Her teen daughter has been hospitalized for about 10 days. She has a message for the public, and especially for Gov. DeSantis.
This Florida mother has been living in her teen daughter's ICU room for days, praying she survives Covid-19
https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/29/us/covid-florida-mother-teen-daughter-icu/index.html
Agnes Velasquez remembers the last words her teen daughter said before Covid-19
severely attacked her respiratory system.
"She told me that she loved me," said Velasquez, who rushed her daughter to the hospital.
Velasquez spoke with CNN on a video call from the ICU room at Broward Health Medical Center where her 15-year-old daughter, Paulina, has been battling Covid-19 for about 10 days.
"She can hear me," Velasquez said.
Velasquez showed her daughter up close, her hair combed in a ponytail and her eyes shut. A ventilator tube covers a portion of her face.
Velasquez said she tells her daughter every day to, "Fight for your life."
As this mom prays for a miracle, in English and Polish, over her daughter's body, she said she has a message for the public, and especially for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
"The governor should encourage people to take vaccines, to wear masks, to apply the (Covid) guidelines," Velasquez said.
DeSantis doubled down
against mask mandates Tuesday, after the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention updated
its guidance recommending children wear masks indoors regardless of vaccination status.
"Parents know what's best for their children; therefore, parents in Florida are empowered to make their own choices with regards to masking," DeSantis' spokesperson Christina Pushaw said Tuesday. "Fortunately, the data indicate that Covid is not a serious risk to healthy children, which is why schools in most countries were among the first institutions to reopen."
However, CDC officials say
data demonstrates that children remain at risk for Covid-19.
"If you look at the mortality rate of Covid, just this past year for children, it's more than twice the mortality rate we see in influenza in a given year," said CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky on CNN's "New Day" Wednesday.
The number of Covid-19 cases in children and teens is trending upwards, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics. The group reported more than 38,600 cases in children from July 15 to 22, more than triple what was being reported at the end of June.
In Florida, which accounted for 20 percent of the nation's new cases earlier this month, the positivity rate has jumped to 15.1 percent,
according to state data.
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