“We have a little girl here, and she doesn’t have her people”: COVID kills parents of 8-year-old

It started innocently enough, friends and family assume, with an Aug. 18 trip to the Grant County Fair in downtown Washington. It was an annual outing for Tom and Josie Burko and their 8-year-old daughter, Lillie, and this time they brought 70-year-old Tom’s mother, who also lives with them.

Tractor traction. Breeding shows. Dog demonstration. The saboteurs. Music.

Tragedy followed. The Burko and Lillie, all unvaccinated, at one point contracted COVID-19. Lillie was quarantined for two weeks with a cough and recovered. Her grandmother, who was vaccinated, contracted an infectious infection and also recovered.

But Josie Burko, 39, died on August 28 in their Moses Lake home. Tom Burko, 38, was rushed to a local hospital and struggled for 11 days before succumbing on September 8.

Suddenly, without her parents, Lillie flew out from Portland International Airport on Tuesday night to start a new life with her aunt and uncle in the San Diego area.

“It happened so suddenly,” said Jennifer Desantis, a Forest Grove resident and longtime friend of both parents who organized a GoFundMe campaign to raise funds for Lillie. “None of us knew. We didn’t know they had been to the fair. I had spoken to Josie a few days before. For 30 years, we have been side by side with each other.

Josie Burko’s her sister, Lynn Schuler, said she was still shocked the family decided to go to the fair. They had been having conversations throughout the pandemic about staying safe and healthy. And they only pieced the story together after talking with a roommate and Lillie and successfully unlocking her mom’s phone.

It is impossible to know for sure whether the Burko were infected at the fair. But in Grant County, Washington, as in many rural Oregon counties that have seen cases, hospitalizations and deaths increase amid a wave fueled by the delta variant, rates immunizations are low. At the time, less than half of eligible Grant County residents were fully immunized, according to the local public health authority.

Organizers of the fair told local media that they had taken precautions in advance to prevent it from becoming a mainstream event. Knowing that the Watershed country music festival held in the county from July 30 to August 1 was linked to 230 cases statewide, they provided masks, hand sanitizer and doubled the number of hand washing stations. Fair director Jim McKiernan advised those concerned about the recent increase in cases to stay home and come back next year.

But neither vaccinations nor masks were required – in fact, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee did not announce facial coverage requirements for large outdoor gatherings until September 9, a day after Tom Burko’s death. and more than two weeks after the announcement by Oregon Governor Kate Brown. a similar rule.

Organizers of the fair reported a record 72,000 people in attendance during the five-day event, an increase of almost 50% since it was last held in 2019. TV reports showed that few people wore shirts. masks. County health officials now say around 40 cases have been linked to the fair, although they still have a backlog of several hundred recent cases that have not been investigated and reviewed. contacts found.

The Samaritan Hospital in Moses Lake is currently experiencing its worst capacity crisis of the pandemic. Twenty-three of its 38 medical beds are occupied by COVID patients, only two of whom have been vaccinated. All of its 12 intensive care beds are occupied, 10 by COVID patients, including four on ventilators. Only one of those patients has been vaccinated, said Gretchen Youngren, spokesperson for the health system.

The Burkos did not oppose the COVID vaccine, per se. “They were 100% pro-vaccination,” Desantis said. But Josie Burko suffered from severe diabetes, heart murmur and chronic bronchitis and feared her body would react badly. She had decided to wait until the United States Food and Drug Administration granted full approval for the vaccines and her health recovered.

Likewise, her husband suffered from muscle atrophy and was also worried about receiving the injections.

“We talked about it,” said Schuler, speaking earlier this week from Vancouver, where much of his family lives. “They were afraid to take it. They know some people who have had side effects. They were concerned that this would cause unrest or make their situation worse. Josie was scared. She feared it would kill her.

The Burko grew up in Silverdale, Washington, on the peninsula west of Seattle. They lost contact over the years before they reunited and married four years ago. At this point, Josie Burko had a four-year-old daughter from a different relationship.

They loved road trips, movie nights, walks in the park, and all the time they could spend with their family. Josie Burko loved new and old Disney movies. Tom Burko was a huge fan of Michael Jordan and collected his signature shoes. He was a talented artist.

“She loved with all her heart, that’s who she was. Family was everything, ”Desantis said, who also grew up with the couple in Silverdale. “And he fully recognized that Lillie had wrapped it around her pinky finger.”

For a clan that yearned for travel and events, the County Fair was the first mass gathering outside of their nuclear family in some time. Because she was not vaccinated, Josie Burko, a paid health aide from Washington state, had stopped working at local nursing homes and was only caring for her elderly stepmother and d ‘a resident at their home. Due to his condition, Tom Burko was not working. They had therefore spent much of the pandemic quite isolated.

The first sign seemed pretty trivial. Josie Burko posted on Facebook on Saturday August 21, three days after the fair, that she had sniffles: “I hate colds when the weather changes,” she wrote. “No sleep last night, so have some ginger tea with lemon.” “

But soon she and her husband started to develop painful flu-like symptoms.

“She hadn’t posted anything on Facebook for a few days, and I texted her, ‘Hey Chica, I hope everything is going well. I love you, ”Desantis said. “She replied that everything was fine. … The only thing we can think of is that it hit them so fast.

By midweek the two were having trouble breathing and Lillie had lost her sense of taste, said Schuler. This Wednesday evening, the Burkos went to emergency care in Moses Lake, where they all had COVID tests. Josie Burko received respiratory treatment and an inhaler.

Two days later, the results came back. They were all positive.

Early the next morning, Lillie, who was sleeping with her mother, texted their roommate, who was isolating himself in his own bedroom with his own case of COVID.

“Mom needs your help.”

When the roommate entered the room, Josie Burko was out of breath, Schuler said. By the time 911 was on the phone, she had stopped breathing. An ambulance arrived. But it was too late.

Josie Burko was pronounced dead at 5:05 a.m.

Tom Burko, so delirious, was rushed to hospital. Desantis said he was initially put on high flow oxygen, a therapy used to help people with respiratory distress. He spent much of his time on his stomach, called proning, which allows for greater expansion of the lungs and better oxygenation.

But alone and mourning the loss of his wife, he continued to struggle. Desantis said she spoke to him daily for the first week. His whole body ached.

“He kept saying, ‘It’s hard to breathe,'” she said. “He kept asking questions about Lillie, then asking me if Josie was really gone and saying, ‘There was nothing I could do. Why haven’t I done anything? I was so sick. This is not how it was supposed to be.

On September 3, he was admitted to intensive care at Samaritan Hospital. Doctors have expressed some optimism that his lung function will improve, Desantis said. But he still walked the line, in the second week of a virus that is often perilous for hospital patients. And as the week went on, his condition deteriorated again. On September 8, doctors intubated him and put him on a ventilator.

Tom Burko died that night.

“When Lillie’s mother died it was devastating, but deep in her head it was still, ‘I have my dad and when is he coming home? ”, Said Desantis. “When she found out he was dead, that’s when it all fell on her.”

Samaritan Hospital confirmed the circumstances of the death of Tom Burko and Youngren, the spokesperson, said intensive care nurses and people in the small community were aware of and were traumatized by the larger situation of the family and the young child left behind.

There was no will. No life insurance. Hence the GoFundMe campaign, for the board, for the school, for a college fund, for whatever Lillie will need.

“The funds would be used for his college education,” Schuler said, fighting back tears. “That would be my goal. The next phase is to enroll Lillie in her next life as we go through the process of permanent guardianship. “

Family members sorted through their belongings, found new homes for the two dogs and a cat, and found a school for Lillie in California.

Schuler said Lillie had been inundated with souvenir boxes, books and other gifts since her parents died. There were a lot of things to do in her room, to choose certain things, because they can’t take everything.

They took off from Portland on Tuesday night, and when they arrived at Schuler’s home, friends had decorated it with balloons and signs.

“Welcome to California. We love you, Lillie.

Desantis said the last time she spoke with Tom Burko: “I promised we would take care of her. She is the main priority and we just make sure she has everything she needs and takes it day to day.

“We have a little girl here, and she doesn’t have her people.”

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–Ted Sickinger; [email protected]; 503-221-8505; @tedsickinger