Hospital staff struggling as coronavirus hospitalizations spike
West Coast correspondent Jeff Paul reports on some understaffed hospitals offering incentives like signing bonuses to nurses.
Daniel and Davy Macias, a married California couple, were hospitalized with COVID-19 just days apart last month after returning home from a vacation and tragically died in recent weeks from complications with the virus, leaving behind a 3-week-old newborn and four other children under the age of 7.
Davy Macias, a 37-year-old nurse, was seven months pregnant when she was first hospitalized. A doctor delivered the couple's daughter eight days before she died on Aug. 26.
Daniel Macias, 39, was hospitalized just days after his wife last month and lost his battle with the virus on Sept. 10.
The couple leaves behind five children, ages 7, 5, 3, 2 and their newborn daughter.
"There aren't words to explain the loss of both him and Davy," Terri Serey, Daniel’s sister-in-law, wrote on a GoFundMe page for the children. "Keep the kids in your thoughts and prayers. They gained two angels but still have a long road ahead of them."
As of Tuesday afternoon, the fundraiser had raised more than $241,000 and loads of supplies for the Macias children, who are being looked after by their grandparents.
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"I don’t know anyone who loved their kids as much as they did, and they made sure they told them every day," Serey told FOX 5 San Diego. "I want them to be aware of how much they’re loved. And I want them to know how much their parents loved them."
Daniel Macias was a middle school teacher who will be "remembered as a compassionate, kind-hearted, fun-loving and generous teacher at Jehue Middle School but he was also a devoted family man," the Rialto Unified School District said in a statement.
Davy Macias was a nurse and Daniel Macias was a middle school teacher. (Family photo provided via KTTV)
Davy Macias was a frontline worker throughout the pandemic.
"COVID does not discriminate and it’s a scary place in the hospitals right now," she wrote on Facebook in January. "Nurses are tired, we have anxiety before going to work, we sit in our cars and we cry after our long shifts. We mourn for the patients and the families."
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Her brother, Vong Serey, told the Orange County Register that her sister was not vaccinated because she was hesitant to do so while pregnant, and that he was unsure if Daniel Macias was vaccinated.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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