Florida teen’s COVID-19 death tangled up in politics, culture
The death of a 17-year-old Florida girl who may have become infected at a large church gathering has gotten tangled up in the culture clash surrounding COVID-19, where whether to wear a mask is often a matter of politics, not health.
The reopening of First Youth Church after three months of remote sermons was going to be a party. No kid would want to miss the event, a Facebook flier promised of a night filled with “free food (yeah you read that right, FREE), basketball, and karaoke!!”
Sixteen-year-old Carsyn Davis was a dedicated student at the Fort Myers youth ministry, her family said. She loved Jesus. So, naturally, Carsyn was among the hundred or so kids to attend the church’s reopening event on June 10.
Carsyn didn’t wear a mask when she attended the party, even though she was obese, asthmatic and had a history of childhood cancer and a rare autoimmune disorder, according to a county medical examiner’s report. None of the other kids around her wore masks either — wearing a mask wasn’t required by state officials despite the known risks of indoor transmission.
Less than two weeks later, on June 23, the teen died of pneumonia brought on by COVID-19. She had turned 17 on June 21, in the hospital. Carsyn was the youngest person in Florida to die from the disease at the time. Her persistent health issues contributed to her death, according to the medical examiner report.
Now Carsyn’s death has become tangled up in the super-heated politics of COVID-19. As public health experts question Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Florida Department of Health for the fast pace of reopening — and for not mandating mask-wearing statewide — they worry that more vulnerable people like Carsyn will die amid the misinformation and mixed signals cascading out of the White
House.
In the teen’s case, there is another wrinkle: Her mother seems to be an adherent of the theory known as QAnon, a “viral cult” that traffics in conspiracies, including one holding that COVID-19 is part of a cover for President Donald Trump to break up the “Deep State.”
First Assembly of God, the Fort Myers megachurch that runs the youth ministry, did seem to take the pandemic seriously, adopting precautions far beyond many other Florida congregations. In March, the church shut down, even as many others stayed open. It did not reopen until June 6, a day after most of the state entered the second phase of reopening at DeSantis’ order. Many Floridians believed it was safe to start congregating again at events like the youth ministry party.
They were wrong.
Since Carsyn’s death, cases in Florida have skyrocketed, with the percentage of people testing positive well above a level that would suggest the spread of the virus is under control. On Thursday, the state reported 120 deaths, the most fatalities it has confirmed in a single day since the pandemic began. That same day, Dr. Anthony Fauci, a Trump administration official and the nation’s top expert on infectious diseases, said that Florida reopened too fast. A Miami Herald investigation found that DeSantis, a Trump ally, chose to start reopening in May despite the state already showing signs of a possible rebound in transmission.
“It’s clear that Florida officials have failed. The pandemic is out of control,” said Arthur Caplan, a professor of bioethics at New York University’s Langone Medical Center, “And people like [Carsyn] and others are going to continue to pay the price of denial, mismanagement and political and public health malpractice.”
If Carsyn contracted the virus at the party — and it’s not proven that she did — one thing might have protected her: a mask. But her mother, a registered nurse, did not believe in children wearing masks, according to a Facebook post Carole Davis made that linked to a website called “Don’t
Mask our Kids.”
Instead of science, Davis seemed to subscribe to conspiracy theories. On social media, she expressed skepticism about vaccines and showed faith in QAnon. In March, Davis shared a QAnon post suggesting that the coronavirus pandemic would enable Trump to break up the so-called “Deep State” of corporations, financiers, media conglomerates and Satan-worshipping child molesters fighting against him.
Accounts linked to the QAnon movement have pushed an unproven — and scientists say potentially dangerous — theory that taking a combination of azithromycin, an antibiotic, and hydroxychloroquine, an antimalarial, can cure COVID-19.
The QAnon believers took their lead from the president: Trump has heavily promoted the cocktail as a miracle cure, even saying he himself had used it, although doctors warn hydroxychloroquine can have severe cardiac and psychiatric side effects. Trump has also spoken dismissively about wearing masks, saying at a spring news conference: “I don’t think I’m going to be doing it.” He almost never wears them in public, including during a visit last week to Miami, although his tone has shifted somewhat in recent days as advisers worry his stance is damaging his chances for re-election.
On the day of the church party, Davis gave her daughter azithromycin as a preventative, according to a report from the MiamiDade County Medical Examiner. A summary from the state medical examiner’s commission said there were “100 other children and no masks” at the June 10 event.
Carsyn started feeling sick three days later, according to the medical examiner’s report.
“She developed frontal headache, sinus pressure, mild cough,” the report said. “The family thought her symptoms were due to a sinus infection.”
It’s not clear from the report if Carsyn’s mother or stepfather, a physician’s assistant, gave her permission to attend the party. Carole Davis did not respond to requests for comment. Kenneth Miller, Carsyn’s stepfather, declined to comment.
Even after Carsyn got sick, Carole Davis didn’t think masks were important for keeping children safe. On June 18, she posted anti-mask content to Facebook, calling it a “useful” resource, according to screenshots of her account obtained by the Herald.
The link she posted, which lobbied against mandatory mask wearing in school, put the burden on personal risk assessment for families with children in higher-risk categories like Carsyn.
“For the families who have children who are actually immunocompromised ... the universal masking of all students is not a solution to their concerns,” the website said. “That child’s family will have to weigh the risks of having the child attend school during COVID-19.”
On June 19, Davis noticed her daughter looked gray while sleeping, and she and Miller gave Carsyn a single dose of hydroxychloroquine, in addition to the antibiotics she had been administering, according to the medical examiner. It’s unclear when the drugs were prescribed, by whom and why, although azithromycin is frequently used to treat sinus infections.
Carsyn’s oxygen saturation was around 40 percent that night, and rose only to 60 after her mother gave her oxygen from her grandfather’s tank, the report shows. Normal oxygen level for a healthy person is 95 to 100 percent. She was taken to the ER and admitted into a Lee County hospital, where tests indicated her liver was not properly functioning. That same day, Carsyn’s COVID test results came back positive. But doctors wouldn’t give her the drug touted by Trump, despite her mother’s’ wishes.
“The doctors are refusing to give [Carsyn] Hydroxychloriquine, citing ‘new studies’ that it does not work and can be harmful. Using it is against their policy,” Carole Davis wrote on Facebook about her daughter’s treatment plan. “This is very upsetting to me, as many of you know how I feel about that.”
Doctors wanted to intubate her, but her mother and stepfather refused, the medical examiner reported. Carsyn spent June 21, her 17th birthday, in the hospital struggling to breathe. The next day, the doctors intubated her. She didn’t get better. On June 23, after being airlifted to a Miami-area children’s hospital for a hail-Mary procedure, Carsyn died.
“She endured years of treatment, doctor visits, specialists, and the effects of those treatments. She lost her dad at the age of 10,” her mother wrote. “Yet, she survived it all, never complaining and never focusing on herself. Even through the ravages of Covid, fighting to breathe, she never once shed a tear, complained or expressed fear.”
In obituaries, friends remembered Carsyn as a kind and dedicated person who loved singing, photography and competing on her high school’s bowling
team.
NO MASK MANDATE
Ultimately, it wasn’t Carole Davis’ scientifically questionable decisions regarding her daughter’s treatment that caused the teen to succumb to the disease, according to health experts.
Given Carsyn’s medical history, it was unlikely that any other course of treatment would have been more effective, said Dr. Richard Sutton, professor of medicine and infectious diseases at the Yale School of Medicine
Sutton said the biggest mistake was Carsyn attending a party with dozens of other unmasked kids. But he also heaped scorn on the president for his using his position to spurn the wearing of masks while relentlessly touting an unproven drug as a potential “game changer.”
“For the president to spew utter nonsense is really unfortunate because some people — maybe this family, for instance — took him at his word and thought he actually knew what he was talking about,” Sutton said. “How many other stories like this are out there? Stories where the parents think they have some degree of expertise and yet they’ve been misled by the highest level of the government to do this sort of stuff?”
The White House declined to comment.
DeSantis has also not insisted on mask usage.
Despite mounting evidence suggesting widespread mask wearing can reduce COVID-19 transmission rates by 80 percent, his executive orders have not mandated that masks be worn in public settings or at gatherings like church functions.
In its messaging to faith groups, the Florida DOH has followed guidance from the CDC “encouraging” rather than mandating congregants to wear masks.
After it reopened, First Assembly of God provided masks to those who wanted them at in-person services and advised social distancing, according to social media posts and its website.
But the church never mandated their use. It’s not clear if the church provided masks to kids attending the youth ministry event. An analysis by Univision found cases are spiking in states that have not imposed widespread face mask mandates compared to states that have.
”Everybody clearly should be masked. We’re past recommended,” said Caplan, the NYU bioethicist. “If we’re going to stop stacking up bodies, we need to get to ‘no mask and you can’t come in.’”
Helen Aguirre Ferré, a spokeswoman for DeSantis, said the Herald’s questions about Davis’ death were “both troubling and offensive.”
Ferré said the governor’s policies had saved lives and that he had always told the elderly and people with serious medical conditions to stay home.
“You are trying to sensationalize this case by [implying] that somehow the tragic death of this 17-yearold is the result of the Governor’s policies,” she said in a statement. “Any sense of dignity would dictate that you treat her memory with respect.”
Carsyn’s death first gained attention thanks to a website run by former Department of Health employee Rebekah Jones, who was fired from her position as a data manager after criticizing the state’s transparency. In a July 5 blog post, Jones called the church gathering a “COVID party,” suggesting the event itself had been somehow designed to spread the disease.
The allegations were picked up in early news reports. In a statement, First Assembly of God of Fort Myers, the megachurch that runs the youth ministry, said those allegations are false.
“First Assembly of God of Fort Myers is following all of the health protections and protocols recommended by the state and local government with regard to holding its church services,” the church said. “Let us be clear — media reports and postings accusing the church of ignoring protocols or actively engaging in behavior intended to expose our congregation to the virus are absolutely false and defamatory.”
Several outlets have modified their stories to clarify that no evidence has been found showing parents sent their kids to the party hoping they would contract the virus, possibly to develop immunity. But that didn’t stop social media users from attacking the church and the Davis family.
A report was made to the Florida Department of Children & Families. The agency is investigating, as is standard practice.