BALTIMORE — A 12-year-old Baltimore City Schools student is in a battle for her life after getting COVID-19.
“It’s so hard because you can’t do nothing,” Jacorey Barney said. “You can’t take her place.”
Barney said she’s feeling helpless as she watches Janiya try to fight off the virus.
“All you can do is just be there and let your child know that mommy is right here,” she said.
She said Janiya first started feeling sick nearly two weeks ago. She said it took just a few days for the virus to start an attack that would later put the 12-year-old in the ICU at Johns Hopkins Hospital
“She has acute kidney failure, liver damage [and] a little bit of lung damage,” Barney said.
Barney said the doctors told her Janiya has Multi-System Inflammatory Syndrome also known as “MIS-C”. It’s a rare disease found in kids exposed to the virus.
“Doctors were saying that they haven’t seen a case like this with a child,” she said.
Barney believes Janiya contracted COVID-19 while she was in school at Cherry Hill Elementary Middle School.
She said she first learned someone at the school tested positive on September 9th.
She was later notified two 7th graders had the virus on the 15th, she said.
Barney added she wasn’t told her daughter was exposed until she was at the hospital, which was on September 19th—more than a week after Janiya first started showing symptoms.
“I just feel the situation wouldn’t be where we are now if i was notified two weeks ago,” she said.
Barney also said she told the assistant principal her daughter had COVID-19 on Sunday, but she said it was never reported
“[The Principal] called me Thursday morning, he had no clue what was going on with my child,” she said.
Barney said Janiya is starting to show signs of improvement, but she said still has a long road to recovery.
“Who knows how long it’s going to take for my baby to recover,” she said. “Who knows how long it’s going to take to start to get her strength to walk again.”
A spokesperson with Baltimore City Schools confirmed that there is an outbreak at Cherry Hill Elementary Middle School
Currently, there’s 16 positive cases, the spokesperson said. School officials are working to identify all close contacts.
The spokesperson also said in a statement their hearts go out to Janiya and they’re hoping she makes a speedy recovery, but the spokesperson didn’t explain exactly why it so long to tell Barney her daughter was exposed.
