Florida's Youngest to Die From COVID-19 Is a Little Black Girl

Health officials in Florida say that a 9-year-old girl is the youngest person in the state to die from COVID-19.

Kimora “Kimmie” Lynum from Gainesville died from coronavirus complications on July 17. According to a GoFundMe created by her family to cover medical bills and funeral expenses, Kimmie was taken to hospital with a high fever about a week before she died but was not tested for COVID-19 at the time.

From People:

The young girl started feeling ill on July 11 and was brought to a local hospital days later, Young-Holmes said. Though her daughter’s temperature was 103 degrees, Kimmie was diagnosed with a urinary tract infection and sent home, according to the mom.

“We took her to the hospital, the children’s pediatric,” Young-Holmes recalled, telling local new station WCJB that Kimmie was not tested for coronavirus while they were at the hospital. “I thought they would have jumped on that when they saw her fever.”

Young-Holmes said her daughter was diagnosed with coronavirus after her death. She is the fifth minor in the state to die from COVID-19, according to CNN. Local authorities are still trying to determine how the little girl may have gotten infected and say she did not have any underlying health conditions that would make her more susceptible.

Kimme’s death comes as Florida’s Health Department continues to record increases in the number of children there with COVID-19—at last count, 31,000 have been infected, and hospitalizations have increased by double digits in the past week.

Despite this, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is still marching in lockstep with the Trump administration on the issue of opening schools up for in-person instruction, reports Bay 9 News.

“I really believe that the teachers and the administrators that are there, they serve so many functions in the lives of our kids, particularly those who come from disadvantaged backgrounds,” he said in a press conference with Vice President Mike Pence on Monday.