6-Year-Old Girl Dies After Testing Positive For COVID-19
A 6-year-old Tennessee girl has died after being diagnosed with COVID-19
A 6-year-old girl from west Tennessee has died after being diagnosed with COVID-19. She’s the first childhood death from the virus in Madison County and she leaves behind a grieving family stunned by her sudden loss.
Gillian Morse passed away on August 4th after visiting the doctor, who told her mother, Priscilla Morse, that the child “had a viral bug” and “to let her rest and eat as many popsicles and slushies as she wanted,” she wrote in a blog post according to the Jackson Sun letting friends and family know of Gillian’s tragic death. “She went to sleep and she died and I don’t even want to breathe anymore without her.”
Jackson-Madison County Health Department Director Kim Tedford confirmed the little girl’s death in their press briefing Wednesday morning. A family friend started a GoFundMe to cover funeral expenses for Gillian.
The Morse family adopted Gillian from Ukraine at age three and detailed their journey in multiple family blogs, according to the Sun. The family has multiple children adopted internationally. “She had such a rough start to her short life, living unloved, unwanted in an orphanage in Ukraine,” said father David Morse in a Facebook post. “Severe medical issues. We found her and knew immediately that she had to be our daughter. We brought her home and showed her a love like no other.”
Her parents said they put Gillian down for a nap after her Tuesday doctor’s visit and she never woke up. Their oldest child tried saving her with CPR before she was brought to the hospital. Her father heartbreakingly recounts memories of his little girl. “She learned her own version of English, but we understood,” David Morse said. “She would sing Disney songs and nursery rhymes perfectly. She would give me kisses and then say ‘more,’ and we would kiss again and she would say ‘more’ again.”
“I got to kiss my Gigi yesterday on the last time I would see her alive and we did the ‘more.’ I just love her so much. We are all so devastated. She now walks with Jesus. No more epilepsy, no more autism. She is my heart,” he said.
Sadly, Gillian isn’t the only child to die of the virus this week. According to WSB-TV 2, a 7-year-old boy in the Savannah, Georgia area became the youngest person in the state to die from the virus. The Georgia Department of Health announced the sad news yesterday as part of their daily briefing. The only available details are that the child is African American and had no preexisting conditions.
As President Trump insists schools open this year, it’s becoming more and more evident that it’s a risky proposition. Kids can get COVID-19 and now, some are dying from the virus. How many of these heartbreaking stories will we see this year?
