Florida Woman Believes Children’s Sleepover Led to Husband’s Death From Of COVID
A Florida father of four who decided to work from home to protect his family from COVID-19 tragically died on Aug. 28 from the disease and now his widow is spreading the message asking everyone to do everything they can to keep safe from it.
Sherica Dalloo, 32 said she believes a COVID positive child unknowingly brought the virus into the home she shared with husband David when visiting during a children’s sleepover, PEOPLE reported, attributing to the Palm Beach Post. The virus infected all six members of their family. The case sheds a spotlight on concerns about children spreading the disease.
“Our family has changed forever,” Dalloo, who was married for 11 years, told West Palm Beach station WPEC. “I’m a widow, with four children that I have to raise, and my youngest is three.”
She said she suspects that an asymptomatic 9-year-old child infected her family. Each of them recovered except for her husband, who had checked into a hospital after his diagnosis.
“It was just like surreal. He had to have surgeries, he had artificial lungs, he had to go on dialysis, he was in an induced coma,” she recalled. It is unclear if her husband had been vaccinated.
According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, nearly 5.3 million children have tested positive for COVID-19 as of Sept. 9. That figure includes more than 243,000 new cases from the previous week, which represented the second highest number of child cases in a week since the pandemic started.
Harvard Medical School researchers found that children may play a major role in spreading the virus. They found that children can carry high levels of the virus in their respiratory secretion even when they have mild or no symptoms.
Dalloo is encouraging everyone to take safety precautions against being infected with COVID including the wearing of masks and getting vaccinated.
"You guys have to be safe, at the end of the day, I don't want you guys to end up in the hospital or pass it on to another relative, maybe older, and something like this happens to them,” she said.
The family seeks assistance to ease their financial burdens. A GoFundMe page was set up to help them.
