A healthy 16-year-old girl from France died of COVID-19 on March 25.

Her name was Julie and she was France’s youngest COVID-19 death and among the first young healthy deaths from COVID-19.

This shocked many because COVID-19 is mainly a threat to the elderly and immunocompromised people and was not thought to affect young healthy people.

“It’s unbearable,” Sabine, Julie’s mother, said. “It was just a cough.”

The Saturday prior, she had begun feeling tightness in her lungs and having coughing fits, so she was taken to the doctor.
She was given a lung scan and tested for COVID-19, but the doctor said it was just some congestion and nothing serious.

After more trouble breathing, she was taken to the emergency room and given two more coronavirus tests. The first was negative and Sabine was told to go home.

A few hours later, Sabine was called saying the other COVID-19 test was positive and Julie’s condition had worsened. By the time Sabine arrived, Julie was gone.

“At that point, I panicked. Some words, you just know what they mean,” Sabine said.

With the strict coronavirus protocol, all of her things had to be burned. Julie’s mother and sister only managed to save her baptism bracelet.

To limit the risk of contagion, her funeral will only be attended by 10 people and it will be a closed casket.

“We had to choose among our relatives who will be present,” Julie’s older sister, Manon, said. “The day she died, we already had to choose a coffin for her.”

Since the death, the media had been reporting everywhere about the 16-year-old who died of the coronavirus.
“It’s horrible because I know it’s mine,” Sabine said.

Source:
https://www.euronews.com/2020/03/27/coronavirus-in-france-healthy-16-year-old-dies-of-covid-19
https://www.france24.com/en/20200327-she-just-had-a-cough-teen-s-covid-19-death-shakes-france