Coronavirus Australia: Family of Ray Daniels warn COVID-19 can infect anyone

The family of a Perth grandfather were forced to make an awful choice when he was hospitalised after contracting the deadly coronavirus.

The family of a man who contracted coronavirus on a cruise ship has had to make a heartbreaking decision about who would get to say goodbye to him before he died.

On the long list of devastating effects COVID-19 has on the people it infects and the society they live in, one of the harsher realities of the disease is that its highly infectious nature means many families are robbed of saying a proper goodbye to their loved ones.

The family of Ray Daniels are among those who now know this all too well.

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Ray Daniels died in a Perth hospital last week.

The 73-year-old Perth grandfather is believed to have contracted the virus on the Celebrity Solstice cruise ship in mid-March.

He had no symptoms when the ship docked in Sydney on March 20, and flew back to Perth with his wife Elaine.

Within days he had become unwell, and was admitted to hospital after vomiting and collapsing at home.

His family told ABC’s 7.30 program it was a shock how quickly he’d been brought down by the disease after departing the cruise ship.

“The world's changed in the time that he's been away, but we didn't think we'd get to where we got to,” Ray’s son John told the program.

He said the fact that his dad had been on a cruise was worrying but that his father was previously in good health.

“I don't remember my dad ever being in hospital. He's a really fit guy. He played golf three times a week, walked, never ever drove a cart. Took his dog out twice a day. Gardened,” John said.

“To me he was bulletproof. He was never going to be affected. He was going to live forever."

John was admitted to Joondalup Health Campus and looked to be on the mend.

“He'd been moved out of emergency onto a ward and obviously he still wasn't well, but certainly we didn't feel he was critical at that point," his daughter Nicola said.

But a day later the situation had changed dramatically.

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Ray Daniels arrived back into Australia with his wife on the Celebrity Solstice cruise ship on March 20 Picture: Toby Zerna

The family received a call from a doctor while they were at the hospital for their mother to get tested to say that Ray had become critical.

It was then they were told of the gut-wrenching decision they would be forced to make.

Only one person would be allowed to go into the intensive care unit to see Ray.

It was decided John would go in to the ward.

He said he put on all the gowns and gloves and masks before going in to see his father, but he didn’t recognise the man in his father’s hospital bed.

"It could have been anyone, to be honest," he said.

John used his experience as a police officer to deal with the stressful situation.

"I was just trying to take in what the doctor was telling me," he said.

"What he was telling me was, my dad's dying in front of me. That's going to stay with me for a long time. That was tough.”

John and Nicola told their story as a way to remember their father as more than a statistic, but also to warn others how serious the virus can be.

"If it does change people's behaviour, then it's a bit of a legacy for dad," John said.

"We were the last people on Earth we thought would be affected by this. Unfortunately, here we are."

Ray Daniels is one of 20 Australians who have lost their lives after contracting coronavirus, as of Wednesday morning, a quarter of which have been from the same nursing home in Sydney’s north west.