Unvaccinated single mom dies of Covid and leaves behind four children

‘Now seeing how it happened and how quickly it happened, it definitely changed our perspective’, woman’s son says

The four children of an unvaccinated woman who died after contracting Covid-19 in Florida are urging people to take the pandemic seriously.

Cindy Dawkins, 50, from Boynton Beach passed away earlier this month after testing positive for Covid.

"I think she wasn’t sure about the vaccine, and we followed the rules and kept our masks on," Dawkins’ son Tre Burrows, 20, told Good Morning America. “Now seeing how it happened and how quickly it happened, it definitely changed our perspective. Getting a vaccine helps more than any damage it could do.”

"It felt like a dream. It honestly did. It didn’t even feel real," he said about her death.

Mr Burrows and his 24 year-old sister, Jenny Burrows, are now caring for their little sisters, Zoey, 15, and Sierra, 12.

"Even when we were younger, [Cindy Burrows] would tell us that we were brothers and sisters and we had to look after each other. Right now we’re in survival mode trying to make sure that everything gets done," Ms Burrows’ told GMA.

Even when we were younger, Ms Burrows said their mother would tell her children that they had to look after each other,” says Ms Burrows.

According to reports, Dawkins was due to put the last touches on her US citizenship application on the day she was admitted to hospital on 5 August. Two days later, she died of suspected Covid-19 pneumonia.

A crowdfunder was established by Janie Yoshida, who had previously helped the family when they homelessness. It has raised more than $20,000.

"We’ve just been in each other’s lives ever since," Ms Yoshida told GMA. "Cindy was the hardest working person and would have done anything and everything for her kids."

The money is going to be used for a down payment on a home for the family to live together in.

According to data from the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention only 51.1 per cent of US residents over the age of 12 are fully vaccinated against Covid-19.

Public health experts, such Dr Anthony Fauci, the senior health adviser to President Biden and director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and Dr Rochelle Wolensky, the director of the CDC, have said that the more lethal and contagious Delta variant is much more dangerous to those who are not vaccinated.

On 23 August, the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine was given full approval by the Food and Drug Administration after being granted emergency use authorisation in December 2020.

Florida, the home state of Dawkins, is considered to be one of the worst areas for covid in the country. On 22 August, there were 17,000 cases reported with 53 per cent of those people in intensive care units. A significant portion of those are unvaccinated, according to Local 10.