A child died of COVID-19, health officials say — the first in Virginia

By: Kate Masters - September 18, 2020 3:18 pm

Virginia’s state flag flies in Richmond. (Ned Oliver/ Virginia Mercury)

The Virginia Department of Health confirmed the first death of a child in Virginia due to COVID-19, according to a Friday news release.

The patient was “an adolescent resident in the Southside Health District” — which includes Boydton, Lawrenceville, and Halifax — who tested positive for the virus. VDH listed the patient’s age as between 10 and 19, but declined to release more specific information to protect the privacy of the family, according to the release.

“We were extremely saddened to learn of the loss of the state’s first adolescent with COVID-19,” state Health Commissioner Dr. Norman Oliver said in a statement, adding that “no age group is immune from the devastating impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, and this unfortunate event, along with the increasing numbers of coronavirus cases we are seeing in some areas of the Commonwealth, is a reminder that we all need to do our part to help slow the spread of virus in the community.”

Our stories may be republished online or in print under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. We ask that you edit only for style or to shorten, provide proper attribution and link to our web site. Please see our republishing guidelines for use of photos and graphics.

Kate Masters

Kate grew up in Northern Virginia before moving to the Midwest, earning her degree in journalism from the University of Missouri. She spent a year covering gun violence and public health for The Trace in Boston before joining The Frederick News-Post in Frederick County, Md. Before joining the Mercury in 2020, she covered state and county politics for the Bethesda Beat in Montgomery County, Md. She was named Virginia's outstanding young journalist for 2021 by the Virginia Press Association.