in December 2020. “We depend on this restaurant to help subsidize billing and all of that. My employees need that. Of course, if I’d have stayed closed much longer, I’d have lost the business.”

In some countries, Ms Parney's medical costs would have been covered through state-funded healthcare, but high costs of private treatment in the US appear to have put a financial strain on Mr Parney, forcing him to make the difficult decision of closing up shop or continuing to work in violation of the state's orders.

Ms Parney is still fighting the cancer and reportedly is doing well.

Mr Parney was unvaccinated before he became ill, but a GoFundMe post helping to raise money to pay for the family's medical bills noted that he planned to take the shot after he was released from the hospital.

In the post, Mr Parney said that his experience with the virus was worst than the toughest training he had undertaken during his time as a US Marine.

Mr Parney also had a second job working full time at the FireKeepers Casino and Hotel.

The family is now seeking to raise money both to cover their travel expenses to and from the hospital where they visited Mr Parney, but also for their mother's continued cancer treatments.

As of 22 December, the fundraising campaign has raised $22,480 of its $25,000 goal.

The family plans on hosting another fundraiser on 11 January at a local Pizza Hut, where 10 per cent of the sales between the hours of 4pm and 8pm will go to the family.

Mr Parney's death comes just as the Omicron variant of the virus becomes the dominant strain in the US. Though the virus produces milder symptoms than the Delta variant, it is much more transmissible.

Health experts expect the omicron strain to peak sometime in January, and warn that it is likely to infect 60 per cent of all Americans. Most of those infections will be asymptomatic, and for the vaccinated the symptoms are unlikely to be serious or life threatening.

However, unvaccinated individuals, especially if they are elderly or otherwise immunocompromised, are still susceptible to the worst of Covid-19 symptoms, including death.