Six unvaccinated members of Florida family die of COVID-19

In just three weeks, six unvaccinated members of a Florida family died after contracting COVID-19. 

After attending the funeral for 48-year-old family member Tyrone Moreland, 89-year-old grandmother Lillie Mae Dukes Moreland was hospitalized with the virus and died just 24 hours later, according to The Palm Beach Post.

Three more cousins died shortly after their grandmother, and the family’s most recent loss was 44-year-old Trentarian Moreland, who died on Sunday.

Surviving family member Lisa Wilson said she believes she can trace at least two of the family’s deaths to a food pantry where her relatives had worked, but she is unsure where the others contracted the virus, the Post reported.

Wilson had spent weeks going door to door in Belle Glade, Fla., encouraging people to get vaccinated. She had unsuccessfully attempted to persuade her family members to get vaccinated prior to their deaths.

“I was in their ears almost every day. ‘You’ve just got to do this,’” Wilson said to the Post. “I’m beating myself up. Should I have pushed harder?”

More than 65 percent of Floridians are vaccinated, and death rates and the spread of the virus have begun to decline in the state after a brutal August, according to weekly COVID-19 data from Florida’s Department of Health.