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A 10-year-old girl from Virginia died of complications from Covid-19 just five days after she started showing symptoms, according to her parents, who said the girl may have been exposed to the virus because she was ” nurse ”in class.
Teresa Sperry was a fifth grader at Hillpoint Elementary School in Suffolk, Va., Where her teacher gave her the job of “nurse,” Teresa’s mother Nicole Sperry wrote in a Facebook post after Teresa’s death on September 27.
“Our daughter was in perfect health. And she would have continued to be here if people had stopped sending their sick children to school,” wrote Nicole Sperry. “She had to accompany all the sick students in her class to the nurse’s office.”
Teresa began to feel ill on September 22, her parents, Nicole and Jeff Sperry, told various media outlets. The previous week, their daughter had mentioned that she was responsible for escorting classmates who were not feeling well out of the classroom.
“And she said if the kids were sick and had to go home, she had to go get their satchel and bring it back,” Nicole Sperry told the Virginian-Pilot.
Suffolk Public Schools did not immediately respond to a request for comment from NBC News, but Anthonette Ward, a spokeswoman for Suffolk Public Schools, told the Virginian-Pilot that school rules state that adults, and not other children, should accompany children who show possible Covid symptoms.
“Hillpoint Elementary School protocol is for the teacher or any adult to contact the main office with a ‘C’ code. When this happens, one of the administrators or the school nurse will come to the classroom to pick up the student, ”Ward told the Virginian-Pilot in an email. “We are still investigating to make sure this process was followed faithfully.”
Teresa was a Girl Scout and loved to draw, dance and sing, her parents wrote in her obituary, adding that she was “everyone’s friend, even those who bully her.”
Her symptoms started with a headache the first day, followed by a fever the next day, her parents told CNN. On the weekends she had a bad cough. Her mother took her to the emergency room, where Teresa was tested for strep throat and swabed for Covid.
The strep test came back negative. The Covid results, which then came back positive, were still pending when, over the next 24 hours, Teresa stopped breathing and was rushed to a local hospital. Teresa’s condition worsened and she was transferred to the King’s Daughters of Norfolk Children’s Hospital, CNN reported, where she died on September 27.
“Helping people is my daughter”
Teresa’s school district is demanding masks, but on the day of her death, parents asked to drop the mask’s mandate.
“While I was sitting next to my deceased daughter, there was a Chesapeake school board meeting and people were like, ‘It doesn’t affect healthy people. It doesn’t kill healthy people. It’s not going to take the kids away. It’s over, ‘”Nicole Sperry told NBC affiliate WAVY in Virginia.” Well, I’m here to tell you it’s not over. “
Nicole and Jeff Sperry are vaccinated, as are their two older children, the couple told CNN. They were planning to have Teresa and her 9-year-old brother vaccinated when the Covid vaccine was approved for use in children under 12.
Jeff Sperry tested positive for Covid infection while planning his daughter’s funeral, Nicole Sperry said on her Facebook page.
Fatal cases of Covid are rare in children. Nonetheless, the highly contagious delta variant has led to children making up a growing share of new Covid cases – in part because young children are still not eligible for vaccines. Nearly 5.9 million children have tested positive for the virus since the start of the pandemic, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics.
The Sperrys described their daughter as someone who always wanted to help, and said they weren’t surprised that she took on the role of “nurse” assigned to her.
“You have to understand my daughter, that’s who she is, helping people is my daughter, that’s not something she wouldn’t have wanted to do,” Jeff Sperry told CNN.
Nicole Sperry shared a post for anyone who still doubts Covid is a serious threat.
“We did everything we could have done and now we have lost part of our heart,” she wrote on Facebook. “Covid is real and it doesn’t matter who it takes.”
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