MIAMI — The unforeseen demise March 2 of former Obama administration formal Patrick Hidalgo, who was 41, shocked loved ones and pals and reverberated nationally amongst those people who realized Hidalgo, a longtime Cuban American Democratic political organizer.

About seven months later on, Hidalgo’s family suggests they have answers to what they suspected — that the or else nutritious Hidalgo did not die of hypertensive coronary heart ailment, as the Florida autopsy report mentioned — but that his lungs confirmed problems associated with Covid-19.

Patrick Hidalgo (Obama White Home Archives)

The family is slamming Florida’s well being authorities for refusing to examination Hidalgo’s stays for the coronavirus inspite of their numerous requests. In its place, the relatives claimed they organized for an out-of-state autopsy session at Columbia University in New York, where pathologists stated the type of lung injury Hidalgo showed was “suggestive of, and constant with early lung involvement of Sars-Cov-2,” the virus that results in Covid-19.

Hidalgo’s brother, Manny Hidalgo, launched the Columbia University report in a letter in which the family explained they are requesting “truthful solutions” from the county about the refusal by the Medical Examiner’s Place of work to check Hidalgo for the coronavirus, as properly as “evasiveness that led to further suffering inflicted on our family members.”

“By not telling us the truth that the autopsy revealed an evident lung harm, Miami-Dade exacerbated our family’s hardship,” Hidalgo stated in the letter.

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In a Facebook post Sunday, Hidalgo wrote: “The only motive Miami wouldn’t examination for Covid-19 is since of political pressure from FL’s incompetent governor who has been complicit in Trump’s marketing campaign to obfuscate the consequences of this virus from the minute he was educated of its existence.”

Florida to start with announced two instances of the coronavirus on March 1, the day prior to Patrick Hidalgo died. But even though Gov. Ron DeSantis was stating in mid-March that there was no indication of group spread, a report by The Miami Herald identified that by mid-February, “prime Florida health and fitness officers were being scrambling to come up with a plan for a disaster they realized was on them,” monitoring hundreds of individuals, “much a lot more than everyone outside the house point out governing administration knew at the time.”

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In a cell phone job interview, Manny Hidalgo claimed that DeSantis’ actions adopted the lead of Trump administration officials, who “have been seeking to downplay the effects of this virus from working day one,” and that President Donald Trump “has carried out all the things to hinder, to obfuscate, to downplay, to go over up, to make it a nonissue, when it can be clearly the difficulty.”

Fred Piccolo, director of communications for Gov. DeSantis’ business office, explained in an emailed assertion to NBC News: “At no time was political strain introduced to bear on the Health care Examiner or everyone else in this circumstance.” Piccolo said that medical examiners’ workplaces are paid by the counties. “We collectively grieve every Floridian who lost his or her lifetime for whatsoever cause. And the Governor understands that all persons grieve otherwise. But the accusations made by the family of Mr. Hidalgo are unequivocally fake.”

The Miami-Dade Health care Examiner’s place of work stands by their summary and in a assertion to NBC Information on Tuesday they explained, “in the course of autopsy, we totally inspected Mr. Hildalgo’s whole physique. We also took tissue samples from the heart and lungs and inspected them below a microscope. Weighing proof from all areas of our assessment, we identified that Hypertensive Coronary heart Illness was his result in of death.”

Patrick Hidalgo, a cousin of Miami Mayor Francis Suarez, was Barack Obama’s Hispanic vote director in Florida during the 2008 presidential election. He went on to operate at the Condition Office and afterwards as director of business engagement at the White Household.

He also served as an adviser throughout the Obama administration’s historic opening of relations with Cuba, the region his mom and dad fled in the early 1960s. Hidalgo had been operating with the Miami Independence Job, a progressive group he co-launched to produce a place for Miamians to voice progressive values.

Ana Sofía Peláez, who established the business with Hidalgo, reported she is “even now attempting to recognize how his dying was even doable. It could have been prevented, like so quite a few other individuals. This can make it all the more unpleasant,” she explained. She recalled Hidalgo as a particular person who led with “amazing quantities of empathy and pleasure.”

Manny Hidalgo mentioned his brother instructed him on March 1, the working day right before he died, that he had awakened gasping for air and failed to feel effectively. Because it was suitable prior to Super Tuesday, the brothers talked over no matter whether it could be worry-associated. Manny Hidalgo instructed his brother to meditate and stroll on the beach. The following working day, Patrick Hidalgo was dead.

Nancy Santiago Negrón, a fellow former Obama administration official, stated Hidalgo’s bring about of demise “rattled me at my core.”

Santiago Negrón shed a brother in 2009 at age 29 to the H1N1 virus. “Back again then, we knew extremely minor about the probably fatal virus and how to stop its unfold,” claimed Santiago Negrón, a co-founder of the PowerUp Fund, designed to give grants to Latino-owned enterprises throughout Covid. “But it is 2020. We know better. And this administration understood about the risks back again in January.”

She mentioned she believes Hidalgo would nevertheless be all around “had the administration been clear, experienced they shared this details when they knew.”

“There is no question in my brain that Patrick would have taken the essential precautions to defend himself and other folks,” she reported.

Manny Hidalgo stated that when the responses to what Hidalgo died from carry some closure, they also raise much more troubling queries.

“It would make me anxious as to how numerous other folks have died from Covid-19 that we will not know about. The 225,000 determine is possibly an undercount by a great deal,” he claimed. “I ponder if possibly what we know about Covid and its impact is just the tip of the iceberg.”

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