Doom Metal Icon Eric Wagner Hospitalized With COVID Pneumonia

UPDATE: One of Eric Wagner's former bandmates has confirmed the singer has died since being admitted to the hospital. Read more details here.

Eric Wagner, singer for doom band The Skull and originally of Trouble, has been hospitalized with COVID pneumonia less than one week after the band dropped off their tour with The Obsessed.

The news first came in a since-deleted Facebook post where the band informed fans of Wagner's condition, also noting that four members in total had tested positive for COVID-19, three of which had been "recovering nicely."

After that post was retracted, The Skull issued another update, declaring they would be bowing out of their Thursday appearance at the Psycho Las Vegas festival, reaffirming Wagner's hospitalization and COVID pneumonia diagnosis while stating every other member of the five-piece group had tested negative for the virus.

The band wrote,

Hey All.
More bad news…
We will not be able to play Psycho Vegas this Thursday. Eric Wagner’s bout with Covid has gotten worse and he was admitted to the Hospital yesterday with COVID pneumonia.
All the other members have tested Negative.
Positive thoughts and words will be helpful.

On Aug. 11, as reported by MetalKaoz, The Skull announced, "Hey All... Due to the ongoing and growing COVID situation sweeping the nation again, particularly in the South where we are currently, we, The Skull, have opted to put the brakes on our current tour with The Obsessed, who will continue on without us. We will reschedule as much as we can and tour again properly when things calm down. Thank you for understanding and please be safe out there."

It appears that post has also been removed from The Skull's Facebook page. The impacted dates spanned from Aug. 11 through Aug. 16.

The Obsessed, meanwhile, carried on with the tour. At an earlier stop, a local brewery in Arlington, Texas even made a special beer to commemorate the tour package, as seen below in an Instagram post by The Obsessed's Scott 'Wino' Weinrich.

ABC13 conducted an interview with Dr. Rodrigo Hasburn of Houston, Texas, about the severity of COVID pneumonia, which groups are at increased risk for it, how treatable it is, what other complications may arise because of this illness.

Speaking about the severity, Dr. Hasburn said, "COVID pneumonia is really the start. They develop acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), and then they get intubated and ventilated and those are the patients who usually die from COVID. With the new medications, we are seeing less of a mortality when we didn't have all these medications."

Regarding severe complications, he added "Patients with COVID pneumonia are the ones who are going to develop more complications due to COVID. We see, not only hematological complications, like clots or pulmonary embolism with COVID pneumonia, but also neurological abnormalities or even strokes with COVID pneumonia."

Learn more here.

Loudwire wishes Eric Wagner a quick and full recovery.