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Usually St. Luke’s would call around midday or later with updates on her brother’s condition. But Wednesday, the call came to Hope Shen’s phone early in the morning. She had a feeling it wasn’t good news before she picked up.

Older brother Jonathan Shen died at about 9:30 a.m. following a four-week battle with COVID-19 that took its toll on his heart. Shen was a 31-year-old Bethlehem resident who worked at Wind Creek Bethlehem.

“I would do anything to bring him back,' Hope Shen, 26, said Wednesday night. “He didn’t deserve this. Nobody does.

'We love him so much, and we’re going to think about him every day.”

The last time Hope had spoken to her brother was March 26, the day he was intubated at the Anderson campus in Bethlehem Township because his breathing wasn’t improving. Hope, active duty and stationed at Reynolds Army Health Clinic in Oklahoma, had recently traveled home to Bethlehem to be with her mother, but had to return about the time her brother had a tracheal tube put in. The family was optimistic, hopeful he would take small steps toward recovery.

“I can’t imagine anything more painful than to lose my brother to something that is so preventable,” Hope said in a video posted Wednesday to her brother’s YouTube channel. 'And I know everyone wants to get back to work, but the absolute amount of pain and suffering that we went through over the last four weeks was so hard.”

“Jonny, I love you and I’m really sorry. I wish I could have been there for you.'

As of Wednesday, the state Health Department had reported 3,965 coronavirus cases, including 93 deaths, in Lehigh and Northampton counties.

Hope said her brother was her protector. He was the one who taught her about video games and teamwork. His nerdiness led to her love of art and anime.

The siblings grew up near Atlantic City, New Jersey, where their mother, Chaoli Shu, worked at a casino. When she was laid off, their mother got a job at Sands Casino Resort Bethlehem, which was renamed Wind Creek Bethlehem last year.

She still works at the casino, which has been closed since March 15 and is where Jonathan was a table games supervisor. Hope said her mother also tested positive for COVID-19 but recovered, now just filled with grief.

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Wind Creek has launched a modified bus program “to resume business efforts” at the casino, spokesperson Julia Corwin said Friday. The casino’s busing program had been suspended since mid. 47 ms; iy2020; im12; id13; ih14; imh11; iepoch:317; ixf-compiler; ixf-compiler1.0.0.0; py2020; pm12; pd10; ph09; pmh14; pepoch:906. Wind Creek Bethlehem casino employee, 31, dies after four-week battle with coronavirus, sister says Usually St. Luke’s would call around midday or later with updates on her brother’s condition.

Hope has plenty of memories of her brother, who she last saw in person in June when she left for basic training. The ones that rush into focus immediately are the silly ones, she admits.

When the family first moved into their new house in Bethlehem, Jonathan got stuck with the air mattress. He woke up the next morning on the floor, after the mattress deflated. Despite the family’s efforts to reinflate it, he was on the floor the following morning, too, which Hope said accelerated their mattress shopping timeline.

She also remembers him as competitive with any games the family would play. But, he recognized his sister was a sore loser, so he let her win from time to time.

Hope can still picture him in certain instances, too. For one, whenever she would buy food and bring it home, Jonny would appear in her room, wondering: “Are you going to finish that?”

He would pay it back on other occasions, always buying food for Hope and her mother if they had a bad day.

Aside from being maybe a little chubby, she said, Jonathan was healthy and was almost never sick, which makes his death even more difficult for her to fathom.

His coworkers and friends quickly commented on Facebook throughout the day Wednesday, remembering him as “one of the good guys” and “such a beautiful young man.”

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Jon Jaeger, a dual rate supervisor at the casino, organized a GoFundMe fundraiser Wednesday to help cover expenses for the family. By 2 a.m. Thursday, the fundraiser had raised more than $19,000 from north of 500 people.

“Jon was a great man and he was a sweet, kind-hearted person,” Jaeger wrote.

Many of the comments on the fundraising campaign recalled his YouTube channel, “Vappyvap88,” which has almost 17,000 subscribers.

Hope said her brother used to play a lot of video games and was part of Vinesauce, a community that streams video games and entertainment. One commenter said he’ll be remembered as a “good and funny person,” with some saying his videos helped introduce them to Vinesauce.

In the video she posted to his account Wednesday, Hope Shen detailed her brother’s battle with COVID-19 and thanked his subscribers for treating him like family.

She said she’s been overwhelmed with the messages and support her family has received since his death.

On Thursday, she’ll be in her apartment in Oklahoma, going through things and hoping to make it home this weekend to help plan what a funeral may look like during the pandemic that took her brother away.

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Morning Call reporter Jon Harris can be reached at 610-820-6779 or at jon.harris@mcall.com.

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