4-year-old’s cause of death was not COVID, officials say
A 4-year-old Galveston County girl who died after testing positive for COVID-19 did not die of the virus, officials said.
Kali Cook of Bacliff died at home in early September after what her mother, Karra Harwood, said was a brief fever. Two days later, Galveston County health officials released a statement calling it “the county’s first Covid-related death in a child” younger than 10.
The agency has since revised its ruling, saying the preschooler died of “undetermined” causes, according to a copy of the official autopsy report obtained by Hearst Newspapers.
Medical examiners performed an X-ray and took tissue samples from Kali’s major organs, but could not pinpoint a cause of death.
“There was no indication of trauma, no indication of disease, nothing in the toxicology report,” John Florence, an investigator with the Galveston County Medical Examiner’s Office, said this week.
Medical examiners ruled out COVID-19 as a cause of death because the 4-yearold’s tissue samples were “unremarkable” and showed “no evidence of inflammation within the internal organs,” according to the report.
Kali had a medical history of seizures and frequent respiratory illnesses, the report said. In addition to COVID-19, she also tested positive for two viruses linked to the common cold.
Medical examiners found no evidence of heart defects or any other developmental abnormalities. Additionally, a full-body Xray did not uncover any broken bones, recent fractures
or traumatic injuries.
But the report noted that medical examiners could not rule out the possibility that Kali died from a fatal seizure, asphyxiation, heart arrhythmia or an untestable toxin.
Inconclusive autopsies are rare. Dr. Erin Barnhart, Galveston County’s chief medical examiner, said less than 3 percent of all autopsy exams result in undetermined findings.
“It’s not common, but it certainly does happen,” Barnhart said.
Arriving more than two months after Kali’s death, the autopsy results offered few clues about her mysterious and sudden passing, which garnered national attention.
On the morning of Sept. 7, Kali was found dead in the full-sized bed she shared with her grandmother and two younger siblings, the report said. She posthumously tested positive for COVID-19. Several family members, including her mother and siblings, also tested positive for COVID-19.
Harwood, Kali’s mother, said the 4-year-old had developed a fever the night before she died, but was otherwise healthy.
Galveston County health officials on Sept. 9 released a statement calling it a “Covid-related death.” But the announcement proved premature, as officials had not yet performed an autopsy. The health district and the medical examiner coursecorrected the following day, saying in a joint statement they hadn’t determined a “final cause of death.”
By then, Kali’s body had already been transported to a funeral home. Officials retrieved the body in order to perform a full autopsy at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston.
“Initially there was a lot of confusion,” Barnhart said.
UTMB will retain Kali’s tissue specimens for two years; blood samples used for DNA analysis and postmortem photographs will be kept indefinitely, the report said.
“If additional information comes up later, we can always go back and revise,” Barnhart said. “We have done what we can do at this point.”
Following the release of the autopsy results, the Galveston County sheriff’s office closed its criminal investigation into the death. A spokesperson for District Attorney Jack Roady said prosecutors are not pursuing criminal charges.
Thirty-five children under the age of 10 have died of COVID-19 in Texas since the pandemic began, according to the state data.
Kali, a student at Kenneth E. Little Elementary School in Bacliff, last attended class six days before her death. Health officials do not believe she became infected in her pre-kindergarten classroom.