A woman in New York, United States, unknowingly infected 17 of her 18 children, including some who were adopted, because she showed no symptoms after contracting the coronavirus and
Brittany Jencik of Penfield, near Rochester, said she infected her kids while asymptomatic about five weeks ago, the Daily Mail of UK reported.
She eventually became ill from the virus and the children also began showing symptoms. Jencik says the deadly flu-like virus, also known as COVID-19, hit the family ‘like a freight train.’
“It was terrifying. I was a little ahead of them in the timing of it all,” the mother said.
“I was as afraid of my life as I had ever been, and not much scares me,” she added.
It was not clear how Jencik herself was infected.
Jencik says that for a couple of days while she was her sickest, “I was extremely concerned that I was never going to be the same.”
Now, after weeks of isolation, the family is slowly recovering.
Jencik said a friend’s cleaning service came to sanitise the surfaces of her home.
Matt Moreno, CEO of Purify Global, brought in a team of 12 in rubber hazmat suits.
“We put on commercial grade gas masks with a cartridge that’s meant to withstand a nuclear attack,” he said.
Jencik’s family waited outside the home during the two-hour cleaning job.
“I needed to know from my mama heart that I was protecting the people I love to the best extent I possibly could,” she said.
So far, New York State, the nation’s epicentre of the outbreak, has had more than 223,699 confirmed cases of the coronavirus, which has been blamed for more than 12,800 deaths.
Across the country, there have been 691,567 confirmed cases of the coronavirus, which has been blamed for 36,185 deaths.