Baby boy, 2-year-old girl test positive for coronavirus in Broward, officials say
A baby boy and a 2-year-old girl have tested positive for COVID-19 in Broward County, the Florida Department of Health announced Tuesday.
The health department’s data list the boy’s age as zero, making him the youngest person in the state known to be ill with COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus.
Health officials have also listed the case under “unknown” for travel-related. DOH did not state whether the baby boy had been in contact with someone who had tested positive for the virus.
Broward health department officials did not respond to requests for information about the case.
State health officials have also listed the 2-year-old girl’s case under “unknown” for travel-related and did not indicate whether she had been in contact with someone who had tested positive. She is the second 2-year-old girl in Florida to test positive for coronavirus.
As of Tuesday night, Broward had 312 cases, the second highest number of cases after Miami-Dade, which had 367 cases.
It’s possible that the baby noted in DOH’s Broward data is the 7-month-old son of Herine Baron, an ER nurse at Jackson North Medical Center in Miami-Dade County, who says she was infected with the disease while at work.
Miami Herald news partner WLRN reported earlier Tuesday that Baron’s 7-month-old son tested positive for COVID-19.
Baron, who has been documenting her hospitalization on YouTube, announced her son’s test results Monday. Her husband took him to the ER after he ran a fever and she was hospitalized, Baron said in the video.
“According to the doctors, they told me that for babies, they’re able to fight it off more better than an adult,” Baron said in the video. “My son is asymptomatic. He’s not showing any signs that I’ve been having.”
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says children are not at higher risk for COVID-19 than adults and that “while some children and infants have been sick with COVID-19, adults make up most of the known cases to date.”
Baron, in the video, said her son was doing fine.
“He’s still acting like himself. He’s still playful, still him. I don’t really see any change. Only thing is he has low-grade fevers ... and I’m very happy that it’s like that and they told me basically to treat it like a flu,” Baron said on the video.
The nurse said she was discharged from the hospital Monday and will self-quarantine at her home, away from her son and family until she tests negative for the disease.
A woman who answered a phone listed for Baron on Tuesday said she was focusing on her health and was not speaking with reporters.
This story was originally published March 24, 2020 at 5:00 PM.
