A 4-year-old Texas girl died of COVID-19, which she probably contracted from her mother, a staunch anti-vaxxer, the father said in grief.
Little Kali Cook died Tuesday at her home in Bacliff, just five hours after she woke up early with the first signs of fever, mother Karra Harwood told local media.
“Kali was perfectly fine, and then she was gone,” the shattered mother told the Houston Chronicle. “It took her so fast.”
Harwood said she had tested positive the day before, with her and her fiancé, William Tucker, who no longer had a job because they were sick and were quarantined at home.
“I tried to get away from her and didn’t want her and my other children to get it,” she told Kali’s Galveston County Daily News and her 5-month-old brother and sister, both also infected.
The mother admitted that she now regrets opposing COVID-19 vaccines. In Texas, the vaccination rate is only a fraction of more than 50%, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
“I was one of the people who was anti, I was against it,” he told his local newspaper of the shootings.
“Now, I wish it never was,” he admitted.
Kali was him first child to die of COVID-19 in Galveston County during the pandemic, which has recorded nearly 50,000 confirmed cases and more than 470 more deaths, according to local health officials.
“This is terrible, but I think people need to know,” area health official Philip Keizer told the Galveston County Daily News about the young man’s death.
“It’s very important, if your kids are sick, not to say, ‘Oh, they’ll be fine,'” Keizer said. “If your kids are sick, go get medical attention.”
Kali had just started preschool classes, but there is no suggestion that she would become infected there, officials said. Tracking contacts has not shown that he is close to anyone infected other than his family, according to reports.
The county reflects the Lone Star State average with up to 50% vaccinated so far, although a recent increase in Delta variant infections has seen an increase in vaccine recipients, according to the local newspaper.
Meanwhile, Harwood has launched an online fundraiser to help her while she and her fiancé are still out of work, and she quickly exceeded her $ 20,000 goal.
“His heart was too pure for this cruel world and God decided he needed another precious angel by his side,” they wrote about Kali.
“We are all broken and lost and we are just trying to figure out how to get out of it [through this life] without their light, ”the couple added, saying they are“ excessively stressed and hurting ”.
Harwood told the Galveston County Daily News that her daughter had been “so funny and cheeky.
“She was not your average girl. He prefers to play with worms and frogs than to wear ties, ”said the mother.
“She was so pretty and full of life.”