Twelve-year-old Amari Goodwin from Walterboro, S.C. is on a ventilator at the MUSC Shawn Jenkins Children’s Hospital in Charleston after contracting COVID-19, ABC 11 News reports. Amari is also fighting pneumonia and RSV (Respiratory Syncytial Virus).
Amari had been feeling ill since Aug. 5. Her mom, Misty Goodwin, took Amari to urgent care on Aug. 11 after her symptoms quickly progressed. She had a 104-degree fever and was diagnosed at the urgent care center with COVID-19, RSV and pneumonia. After Amari began to vomit with blood in her phlegm, Goodwin took her to the MUSC Shawn Jenkins Children’s Hospital. The hospital staff immediately sedated Goodwin and placed her on a ventilator to help her breathe.
Dr. Elizabeth Mack is the Chief of Critical Care at MUSC Shawn Jenkins Children’s Hospital and she said that every patient under 21 admitted to the hospital with COVID-19 was unvaccinated, adding that 180 of them had been admitted since March of 2020.
“That has been evenly split for 2020 and 2021,” said Mack. “However 20 percent of our 2021 numbers have been in August and we’re not done with August. So if that gives you an indication of how quickly we’ve seen the rise over the last month or so. And note that every child hospitalized for COVID or MIS-C has been unvaccinated.”
Goodwin said that she had an appointment to get her daughter vaccinated in August but that she had gotten sick beforehand. She recommended that anyone who is able to get vaccinated should do so immediately. She also said that people should still wear a mask.
“If we don’t protect these kids, no one is going to protect them,” said Goodwin. “If you can get vaccinated, I suggest you do it. But you still have to wear your mask. It can happen to anybody. It don’t matter young, old, what color, it doesn’t matter. This virus don’t care. It’s going to hit who it can hit. It’s going to keep going, so we all have to do our part.”
Amari is slowly making progress, and her physicians have begun to ween her off the sedatives. Her mother said that she is now able to squeeze her hand and open her eyes. We hope that Amari makes a speedy and full recovery!
