Health officials announced the death of a 40-year-old Texas woman of the British Covid strain only five days after she was hospitalized over laborious breathing.
Felicia Parker became the first American to die of the recently discovered Covid mutant on Saturday. The mom-of-two contracted the 8 1.1.7 variant of the coronavirus.
“This is serious,” a relative said. “This is not just another person. This is someone’s mother, someone’s sister.”
“We have to be really safe; we have to follow the CDC guidelines. It’s not just another number. It’s somebody. She was admitted to the hospital last Monday. She was already gone by Saturday.”
Nearly 80 other Super-Covid cases have been recorded in 12 states while experts focus on two “homegrown Covid variants” that appeared in Ohio.
“It has a variant backbone that is in common with the UK and South African variants, but is separate,” Ohio State University scientist Daniel Jones said.
“We are now in a period where the virus is changing quite substantially.”