The queer community has suffered its first losses, including well-known celebrities such as drag queen Mona Foot from New York or fetish activist Daniel Dumont from Belgium. Meanwhile, young designer Tarek Soliman is fighting Covid-19 and warns against underestimating the disease.

The New York drag queen Mona Foot alias Nashom Wooden was found dead at the age of 50 in New York on Monday. According to reports from friends, the perfomer died after a short, severe illness. It was assumed that it was Covid-19, but no test results have yet confirmed this.

Nashom Wooden was a bartender, performer and drag queen – in short, a legend of New York night life. It is said that it was RuPaul who introduced Nashom to drag; he shared a flat with drag legend Lady Bunny. Nashom starred alongside Robert DeNiro and Philip Seymour-Hofmann in the movie “Flawless” – one of his appearances was a perfomance at one of Cher’s clubs “Half Breed”.

Nashom last contacted his friend and designer David Dalrymple at the end of last week. Dalrymple said that Nashom claimed that he was already feeling better and that he no longer had any breathing problems. But Dalrymple suspects that his friend might not have wanted to worry him. No one had heard from the New York artist since Saturday, Dalrymple was worried, went to his apartment early on Monday and found Nashom dead.

According to the New York Times, Wooden had been HIV+ for many years, got treatment and his virus count was below detection limit. Friends report that he was taking care of his health and diet, going to the gym six times a week.

After the terrible news of his death spread on Monday, companions and friends said goodbye and shared their grief on social media. Among them were other big names of the US queer community and the New York drag scene. Project Runway designer Geoffrey Mac posted a video of him crying – saying goodbye to his best friend.

Farewell to Daniel Dumont

The leather and fetish scene also has a first prominent Corona victim to mourn. The former chairman of the ECMC (European Confederation of Motorcycle Clubs), who is active on the board of the Leather Hall of Fame, died in Brussels from Covid-19. The Belgian was admitted to hospital with severe breathing problems and put into an artificial coma from which he never woke up. Daniel Dumont died at the age of 61 years during the night to Monday.

Farewell to Richard Weber Jr

The lawyer from New Jersey worked for the queer community for years and was a member of LeGal, the New York LGBT Bar Association. He worked for free at LeGal’s free clinic every week, giving legal advice to anyone who needed it – his specialty were arrests on false assumptions. He fought for the community and was always very active, friends report.

Richard Weber Jr also died from complications related to Covid-19, leaving behind his partner Antonio and many who will need his help in the future.

Stay healthy and don’t give up!

Tarek Soliman calls for caution. The young designer, who became known to a wider audience through his creations at RuPaul’s Drag Race, warns against being careless with Covid-19. Although he did not suffer from a pre-existing condition, the disease caught him hard. He tells his story on Instagram and especially warns young people not to take it lightly.

Tarek’s odyssey began on 8 March with chills and dizzy spells. Soon fever, headache and aching limbs followed. He stayed at home for five days – hoping it would get better, since it was probably just the regular flu. He eventually dragged himself to the emergency room, where he fainted.

He lay alone in an isolated room in Mount Sinai Hospital in New York. Tests were made. Tarek talks about his hunch that nobody really knew how to help him. After 12 hours, he was finally sent home – it took four days before he got his Covid-19 test result. It was positive. Tarek reports:

“I still have the same symptoms without improvement, but I have also developed pneumonia and haemoptysis. I still can’t breathe normally. It appears the virus has spread to my lungs.”

He requests from the community:

“Be responsible and stay at home. I don’t want anyone to have to go through what I’m going through now. Stay safe.”

Meanwhile, the metropolis of New York is fastly developing into the US hot spot of the pandemic. US Vice President Mike Pence announced on Tuesday evening that 60 percent of all reports of new cases of Covid-19 in the US now come in from the New York metropolitan area. More than 30,000 infected persons have been confirmed in the state of New York so far – half of them in the city area. The WHO, however, warned that the US could become the new centre of the global pandemic.

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