#9-year-old girl becomes youngest person in Florida to die of COVID-19

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Health care workers prepare a COVID-19 test sample at the COVID-19 drive-thru testing center in Miami-Dade County.
David Santiago/Miami Herald via AP

A healthy 9-year-old girl died this month after catching the coronavirus, becoming the youngest person in Florida to succumb to the illness, local outlets reported.

Kimora “Kimmie” Lynum died in her sleep at her Gainesville home on the night of July 17, relatives told WTLV.

“She was a happy child, but she didn’t even get to live her life,” cousin Dejeon Cain told the outlet.

Family members said the girl did not have any underlying health conditions when she came down with a raging fever.

“She was doing good at one point, and all of a sudden she had a situation with a fever,” Cain said.

The girl’s mother took her to the hospital for treatment, but she was sent home, relatives said. She collapsed a short time later and died after her heart failed.

Local health officials confirmed the child’s death, with records showing her case was not travel-related, according to WCJB. The state does not report pre-existing conditions.

The family said they don’t know how Kimmie caught COVID-19, saying she had stayed home all summer and hadn’t been in contact with anyone known to have the virus.

She was her mother’s only child. Her father, Theophilus Lynum, was shot and killed in April, Cain said.

“This is like a double whammy…,” Cain told WGFL. “We just buried him and now we’re burying her. The family is troubled.”

After her dad’s death, Kimmie “still was joyous and had that grace on her,” Cain said.

“She was an incredible kid.”

They family has set up a GoFundMe to help pay for funeral arrangements.

Kimmie is the fifth minor to die of COVID-19 in the Sunshine State, where at least 5,853 people have succumbed to the virus.

As of Sunday evening, Florida had at least 423,855 recorded cases, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.