COVID-19 is known to exacerbate existing conditions and create new problems after one contracts the virus. For 12-year-old Amari Goodwin, a positive COVID-19 test meant she would be fighting for her life.
The South Carolina girl remains on a ventilator after her COVID-19 diagnosis took a drastic turn for the worse. She is now also battling with both pneumonia and respiratory syncytial virus.
Goodwin fell sick on August 5 and was admitted to an ICU bed at MUSC Shawn Jenkins Children’s Hospital on August 11, according to local news reports.
Her mother, Misty, said she cannot believe her spunky little girl’s health declined so quickly. She decided to take the girl to the hospital after she began having trouble breathing and sustained a fever of 104.
“You’re just in there watching her,” the mother stated. “You can’t do nothing to fix it. And then I’m trying to balance all of my kids. Nobody can come see her. It’s just me, her and the machines.”
Misty said that she had already scheduled Goodwin to get the vaccine, which was just recently approved for children 12 to 15-years-old. However, the little girl fell sick before the appointment.
“Every child hospitalized for COVID or MIS-C has been unvaccinated,” said Elizabeth Mack, the chief of critical care at the hospital Goodwin is in.
New data from the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Children’s Hospital Association shows that 15% of all the newly reported COVID-19 cases for the week of August 5th were from children.
During that week nearly 94,000 children tested positive for COVID-19, a 31% increase from the week before. CDC data shows that children from the ages of 0 to 18 account for more than 500 of the total COVID-19 deaths in the U.S.
Many have speculated that the reopening of schools without robust safety precautions and the prevalence of the delta variant are responsible for the spike in child cases.
Schools in Texas and Florida are currently fighting state-wide mandates which ban the use of masks by students and faculty. Other districts, like Carlyle Community School District 1 in Chicago, have defied the statewide mask mandates are seeing shut downs caused by new cases.
The CDC recently announced that the COVID-19 vaccine is approved for everyone 12 and over, although children are less likely to contract the virus.
“If we don’t protect these kids, no one is going to protect them,” said Misty, who is adamant about children and adults getting the vaccine to prevent what is happening to her daughter.
“But you still have to wear your mask. It can happen to anybody. It don’t matter young, old, what color, it doesn’t matter. This virus don’t care. It’s going to hit who it can hit. It’s going to keep going, so we all have to do our part,” she continued.
Goodwin seems to be on the road to recovery as she is now able to open her eyes and squeeze a hand, her mother said.
Have you subscribed to theGrio’s “Dear Culture” podcast? Download our newest episodes now!
TheGrio is now on Apple TV, Amazon Fire and Roku. Download theGrio.com today!