A Louisiana family is reeling after four members of one family died from COVID-19.
Antoinette Franklin, 86, and her sons, 61-year-old Timothy, 58-year-old Anthony and 71-year-old Herman, died within days of each other, WDSU reports. Antoinette was the first to die on March 23, and Anthony followed three days later, according to The Boyd Family Funeral Home. Herman and Timothy both passed away on March 30.
"My uncle passed, my grandmother passed, my dad passed, then my other uncle passed its literally like 7-8 days apart it's horrific,” Anthony Franklin Jr. told the news station.
“I want the world to know if it happened to the Franklin family it could happen to any family,” Jacqueline Franklin said. “Let’s take this serious my children have to bury their father, their precious grandmother and their uncles. Let’s not let this happen to another family."
The Franklin brothers were put to rest on Friday, and services for their mother were held on Saturday.
Louisiana, especially New Orleans, has been hit hard by the coronavirus. As of press time, there have been approximately 13,000 diagnoses and 477 deaths, according to the Louisiana Department of Health’s coronavirus tracker.
Data from the department’s Data Center showed New Orleans had more coronavirus-related deaths per capita than all of the other hard-hit cities, per Sun Herald. NOLA reports 32 deaths per 100,000 people, which is more than twice the rate of New York.
“This data is not only poignant, it is a critical measure of the true impact of COVID-19 on our city,” The Data Center said in a press release. “While confirmed cases may be constrained by limited testing capacity and lag times in test results, death data is a closer reflection of the true infection rate, as well as medical capacity and the pre-existing health conditions that make our city so vulnerable to COVID-19.”
Additionally, Black people are bearing the brunt of the outbreak nationwide, and New Orleans is no exception, according to ProPublica. Although the state has not published a racial breakdown of the crisis, 40% of coronavirus-related deaths were concentrated in the predominately Black Orleans Parish, reports The New York Times.
On Sunday, Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards warned the state might run out of ventilators before the end of the week based on the rate of diagnoses.
"Every day we get new information that informs our modeling. We now think it's probably around the 9th of April before we exceed our ventilator capacity based on the current number on hand and that we're a couple of days behind that on ICU bed capacity being exceeded," Edwards said during an appearance on CNN.
He added, "as we achieve success in slowing the rate of spread, we also push out that date. And critically important is the number of people who will present to the hospital and not be able to get a (ventilator) or a bed, it's a smaller number."
There have been more than 300,000 COVID-19 diagnoses and about 7,600 deaths in the United States, according to figures from the CDC.
Surgeon General Jerome Adams urged governors to issue stay-at-home orders if they have not done so already, per NBC News. The federal government has not issued a nationwide order and left the decision up to the states.
“The next week is going to be our Pearl Harbor moment, it’s going to be our 9/11 moment, it’s going to be the hardest moment for many Americans in their entire lives,” Adams said during an appearance on Meet The Press. “And we really need to understand that if we want to flatten that curve and get through to the other side, everyone needs to do their part.”
