Tool vocalist Maynard James Keenan originally contracted COVID-19 in February 2020 and was still battling it in October. Unfortunately Keenan has revealed in an interview with Strombo on Apple Music Hits (via Billboard) that he contracted a second case of COVID-19 in November and was admitted to the ER in December.
Keenan said the second case was much worse than the first and that he had a lot of trouble breathing.
"Ugly, ugly. Couldn't breathe," he said. "I could barely put two words together without going into a coughing fit that, you know? It ended up kind of also progressing into pneumonia. So, if I stayed in the hospital, they said, ‘Okay, we can keep you here, but you're fighting 12 other people for a bed and a ventilator we don't have, so what do you want to do?’ I'm like, ‘Well, I need to breathe and I need to sleep.’"
"So, you're just treating symptoms at that point. There's nothing you can do other than treat the symptom, so for a real cough medicine, not the crap over-the-counter and then like an inhaler, and some antibiotics to fight the pneumonia and strap the fuck in."
Here's hoping Keenan makes a full recovery, especially considering he's now had COVID-19 pretty bad twice. In an interview back in October, Keenan revealed he was still suffering from coughing fits regularly.
When asked if he was feeling alright then, Maynard responded "Well no. I still have the cough. Every other day, I have these coughing fits because my lungs are still damaged at the tips. And I just got over the inflammation that was going on with my wrist and hands. I had an autoimmune attack on my system in the form of, like, a rheumatoid arthritis. Basically, from what I understand, it attacks weird spots and it's random. So that's what I got. That was my prize."
