A 15-year-old from Baltimore County died after getting infected with COVID-19, becoming Maryland's youngest known victim of coronavirus, health officials say.
Dar'yana Dyson died on Saturday, six days after being put on a ventilator, her mother, Kandace Knight, told NBC affiliate WBAL.
"It happened so fast. I never thought that taking my daughter to the hospital for a stomach pain that I wouldn't be walking out of there with her,” Knight told WBAL.
Dyson went to the hospital with fever and stomach pain and later developed a rash, but initially tested negative for coronavirus, her mother said.
The teen victim's symptoms were consistent with a rare, but serious, condition linked to coronavirus in pediatric patients called multi-system inflammatory syndrome, Baltimore County health officials said.
Doctors believe the illness occurs when the immune system goes into overdrive after a COVID-19 infection. Last week, the CDC warned doctors of the condition, which is similar to a known illness called Kawasaki disease.
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Maryland reported the state's first death in someone under the age of 19 on Tuesday. Health officials reported that the positive COVID-19 result had been confirmed in a lab.
“The COVID-19 pandemic is real, it is here, and it is lethal,” Dr. Gregory Branch, the Baltimore County Health Officer, said in a statement. The state says 41,546 people have become infected with the novel coronavirus.
“She just was too good for this world, she was too good for this world. She was so beautiful, she was too good for this world,” Knight told WBAL.
