In COVID's Grasp
Statistics Miss Victim's Stories - Like Thom Parrotti's
By MICHAEL FORSTER ROTHBART • Special to www.AllOTSEGO.com
Alicia Chase wants you to know about her best friend, a man she calls her “work husband” after the years they spent employed together at Bassett Hospital.
Thomas Parrotti worked as an interpreter and manager at the hospital for nearly 20 years. One month ago, he was enjoying semi-retirement, raising goats with his husband Brett Miller on their small farm in Hamden – 38 acres of hilltop woods and pasture.
Parrotti ran his own interpreting business and judged dog competitions until COVID put a hold on both. Lately he’d been employed part-time as a coronavirus contact tracer for the state of New York.
This month he returned to Bassett – as a patient critically ill from COVID-19.
Thom Parrotti spent January as many of us did, working from home, watching the news, commenting about it on Facebook. “Stop being Democratic or Republican. Be honest, have
morals, show empathy, value, integrity. Be a GOOD HUMAN,” he posted on Jan. 21.