Officials confirmed on Wednesday that the death of a 9-month-old in March was caused, in part, by COVID-19.
Joseph Myles, the youngest known victim in Cook County of the virus so far, was pronounced dead on March 23 at Mercy Hospital in Chicago.
The infant died of viral pneumonia due to coronavirus NL-63 and the COVID-19 infection, according to the Cook County medical examiner’s office.
His passing, and the fact that he tested positive for the coronavirus, was announced at the then-daily news conferences about the pandemic, shocking and saddening city and state health officials, who called the death exceptional.
Dr. Allison Arwady, head of the Chicago Department of Public Health, first declared the death of a minor and did not identify him. Gov. J.B. Pritzker and Dr. Ngozi Ezike, the state’s public health director, also addressed it later that day at a news briefing and in a statement.
Shortly after that, it was determined that additional testing needed to be completed before they could be sure his death was indeed caused by the virus.
A family member found Myles unresponsive on March 23 and notified authorities. The family reported that the baby had a history of a cold and cough, according to medical examiner’s office spokeswoman Natalia Derevyanny.
During an autopsy it was found that the infant’s lungs were congested and firm, indicating a possible infection.
Initially two postmortem nasopharyngeal swabs, dated March 23 and March 24, were tested by the Illinois Department of Public Health, revealing conflicting results.
The first swab administered at the hospital detected the presence of COVID-19, while the second swab administered at the medical examiner’s office did not, according to Derevyanny.
IDPH sent the two nasopharyngeal swabs to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the medical examiner’s office also submitted formalin fixed lung tissue to the CDC on March 31.
On April 14, the CDC determined there were two coronaviruses present in the tissues submitted — human coronavirus NL-63 and COVID-19 — and that only coronavirus NL-63 was present on the nasopharyngeal swabs.
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On April 16, the CDC requested additional laryngeal tissue samples. The medical examiner’s office sent both lung and laryngeal specimens to the CDC on April 20, and on June 5 the CDC informed the medical examiner’s office that there was molecular evidence of COVID-19 in the lungs but not the larynx, according to Derevyanny.
Based on test results and examination, the medical examiner’s office determined that both coronavirus NL-63 and COVID-19-induced viral pneumonia caused Myles’ death.
“I know how difficult this news can be, especially about this very young child,” the governor said earlier, in March.
“Upon hearing it, I admit that I was immediately shaken. It’s appropriate for any of us to grieve today. It’s especially sorrowful for the family of this very small child for the years stolen from this infant. We should grieve. … We should grieve for a sense of normalcy we left behind just a few short weeks ago.”
Ezike said earlier there have been no other confirmed coronavirus-linked cases in the world involving a child so young.
