Elizabeth Warren Says Her Brother’s Coronavirus Death “Didn’t Have to Happen”

“I kept thinking about whether he was cold.”

Sen. Elizabeth Warren speaks during a primary night rally, at Eastern Market in Detroit, March 3, 2020. Patrick Semansky/AP

The coronavirus is a rapidly developing news story, so some of the content in this article might be out of date. Check out our most recent coverage of the coronavirus crisis, and subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily newsletter.

There’s a particularly cruel aspect of the coronavirus pandemic. Patients have suffered, and often died, alone. Their families, meanwhile, have had to grieve in isolation. That reality was underscored by Sen, Elizabeth Warren, who discussed her older brother Donald Reed Herring’s death from COVID-19 with the Atlantic’s Edward-Isaac Dovere.

“It just feels like something that didn’t have to happen,” Warren says. She remembers losing her parents and a beloved aunt in a relatively short span of time years ago, but notes how different this loss feels—and how alone her brother must have been:

And so a little while later I called back, and then I got the news that he had been taken to an emergency room. In any other state of the world, I would have been there with him. We all would have been there with him. And instead he was by himself. I just kept imagining what’s happening to him. Is he afraid? Is he cold? I kept thinking about whether he was cold. There’s no one there to talk to him while he waits for the doctor. There’s no one there to be with him while he receives the news.

“And all I could do would be talk by phone with my brothers,” she adds. “It’s not the same. You need to touch people. We have to hug; we have to be with each other.”

The coronavirus has transformed the grieving process all over the world. Support systems and traditions that have long been the pillars of grief—funerals or memorial services, for example—have broken down in the age of social distancing. Sure, some people have tried. More than 200 people gathered at a funeral in Albany, Georgia, in February. That event was later identified by researchers as a “super spreading event.” By early April, more than 500 people in the county had tested positive for the coronavirus. In late April, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio broke up a large funeral gathering for a rabbi who had died of the disease.

Given the disastrous federal response to the outbreak, Warren—who’s in the running to become Joe Biden’s vice presidential nominee—is in a unique position. Her personal tragedy is one being shared by millions of potential voters, putting her in a position to maybe, possibly do something.

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate