Two more teens have died from COVID-19 related complications in Florida, data show
Two more teenagers — a 16-year-old girl from Miami-Dade County and a 17-year-old boy from Manatee County — have died from COVID-related complications in Florida, according to health department data.
Both deaths were added to Florida’s COVID-19 death toll on Monday, according to the Florida Department of Health. The state has now had seven children confirmed to have died from the disease.
Neither of the two teens is considered a travel-related case and both had been hospitalized at some point during their illness, health records show.
The 17-year-old boy is the first known person under the age of 18 to have died from the novel coronavirus in Manatee County, according to the data.
He did not have contact with anyone who had previously tested positive for the disease, but it is still unknown if the 16-year-old girl from Miami-Dade did, according to the health department.
The 17-year-old boy died on Sunday at Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital in St. Petersburg. Children from Manatee County are often taken to All Children’s when they require intensive care, since none of the county’s hospitals have a pediatric ICU.
The District Six Medical Examiner’s Office stated it had no records on the death yet, although the death has already been certified.
According to the Miami-Dade Medical Examiner’s Office, the 16-year-old girl died July 29 at Nicklaus Children’s Hospital near South Miami, although her death did not appear in state data until Monday.
The girl, who had pre-existing conditions including spina bifida and hydrocephalus, died from COVID pneumonia, the report said.
To date, the youngest child included in Florida’s COVID-19 death toll is a 9-year-old girl from Putnam County. The other deaths were an 11-year-old boy from Miami-Dade, an 11-year-old girl from Broward County, a 16-year-old girl from Lee County and a 17-year-old from Pasco County.
A 19-year-old male from Gadsden County is also included in Florida’s COVID-19 death toll, but because he is older than 18 he is not counted in the state’s pediatric report.
Children are not at higher risk for COVID-19 than adults, but they can still fall ill with the disease and require hospitalization if the condition worsens, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
As of Monday, 38,171 children have tested positive for the disease in Florida since the pandemic began in March, according to Florida’s Department of Health. Of those, 394 have been hospitalized.
Miami Herald staff reporter Carli Teproff contributed to this report.
This story was originally published August 3, 2020 at 3:34 PM.
