Marisa López and her half-brother Luke Byrd say that when they sent their 63-year-old mother, Kimberley, to the hospital, they knew it might be the last time they saw her alive.
“Before she left, I thought, Luke, we need to hug mom and tell her we love her because we don’t know what’s going to happen,” Lopez told CBS News correspondent Mola Lenghi. “This could be, and, I mean, we were right. It was that.”
Kimberley Lopez-Byrd was an elementary school teacher in Phoenix and taught summer school online. She was sharing a classroom with two other teachers when she contracted the coronavirus.
Arizona reported more than 2,500 new cases of coronavirus on Sunday. In the past seven days, nearly 27% of the tests were positive, the highest rate in the nation.
The ICUs are almost full and the state is preparing to make the outbreak worse.
“For the past three weeks we have been the worst in the entire country,” said Will Humble, executive director of the Arizona Public Health Association and former director of the Arizona Department of Health Services.
Humble said his condition was fine at first, but it reopened too quickly.
“People sacrificed so much during the order to stay home with their jobs, and then when it wasn’t done in stages, as we moved into a home stay, we lost that progress,” he said.
Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego CBS News “Face the Nation” said Sunday who is calling on the governor to issue a statewide mask mandate, that restaurants only serve takeout and the closure of personal care services such as beauty salons.
“We believe that is not necessary at this time while observing such high levels of the virus,” Gallego said.
Another imminent situation facing Arizona: the opening of schools scheduled for next month.
“They just don’t feel like it’s a safe environment for teachers to come in, and they’re concerned about our students as well as the spread of the virus,” Gallego said.
Education Secretary Betsy Devos, who has threatened to withdraw federal funds for schools that won’t reopen, downplayed the risk and addressed the concerns of children who spread the virus.
“There is nothing in the data to suggest that children returning to school are dangerous to them,” said Devos.
For López and Byrd, they know very well the potential price of opening schools too soon.
“Basically we are blatantly putting them at risk for something that basically is: we can revive our children’s education. We cannot revive a life,” López said.
The other two teachers who worked in the same classroom as Kimberley Lopez-Byrd also hired COVID-19. They are recovering.
The school district told CBS News that it was very strict to follow CDC guidelines.
Top public health officials say they still don’t know enough about how the coronavirus affects children and how efficiently they transmit the virus.
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