A NYC couple is on the front lines of the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic – and they’re doing it with a baby on the way. Dr. Rob Gore is an emergency room (ER) physician and his wife, Hibist Legesse, is a restaurant owner. While he fights to save lives and she fights to save her business, they’re both fighting for a healthy delivery in July, CNN reported.
The first-time expectant parents returned home from vacation in the Bahamas in March to a new reality in their city. With New York being America’s coronavirus epicenter, Gore, 43, is working tirelessly every day at SUNY Downstate Medical Center and Kings County Hospital Center to save COVID-19 patients.
“COVID-19, aka coronavirus, aka ‘Rona’ – what we call it in my neighborhood – it’s pretty scary. I’m not going to lie. It’s scary times,” Gore told CNN in a separate interview. “I’ve worked in disaster zones in the past. I worked in post-earthquake Haiti; I worked in South America; I worked in East Africa and this feels like it’s a culmination of all of them.”
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As a result, the couple made the difficult decision he would move out of their Brooklyn brownstone to protect Legesse and their unborn son, according to the report.
Meanwhile Legesse is doing all she can to keep her restaurant, Bati Ethiopian Kitchen, afloat. Despite offering takeout, the Addis Ababa native said they are not making enough to cover expenses. She has applied for several grants and loans for small businesses but has yet to hear back.
“We’re completely stuck, with no answers, no help. From the beginning, the government was saying, ‘Small businesses will not be left behind. They are the backbone of the economy,'” Legesse told CNN. “That positive feeling that you have is turning into fear now. As the days turn into weeks and months, you don’t know if you’re going to reopen. You don’t know what life is going to be like for your business.”
Recognized as a CNN Hero in 2018 for his Kings Against Violence Initiative (KAVI), helping people in in Gore’s DNA. A native New Yorker, he’s knows firsthand the effects poverty and other socioeconomic disadvantages can have. It’s no different with coronavirus, which is killing Black people at alarming rates, he said.
“You can take any disease process on the planet, and if you put it in a poor, underdeveloped, unsupported area, it’s going to manifest and it’s going to devastate that entire community and that’s what we’re seeing here in the United States right now,” Gore said.
He and Legesse haven’t physically embraced in weeks and he can’t touch her stomach to feel their baby kick. They’ve also had to delay nursery preparations and had to consider baby names via text messaging. With no designated ending in sight, the couple doesn’t know when they’ll be able to reside together again.
They hope it’s before their son’s arrival. Despite the challenges and uncertainty, they told CNN they will tell their son that even in times of social distancing, they stood together.
Legesse has hope that her restaurant – and her family – will be okay.
“When you’re doing something during such a challenging time, you’re not going to die from it. You’re going to come out of it strong. You’re going to figure it out. You’re going to problem solve,” Legesse said.
