Ice-T believes the novel coronavirus is nothing to be messed with. And if you dont agree, well, thats what the rapper-actor is scared of.

He shared details of his father-in-laws COVID-19 struggle with Jimmy Fallon on The Tonight Show on Wednesday, including the fact that Steve Austins lungs are damaged indefinitely after his bout with the disease.

Ice-T, who was in New York working when the lockdowns hit, spent a little more than two months hunkered down in New Jersey before hightailing it to Arizona, where he and his family live when hes not shooting Law & Order: SVU. Its where wife Cocos family is based.

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I hate to say it, but Cocos dad is a Harley-Davidson-riding, no-mask-wearing type of dude. And it put him on his back, he told Fallon.

Ice-T marveled at how, when he and his family first arrived there from the hard-hit New York-New Jersey area, so many Arizona residents werent wearing masks or taking other precautions. Now, he said, they are.

When you get these numbers up, more people know people that are in the hospital, and that triggers the masks faster than anything, he said.

Austin came down with symptoms on Fathers Day (June 21), and he fought the disease for nine days before being admitted to a hospital. He was held for three days in the ICU. Thats when the next-of-kin calls came, Ice-T said, when they were considering putting the 63-year-old on a ventilator.

Thats when its scary, Ice-T said.

It took him a month to make it out of the hospital, God bless him. Now hes home, but his lungs are damaged indefinitely. COVID attacks your lungs, and it can really leave your lungs ruined.

The actor, 62, said he put it on social media because there are still people who dont believe the global pandemic is a real thing. Ice-T said he knows eight people who have died from COVID-19. I dont need more proof than that to know I dont want to play with it, he added.

On Twitter, he said, one user said that the father of 4-year-old Chanel seemed like he was scared.

I said yeah, Im scared of your contaminated breath, OK? Is there a problem with that?, Ice-T told Fallon.

I dont want to die. Ive made it through so much in my life I dont want to die because of this. Especially with a new daughter. So Im aware and Im concerned, and Im cautious. You want to call that scared, call it scared.

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Ice-T says COVID-19 has wrecked his father-in-law's lungs - Los Angeles Times