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A man who died of the coronavirus in Tennessee over the weekend had served in the Marines and was the older brother of Minnesota’s lieutenant governor, Peggy Flanagan.
She shared the sad news in an Instagram post Sunday night, Fox 9 Minneapolis reported.
“To many, he’ll be a statistic: Tennessee’s second COVID-related death,” she wrote. “But to me, I’ll remember a loving, older brother, uncle, father and husband.”
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Ron Flanagan died Saturday.
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She said he was diagnosed with cancer several weeks ago and his immune system was compromised when he got the coronavirus, according to the station.
At the hospital, he was placed in a medically induced coma and put on a ventilator.
“THIS is why we must #StayHome,” Flanagan wrote. “If you feel fine, that’s great. But please consider the possibility that you’re carrying the virus and don’t know it, and then you walk past the next Ron, my big brother, in public. COVID-19 now has a personal connection to me. Please do all you can to prevent one for you.”
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Flanagan also said of her brother that he was a “tough-as-nails” Marine who was a big teddy bear on in the inside. She said their politics did not match — she is a Democrat— and that was a source of constant jokes.