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Thousands of people are leaving Hong Kong

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Thousands of people are leaving Hong Kong

Residents of Hong Kong are leaving the city in droves in 2022 — not because they want to, several told CNBC, but because Covid restrictions and what they see as an erosion of democratic norms are pushing them to leave.

A surge in departures is accelerating a “brain drain” of professional talent — a situation which hit fever pitch around March, as omicron-driven Covid cases skyrocketed across the city.

Now Hong Kong’s ever-chipper lifestyle websites, once dominated by articles about the city’s best dim sum and foot massages parlors, are focusing on moving to-do lists and farewell gift guides.

The office of Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but Lam said on April 26 that the government’s Covid rules balance health and economic interests with public tolerance levels.

Hong Kong continues to safeguard “human rights and freedoms” but that “one has to observe the law in exercising freedom,” she said.

On the subject of people leaving Hong Kong, Lam said it’s their “individual freedom to enter and to exit.”

Lockdown and quarantine policies coupled with a merry-go-round of school closures caused many expatriates to return home — to the United States, United Kingdom, Australia and other countries — for good, said Kutt.

But deeply entrenched locals are leaving too, she said.

Hong Kong-born Kam Lun Yeung said his family is moving to Sydney, where he lived as a child.

“We do consider [Hong Kong] home, and it is difficult leaving especially considering how much we have invested emotionally in the city,” he said.  However, “the 2019 protests to the current pandemic situation and seeing friends leaving already … made our decision a little bit easier.”

Lisa Terauchi grew up in Hong Kong, but left just shy of her 45th birthday, after her husband lost his job as a captain with Cathay Dragon, a Hong Kong-based airline that shuttered operations in late 2020. She and her family moved to the Netherlands, where her husband is from.

Hong Kong “was no longer the country I had grown up in, it was no longer the country I remembered,” she said.

For the past 60 years, Hong Kong’s population has grown nearly every year, from some 3.2 million people in 1961 to 7.5 million in 2019, according to Hong Kong’s Census and Statistics Department.

From 2015 to 2019, the city gained an average of 53,000 new residents per year. Yet that is roughly the same number of people who departed Hong Kong during the first two weeks of March alone, according to the city’s Immigration Department. 

Hong Kong lost some 93,000 residents in 2020, followed by another 23,000 in 2021. But early estimates show this year will see far more people go.    

“In the last couple of years people have thought about leaving, but in the last six months there’s been an absolute mass exodus,” said Pei C., who has lived in Hong Kong for 17 years. She asked to be identified with her last initial because of sensitivities surrounding the topic in Hong Kong.

The trigger, she said — one echoed by numerous people who spoke to CNBC for this story — was the highly-publicized policy that separated Covid-positive children from their parents earlier this year.

“A lot of parents, understandably, freaked out, so they booked themselves on the first flights out,” she said.

Pei estimates that 60-70% of her friends have left in the past six to 12 months, which includes people with businesses and family in Hong Kong as well as those who were once deeply committed to staying.

Most people leaving, said Pei, are headed to same place: Singapore. 

“Everyone’s going to Singapore,” said Pei, especially those working in finance, law and recruitment, she said.

Kay Kutt, CEO of the Hong-Kong based relocation company Silk Relo, agreed, saying people are attracted to the ease of business, family friendliness, tax incentives and open borders of Singapore.

In its 40-year existence, the past three years have been the busiest years on record for Silk Relo’s sister moving company, Asian Tigers, she said.

“We cannot keep up with the capacity,” she said. “We don’t have enough people to serve what’s going on in the marketplace.”   

Families are transferring to Singapore, she said, but small- and medium-sized businesses are also on the move. Whereas one company executive might have left in the past, now “they’re all going,” she said. Small companies are “taking the entire team and putting them into Singapore.”

Large companies are also relocating to Singapore, said Cynthia Ang, an executive director at the recruitment firm Kerry Consulting. She cited L’Oreal, Moet Hennessy and VF Corporation — the latter which owns brands such as Timberland and North Face — as examples, while noting there are more who haven’t made their decisions public yet.  

“We get more calls from our clients who are … sharing with us that they’re going to move the entire Asia Pacific office into Singapore,” she said.

Other companies are staying in Hong Kong, but downsizing their offices, and moving regional headquarters to Singapore, said Ang.

Australian Krystle Edwards said she’s lived in Hong Kong for 12 years and wants to stay, but she and her husband are going to decide whether to leave by September.

“If the situation looks like 2023 is going to be more of the same in Hong Kong — hotel quarantine restrictions, all that sort of stuff — we’re moving to Singapore,” she said.

“It gets to a point where it’s just too much.”

“A teacher should be armed?” – NRA’s reckless

Eugene Lee
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“A teacher should be armed?” – NRA’s reckless

NRA event held after Texas massacre… 500 people protest

My heart aches for the shooting, but ‘you can’t blame the gun’

Politico claims “left-wing script to push for mental illness and gun control”

The National Rifle Association (NRA) annual convention event, which opened in Houston, Texas on the 27th, symbolically revealed the sharply divided ‘two Americas’ over gun control.

According to AFP and Reuters, about 500 protesters gathered outside the venue that day and held up signs that read ‘Your hands are bloody’ and shouted, “Stop the NRA,” and “It could have been your children,” and condemned the NRA. .

The NRA is one of the largest firearms lobbying organizations in the United States.

Protesters took to the streets calling for stricter gun control measures after a massacre that took the lives of 19 children and two teachers at Rob Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas on the 24th.

The protesters especially condemned the NRA event after only three days had passed since the disaster.

But gun proponents at the event insisted on increasing gun ownership.

Keith Jeren, 68, wearing a plaid shirt reminiscent of a military uniform and a Trump hat, said she was heartbroken by the shooting, but said, “You can’t blame the gun.”

“There have always been guns in this country,” said Jeren, who owns more than 50 personal firearms.

The NRA held the event just 440 kilometers from the elementary school where the shooting took place.

Among the firearms displayed in the exhibition hall was an AR-15 rifle used by shooter Salvador Ramos (18).

Some Americans argue that guns are a means of self-defense and a constitutional right.

“Any effort to take guns out of American hands will fail,” said Rick Gaman, 51, a retired law enforcement agent.

The lack of progress on gun control in the United States is because they have been fiercely opposed to restrictions on gun possession under the Second Amendment.

It is said that the NRA is behind them. As with the 1999 shooting at Columbine High School in Colorado, which killed 13 people, the NRA was again at the center of the anti-regulatory voice.

The NRA gathered powerful politicians, including former President Donald Trump, to show off their support.

According to the American political media Politico, there are even baseless conspiracy theories floating around at the NRA event.

“At the NRA event, many people claimed that the primary school shooting was caused by the gun, not the gun, but by mental illness or a left-wing script to push gun control,” Politico said.

“Republicans and gun lobby groups have again called for more money to be spent on school security and mental health (rather than gun control),” the report said.

<By Eugene Lee>

Texas School Shooter’s Dad ‘He Should’ve Just Killed Me’

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Texas School Shooter’s Dad ‘He Should’ve Just Killed Me’

The father of the 18-year-old gunman who killed 21 people at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, this week wants the world to know he is sorry.

In an interview with The Daily Beast on Thursday, Salvador Ramos said, “I just want the people to know I’m sorry man, [for] what my son did.”

“I never expected my son to do something like that,” Ramos, 42, added. “He should’ve just killed me, you know, instead of doing something like that to someone.”

He said his son had a girlfriend in San Antonio, whom he and his family had been to visit, but he did not comment further on the teenager’s social life, which classmates said had rapidly been declining.

He added that he was speaking out because “I want my son’s story out there.”

“I don’t want them calling him a monster… they don’t know nothing, man,” he said. “They don’t know anything he was going through.”

His son, also called Salvador, shot his grandmother in the face on Tuesday and drove away with her car, before running the truck into a ditch outside Robb Elementary and opening fire on a fourth-grade classroom. The teenager—whose attack has claimed the lives of at least 19 young children and two adults—was killed at the scene.

It was the deadliest school shooting in the U.S. in nearly a decade.

Ramos said he was at work the day of the shooting, and only learned of it when his own mother called to tell him. In a panic, he started calling the local jail, asking them if his son was there.

Eventually the realization sunk in.

“They killed my baby man,” he said.

He added: “I’m never gonna see my son again, just like they’re not gonna see their kids. And that hurts me.”

The Daily Beast spoke with Ramos on the porch of his girlfriend’s home east of Uvalde, where he has been living for several years. The house and the bushes outside were adorned with blue and white streamers for a graduating senior. At times, the tough-spoken Texan broke into tears.

The details of his son’s attack were horrifying: According to authorities, he purchased two rifles and 375 rounds of ammunition in the leadup to the massacre, and barricaded himself inside the classroom for over an hour. One student recalled him telling the children in the classroom: “It’s time to die.”

Despite the horrific slaughter he carried out Tuesday, Ramos insisted that his son was “a good person” who “stuck to himself.” He claimed to have no idea why his son became so violent, or why he chose to target the school.

But he said he did notice one change in his son in recent months: a pair of boxing gloves he’d purchased and started testing out at a local park. “I said, ‘Mijo, one day somebody’s going to kick your ass,’” Ramos recalled. “I started seeing different changes in him like that.”

The younger Ramos reportedly had a poor relationship with his mother and had dropped out of high school ahead of his graduation this year. His father admitted he had not spent much time with him lately because he was employed outside Uvalde—he digs holes around utility poles for inspection—and because of the pandemic.

His own mother was suffering from cancer, Ramos said, and he could not risk being exposed to the coronavirus. He added that his son grew frustrated with the COVID precautions about a month ago and refused to speak to him. Ramos has not seen him since.

“My mom tells me he probably would have shot me too, because he would always say I didn’t love him,” he told The Daily Beast.

Ramos also faulted the boy’s mother, Adriana Reyes, for not buying him more school supplies and clothes. He said his son was bullied at school for wearing the same high-water jeans every day, and that this was the reason he ultimately dropped out. Attempts to reach Reyes for comment this week were unsuccessful.

Former classmates and families confirmed that the younger Ramos had been bullied in middle school for a speech impediment. But some former co-workers and others who knew him said Ramos had an aggressive streak, and his internet history pointed to someone all too happy to descend into twisted boasting about guns and mass bloodshed.

A high school classmate told the Washington Post she had seen Ramos engage in multiple fist fights, and a former co-worker told The Daily Beast he was inclined toward harassing women he worked with.

“I don’t think he was necessarily bullied,” the classmate, Nadia Reyes, told the paper. “He would take things too far, say something that shouldn’t be said, and then he would go into defense mode about it.”

For his own part, the father has a lengthy criminal record which includes at least one conviction for assault and causing bodily injury to a family member. He said he was currently estranged from his daughter—the gunman’s sister—who he said was also upset with him for not spending enough time with the family.

The sister, 21, joined the Navy and is no longer living at home.

“My daughter, I guess, changed her life, she went to the Navy,” he said. “I wish my son would have gone and changed his life.”

Ramos said his son frequently complained about his maternal grandmother, who was in the hospital recovering from her injuries this week. He said he offered to let his son move in with his own parents, but that the teenager declined, citing the lack of WiFi. (The teenager’s final dispute with his maternal grandmother before he shot her was reportedly about his phone bill.)

China, Russia veto U.S. push for more U.N. sanctions on N. Korea

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China, Russia veto U.S. push for more U.N. sanctions on N. Korea

 China and Russia vetoed on Thursday a U.S.-led push to impose more United Nations sanctions on North Korea over its renewed ballistic missile launches, publicly splitting the U.N. Security Council for the first time since it started punishing Pyongyang in 2006, reported by Reuters.

The remaining 13 council members all voted in favor of the U.S.-drafted resolution that proposed banning tobacco and oil exports to North Korea, whose leader Kim Jong Un is a chain smoker. It would also have blacklisted the Lazarus hacking group, which the United States says is tied to North Korea.

China’s U.N. Ambassador Zhang Jun said that additional sanctions against North Korea would not help and would only lead to more “negative effects and escalation of confrontation.”

“The situation on the Peninsula has developed to what it is today thanks primarily to the flip flop U.S. policies and failure to uphold the results of previous dialogues,” he told the council.

China has been urging the United States to take action – including lifting some unilateral sanctions – to entice Pyongyang to resume talks stalled since 2019, after three failed summits between Kim and then-U.S. President Donald Trump. The United States has said Pyongyang should not be rewarded.

The U.N. General Assembly will now discuss North Korea in the next two weeks under a new rule requiring the 193-member body to meet every time a veto is cast in the Security Council by one of the five permanent members – Russia, China, the United States, France and Britain.

The vote came a day after North Korea fired three missiles, including one thought to be its largest intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), following U.S. President Joe Biden’s trip to Asia. It was the latest in a string of ballistic missile launches this year, which are banned by the Security Council.

U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Linda Thomas-Greenfield described the vote as a “disappointing day” for the council.

“The world faces a clear and present danger from the DPRK (North Korea),” she told the council. “Council restraint and silence has not eliminated or even reduced the threat. If anything, DPRK has been emboldened.”

She said Washington had assessed that North Korea had carried out six ICBM launches this year and was “actively preparing to conduct a nuclear test.”

Over the past 16 years the Security Council has steadily, and unanimously, stepped up sanctions to cut off funding for Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs. It last tightened sanctions on Pyongyang in 2017.

Since then China and Russia have been pushing for an easing of sanctions on humanitarian grounds. While they have delayed some action behind closed doors in the Security Council’s North Korea sanctions committee, the vote on the resolution on Thursday was the first time they have publicly broken unanimity.

“The introduction of new sanctions against the DPRK (North Korea) is a path to a dead end,” Russia’s U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia told the council. “We have stressed the ineffectiveness and the inhumanity of further strengthening the sanctions pressure on Pyongyang.”

‘Good night’: Uvalde school shooting survivors describe gunman’s words

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‘Good night’: Uvalde school shooting survivors describe gunman’s words

Survivors of the Texas elementary school shooting are recounting the gunman’s eerie final words of “Good night” and “You’re all gonna die” before opening fire, and how some played dead to be spared in the spray of bullets.

Samuel Salinas, 10, was a student in teacher Irma Garcia’s class on Tuesday when the school shooting unfolded.

“It was a normal day until my teacher said we’re on severe lockdown” and “then there was shooting in the windows,” he said in an interview on ABC’s “Good Morning America” Friday.

He said that the gunman barged into the classroom, announced, “You’re all gonna die,” and then started to shoot. 

“He shot the teacher and then he shot the kids,” Samuel said. 

He explained that he survived by playing dead after he got hit in the leg with shrapnel that hit a chair between him and the shooter.

“I think he was aiming at me,” Samuel said. “I played dead so he wouldn’t shoot me.”

When police finally entered the room and shot the gunman, the kids were evacuated. In the rushed exit, Samuel saw the bodies of his teacher and other pupils.

“There was blood on the ground,” he said. “And there were kids … full of blood.” 

Fourth grade student Miah Cerrillo, 11, told CNN her class was watching “Lilo and Stitch” when the shooter appeared Tuesday at Robb Elementary in Uvalde.

She said the gunman looked at one of her teachers in the eye and said, “Good night” before shooting her.

Miah told her story through a CNN producer. She did not want to speak on camera and declined to speak to any men following her experience with the school shooting and only felt comfortable speaking to women, the broadcaster said. NBC News could not immediately verify the account.

Miah herself was hit by fragments in the hail of bullets, CNN reported.

After firing shots in her classroom, the shooter went into the adjoining classroom and opened fire, Miah said. She said she heard “sad music” playing, believing the gunman put it on. 

When asked what the music was, she said it sounded like, “I want people to die music.”

Miah said that when the gunman went into the other room she smeared a friend’s blood on herself to look dead. She also said she and a friend grabbed their teacher’s phone and called 911, telling a dispatcher, “Please send help because we’re in trouble.” 

In the Tuesday horror, 19 children and two teachers were killed, and another 17 were wounded.

A Robb Elementary teacher, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, told NBC News that a Raptor alert, a program designed to alert staff of a lockdown, went off after shots were fired and children started to hide under their desks in the class. 

Elon Musk Sounds an Alarm on Italy, Hong Kong, S. Korea

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Elon Musk Sounds an Alarm on Italy, Hong Kong, S. Korea

Elon Musk can’t get a particular problem out of his head. 

He runs several companies — two of which, Tesla  (TSLA) – Get Tesla Inc Report and SpaceX, are leaders in their respective fields of electric vehicles and space tech.

Musk is further occupied with his hectic $44 billion acquisition of microblogging site Twitter  (TWTR) – Get Twitter, Inc. Report. 

And he (and investors) are contending with the more than 40% drop in Tesla’s shares since January. As of May 24 that’s knocked more than $77.6 billion off his personal fortune, according to Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Still and all, the man finds time to worry about other issues. 

For a few weeks now the tech tycoon has been sounding the alarm about the continued decline of populations in wealthy countries due to collapsing birth rates.

“At risk of stating the obvious, unless something changes to cause the birth rate to exceed the death rate, Japan will eventually cease to exist,” Musk posted on Twitter on May 7 TheStreet reported at the time. “This would be a great loss for the world.”

The headquarters country of Sony  (SNE) – Get Sony Corp. Report and Toyota  (TM) – Get Toyota Motor Corp. Report recently said that the population in 2021 declined by 644,000 from a year earlier to 125.5 million people. And 2021 marked the 11th consecutive year of decline.

Since then, Musk hasn’t stopped posting messages that raise alarms about declining population and that celebrate children. This problem has become a personal concern. During Twitter exchanges on May 24, the father of seven drew attention to Italy, South Korea and Hong Kong. 

Italy’s population is aging, according to official data, and Musk fears that the country could die out.

“Italy. Despite we have a good welfare birthrate is failing 🥲,” posted cybersecurity researcher Andrea Stroppa, with a demographic-trend chart showing the birth rate falling in Italy from 1946 to 2019.

“Italy will have no people if these trends continue,” the mogul responded.

The number of births in Italy fell in 2020 to its lowest level since the country’s unification in 1861, according to Istat, the Italian National Institute of Statistics. This was the the 12th consecutive year of decline.

It stood at 404,892, or 15,192 fewer births than in 2019. The number of deaths rose to 746,146 in 2020 and the population decreased to 59.3 million inhabitants.

The decline continued in 2021, according to available data from January to September, with 12,500 fewer births over the period than in the first nine months of 2020. The average number of children per woman residing in Italy was 1.24 in 2020, one of the lowest fertility rates in the world.

The covid-19 pandemic largely explains the drop.

Besides Italy, Musk estimates that the populations of South Korea and Hong Kong are declining at worrying rates.

“South Korea and Hong Kong are experiencing the fastest population collapse,” the Tesla CEO wrote. 

He added that with World Bank data showing the countries with the lowest birth rates, “2.1 kids per woman is replacement rate.”

BTS headed to the White House

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BTS headed to the White House

Korean pop supergroup BTS is set to meet President Joe Biden on Tuesday, the White House announced, a visit aimed at discussing Asian inclusion and representation and addressing anti-Asian hate crimes and disinformation.

The Grammy-nominated boyband’s visit comes days after Biden returned from his first trip to Asia as president, which included a three-day stop in Seoul and meetings with newly-elected South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, reported by CNN.

Biden, the White House noted in Thursday’s announcement, “has previously spoken about his commitment to combating the surge of anti-Asian hate crimes.” He signed a bipartisan bill aimed at addressing the rise in anti-Asian hate crimes into law in May 2021. It will create a new position at the Justice Department to expedite review of potential Covid-19-related hate crimes and incidents reported at the federal, state or local level.

Biden and BTS, the White House added, “will also discuss the importance of diversity and inclusion and BTS’ platform as youth ambassadors who spread a message of hope and positivity across the world.”

The group has found international success with songs like “Butter” and “Dynamite” and their fans, who call themselves the “Army,” span across the globe.

Last year, amid a spate of anti-Asian hate crimes in the US, including shootings at three Atlanta-area spas, BTS spoke out about their own experience with discrimination.

“We recall moments when we faced discrimination as Asians. We have endured expletives without reason and were mocked for the way we look. We were even asked why Asians spoke in English,” the band said in a statement retweeted over 1 million times.

They continued, “We cannot put into words the pain of becoming the subject of hatred and violence for such a reason.”

The uptick in anti-Asian crime and hostility toward Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPI) comes amid the Covid-19 pandemic. More than 10,000 hate incidents against AAPI persons were reported to advocacy organization Stop AAPI Hate between March 19, 2020, and December 31, 2021.

As Biden administration leans toward $10K in student loan forgiveness, advocates push back

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As Biden administration leans toward $10K in student loan forgiveness, advocates push back

Advocates expressed anger and disappointment on Friday in response to news that the Biden administration is leaning toward forgiving $10,000 in student loans per borrower, reported by CNBC.

Some Democrats and activists have insisted that President Joe Biden needs to cancel at least $50,000 per borrower to make a meaningful impact on the country’s $1.7 trillion outstanding student loan balance. More than 40 million Americans are in debt for their education, and about 25% of those borrowers are in delinquency or default.

Still, the average student debt balance is over $30,000, and more than 3 million borrowers owe more than $100,000.

NAACP President Derrick Johnson said $10,000 “won’t do anything” for the Black community.

“The average Black borrower has $53,000 in student loan debt four years after graduation, nearly twice the amount as their white counterparts,” Johnson said, in a statement.

“Ten thousand dollars in cancellation would be a slap in the face,” he said. “President Biden, it’s not about whether you can do it; it’s about whether or not you have the will to do it.”

“It’s an absolute insult,” said Thomas Gokey, co-founder of the Debt Collective, a national union of debtors. “This is less than what he promised on the campaign.”

While running for president, Biden had vowed immediate debt cancellation of $10,000 per borrower, and he hadn’t said anything about limiting the relief to people who earn under a certain amount. Now the administration is looking at imposing income caps of $150,000 for individuals and $300,000 for married couples for the relief, according to The Washington Post.

Adding red tape to the cancellation program will result in many people missing out on the policy, Gokey said, pointing to other government forgiveness efforts that have been plagued by problems. These include the public service loan forgiveness program and income-driven repayment plans, which have so far largely failed to deliver their promised relief.

“Everyone will have to jump through hoops,” Gokey said.

The Washington Post on Friday matched prior reporting that the $10,000 plan is the Biden administration’s leading student debt cancellation plan in the final days of May. The newspaper, citing three people familiar with the discussions, said the president had hoped to make the announcement as soon as this weekend but that the mass shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, forced the White House to change the timing.

It’s unclear whether the administration will require regular payments to restart at the end of August, when the current pause is set to end.

The White House denied to CNBC that it has any set plans to forgive student debt and said it has not made a final decision.

“No decisions have been made yet — but as a reminder no one has been required to pay a single dime of student loans since the President took office,” a White House spokesman told CNBC.

Canceling $10,000 per borrower would cost around $321 billion and completely forgive the loans of about one-third of student loan borrowers.

It’s not clear how the relief would narrow with the income caps, although one analysis found that around 97% of all student debt was held by those making below the proposed thresholds.

Desperate Atlanta mothers facing the on-going supply shortage of infant formula.

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Desperate Atlanta mothers facing the on-going supply shortage of infant formula.

 Mothers and children around the country continue to face the on-going supply shortage of infant formula.

Some mothers in metro Atlanta are now turning to other mothers for help, including sharing their milk with families who may need it.

Regardless, families in Georgia are faced with a daunting drive across state lines for pasteurized breast milk or locally driving from store to store in search of formula.

“The safest thing is to find a different formula,” said Dr. Lavania. “Ask your pediatrician about a safe alternative.”

Channel 2′s Elizabeth Rawlins spoke to local health experts about the unregulated practice and the potential risks associated with donor breast milk.

“I do not recommend it,” says Dr. Hiral Lavania of One Family Pediatrics. “You never know if that milk is safe.”

Health experts say the best way to make sure donated formula is safe is to have it tested for transmittable diseases and pasteurized at a milk bank.

“We don’t really have any (banks) in Georgia,” said Dr. Lavania. “We are just now starting the process of donating milk to milk banks. We do have some collection places but a lot [of the supply] goes to babies who are in the NICU.”

The Human Milk Banking Association has banks around the country.

According to www.hmbana.org, the closest banks to Georgia are located in all four neighboring states (TN, FL, SC, AL).

Grieving husband of teacher killed in Texas school shooting has died

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Grieving husband of teacher killed in Texas school shooting has died

The husband of one of the teachers killed in a Texas school shooting this week collapsed and died on Thursday while preparing for his wife’s funeral, the family said, according to NBC News.

Joe Garcia had been married to high school sweetheart, Irma Garcia, for 24 years before she was gunned down Tuesday at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde.

“I don’t even know how to feel. I don’t believe it. I don’t want to believe it” that Joe Garcia has passed away, Irma Garcia’s nephew, John Martinez, told NBC News.

Irma Garcia and co-teacher Eva Mireles were both killed along with 19 children at the school that’s about 85 miles west of San Antonio.

Her son, Christian Garcia, said a friend in law enforcement who was at the scene saw his mother shielding students during the rampage.

Martinez said he was told that Joe Garcia “went to go deliver flowers for Irma at the memorial for her.”

“When he got home, he was at home for no more than three minutes after sitting down on a chair with the family. He just fell over. They tried doing chest compressions and nothing worked. The ambulance came and they couldn’t, they couldn’t bring them back.”

Broken heart syndrome typically occurs immediately after a person has received horrific news, he added. But some people may take time to emotionally process a loss, meaning broken heart syndrome wouldn’t occur right away.

Martinez said he first learned the news from his younger brother.

“He called me and he said like, ‘Please pray for Joe.’ That’s all he told me,” Martinez said. “And I said. ‘What happened? ‘And he was like, ‘I don’t know. We don’t know yet.’ And then I get a call I think, no more than 30 minutes later with him crying and saying he didn’t make it.”

Doctors described this as a potential example of “broken heart syndrome, formally known as takotsubo cardiomyopathy, that generally occurs in response to an extreme stressor like the sudden death of a spouse. Unlike a standard heart attack, which is caused by blocked arteries, people with broken heart syndrome release a burst of stress hormones that prevent their heart from contracting properly.

“It’s a classic case of broken heart syndrome from what’s been described,” said Dr. Deepak Bhatt, a cardiologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

Bhatt said it’s impossible to know for sure whether Garcia experienced a standard heart attack or broken heart syndrome without X-ray imaging or an autopsy.

“Either type of heart attack can be triggered by extreme emotional stress of the sort that would happen if someone just heard, for example, that their wife had died,” Bhatt said.

“In some cases, it might be a day later. It might be when someone realizes, ‘Oh, wow, my loved one actually is dead. They’re really not coming back,’” Bhatt said.

“It sounds like that’s what happened” in this case.

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