WASHINGTON (AP) – Eight-year-old Brooklynn Chiles fidgets on the hospital bed as she waits for the nurse at Children’s National Hospital. The white paper beneath her crinkles as she shifts to look at the medical objects in the room. She’s had the coronavirus three times, and no one can figure out why.
Brooklynn’s lucky, sort of. Each time she has tested positive, she has suffered no obvious symptoms. But her dad, Rodney, caught the virus when she was positive back in September, and he died from it.
Her mom, Danielle, is dreading a next bout, fearing her daughter could become gravely ill even though she’s been vaccinated.
“Every time, I think: Am I going to go through this with her, too?” she said, sitting on a plastic chair wedged in the corner. “Is this the moment where I lose everyone?”
Among the puzzling outcomes of the coronavirus, which has killed more than 6 million people worldwide since it first emerged in 2019, are the symptoms suffered by children.