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RICHMOND, Virginia (AP) – A child under the age of 10 died in eastern Virginia on Wednesday from COVID-19, the second fatal juvenile case this week in the region, health officials confirmed.
Department of Health spokesperson Larry Hill told the Richmond Times-Dispatch he could not provide any further information about the child.
The child’s death came shortly after Teresa Sperry, 10, who died of the virus on Monday. Officials say this is the 12th and 13th child deaths in the state since the start of the pandemic.
Sperry, from Suffolk, started showing severe symptoms on Sunday but was discharged home from Sentara Obici hospital after a chest scan came back clear. Sperry stopped breathing on Monday, his family told the Virginian Pilot.
She was taken back to Sentara Obici Hospital in Suffolk. She was then transferred to the King’s Daughters’ Hospital in Norfolk, where she died.
Sperry’s death was officially recorded Thursday by the Virginia Department of Health, but was widely reported by local media on Wednesday. Sperry’s mother, Nicole, wrote on Facebook that her daughter had been tasked with accompanying sick children from her class to the clinic at Hillpoint Elementary School.
Nicole Sperry said she attributes her daughter’s death to parents allowing their sick children to go to school. Suffolk Public Schools Superintendent John B. Gordon III announced Teresa’s death in a letter to the community on Tuesday, The Richmond Times-Dispatch reported. He urged the students to wash their hands regularly and avoid touching their eyes, mouth and nose.
All Kindergarten to Grade 12 students are required to wear a mask in Virginia schools.
On Facebook, Nicole Sperry said Gordon had never contacted her directly and that it was a “sorry letter apology.”
“My beautiful daughter was taken from me because people are too selfish to care about what might happen to others,” she wrote. “We wore our mask because there are too many in our tribe who are in danger. My daughter was not in danger. And now she’s gone.
Suffolk Public Schools did not respond to the Richmond Times-Dispatch’s request for an interview.
According to The Virginian-Pilot, the King’s Daughters’ Children’s Hospital saw more juvenile cases of COVID-19 in September than any other month in the pandemic.
Health experts say children are still more likely to show only mild symptoms, but more than 1,000 children have been hospitalized with the virus in Virginia. Even though the pandemic began early last year, 12 of the state’s 13 underage deaths from COVID-19 occurred in 2021, according to the Times-Dispatch.
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Follow AP’s coverage of the pandemic at https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-pandemic.
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