An Austin artist is doing his part to get people to take the pandemic seriously.
Shane Reilly has placed more than 22 thousand two and a half inch square white, pink, red and orange flags in his front yard. Each one represents a Texan who passed away from Covid-19.
"I've been basically sprinkling my lawn with these flags and building a memorial as a reminder for people to wear a mask and social distance, and let them know these aren't just numbers. These are real people."
Shane's YardShake Reilly
The flags he's using are the kind that are used to mark water and electrical lines and the like. "I've been using them because you can buy them in abundance, as a representation of each person."
There is a large sign in his yard that reads "Texans lost to Covid 19," along with a number he changes often. The feedback has been kind.
"There's been a lot of thank you for doing the memorial, or that's my dad in your yard. Lots of people constantly taking pictures of it and sharing it on a daily basis."
He says his son is at risk. "He's a cardiac kid, so if he gets this there's a very high probability that he could die. Instead of saying people are getting sick with this, I wanted to put a visual reminder up that this is real because number are sort of abstract. I wanted to give give somebody something they could latch onto. So the idea was the put the flags up as a reminder that there's something you can do. This is not a hoax, this is not fake, this is not 99% OK. Real people are dying daily from it."
He says what you can do is wear a mask and social distance. The vaccines are out there but most people haven't gotten it yet and won't for awhile. "We can see the end of the tunnel but we still got a long way to go before this thing is over and there's still a lot you can do. You can keep people safe."
