Covid Wales: Woman, 25, dies days before family due to be vaccinated

Parents whose 25-year-old daughter died from Covid-19 after her family contracted it days before they were due to be vaccinated have issued a dire warning over the ‘very real threat’ of the virus. 

Lauren Jones, from Llwynypia in the Rhondda, had none of the underlying health conditions known to make someone more susceptible to coronavirus, but deteriorated ‘rapidly’ after going to hospital ‘just to get checked out’.

Lauren worked as an administrator at a GP surgery and was days away from having her Covid vaccination when she began self-isolating. Her mother Karen was also in-line for the jab as she too works for the NHS.  

Within 24 hours Karen and her father Paul were told she wasn’t expected to survive the night, and they were by her side when she passed away at the Royal Glamorgan Hospital in Llantrisant in the early hours of December 30. 

It is rare for people under the age of 50 to die of Covid-19 and, in England, they have made up around six per cent of the more than 17,000 deaths during November and December.  

Lauren Jones, from Llwynypia in the Rhondda, had none of the underlying health conditions known to make someone more susceptible to coronavirus, but deteriorated ‘rapidly’ after checking herself into hospital

Speaking to the BBC, Paul, a police officer, recalled: ‘I’ll never forget the words they used, because they would just be prolonging the inevitable and Lauren wouldn’t survive the night.

‘She walked from the car to the hospital, I thought she would have been out later that day… It just goes to show the very real threat that’s out there from this virus and people who still think they’re not gonna be affected by it can be.’

Karen added: ‘We did everything that everybody told us to do, and it still got us.’

All three family members tested positive for Covid earlier in December and were badly affected by the virus, with Paul and Karen both requiring brief stints in hospital.

On Christmas Day they felt so unwell they didn’t even open their presents. Days later Lauren decided to go to hospital to get ‘checked out’. 

All three family members tested positive for Covid earlier in December and were badly affected by the virus, with Paul and Karen both needing brief stints in hospital

All three family members tested positive for Covid earlier in December and were badly affected by the virus, with Paul and Karen both needing brief stints in hospital

Karen told how her daughter told her not to worry - but that was the last time she spoke to her

Karen told how her daughter told her not to worry – but that was the last time she spoke to her

She didn’t speak to her parents again until the following day, by which point she was having treatment to assist her breathing.  

How common is it for young people to die of Covid-19? 

NHS statistics show that it is rare for people under the age of 40 to die of Covid-19, with 100 of the 17,572 fatalities in November and December in that age group.

Six people under the age of 20 died in England in those two months, along with 94 people in their 20s or 30s. Together they made up 0.57 per cent of all deaths.

Deaths are also relatively uncommon in the under-60s, with 910 deaths among people aged 40 to 59 during November and December (five per cent of the total).

Children are almost never seriously ill with Covid-19 unless they had significant health problems before they caught the virus.

Scientists are still not exactly sure why older people are more at risk, but it is likely to be because they have more other health problems, such as high blood pressure, diabetes and dementia, which Covid-19 appears to interact with to become deadly.

Over-80s accounted for the most deaths, making up 57 per cent of the fatalities in the last two months of 2020 (10,016), with a further 6,549 in 60 to 79-year-olds.

Karen said her daughter told her not to worry – but that was the last time she spoke to her. 

‘We were both with her when she came into the world and we were both with her when she left the world,’ she told the BBC.

She added that the staff in the intensive care unit were ‘marvellous’ and gathered around Lauren in her final moments, with many of them ‘absolutely distraught’.

Paul said they told him Lauren was the youngest Covid patient they’d had in the hospital, admitting it was ‘not a statistic you want your daughter to be’.  

Lauren suffered from complex regional pain syndrome in her foot which meant she walked with crutches, and also had high blood pressure, but her parents are at a loss as to why the virus hit her so hard. 

Karen admitted she now wakes up in the early hours in tears and cries out for her daughter in her sleep. 

Music and animal lover Lauren’s funeral will take place later this month, and her parents are urging people to follow the rules so they don’t end up in the same awful situation as them.

‘Hopefully nobody will have to go through this because I don’t want anybody to go through what we’re going through now,’ Karen said.

‘I don’t want anybody to lose a child or any other relative, but if they don’t listen this could go on forever, you have to listen.’ 

Official figures today revealed one in every three deaths in England and Wales was linked to coronavirus in the final days of 2020, as a separate analysis claimed the virus was behind the sharpest rise in fatalities since 1940.

Office for National Statistics (ONS) numbers show 31.2 per cent of deaths in the five days to January 2 — 3,144 out of 10,069 — had Covid mentioned on their death certificates. This is the highest proportion in the second wave.

Music and animal lover Lauren's funeral will take place later this month, and her parents are urging people to follow the rules so they don't end up in the same situation as them

Music and animal lover Lauren’s funeral will take place later this month, and her parents are urging people to follow the rules so they don’t end up in the same situation as them

The number of deaths from the virus rose by eight per cent — 232 more people — compared to the previous week, despite the figures reported covering two fewer days than a normal week. 

Analysis shows coronavirus is killing fewer healthy and younger people in England now than it did during the first wave of the pandemic in spring.

The risk of the virus to people without pre-existing health conditions and those under the age of 60 has always been small, with the disease preying on the elderly and patients with weakened immune systems.

NHS statistics show that it is rare for people under the age of 40 to die of Covid-19, with 100 of the 17,572 fatalities in November and December in that age group

NHS statistics show that it is rare for people under the age of 40 to die of Covid-19, with 100 of the 17,572 fatalities in November and December in that age group

But NHS England figures revealed yesterday that threat has become even smaller over time, with experts claiming it is a sign that doctors have become better at treating the virus.

People with no comorbidities made up 5 per cent of 25,080 total Covid deaths in the first wave, defined as from the beginning of the pandemic in March to May 19, according to analysis by The Times.

Whereas healthy Brits with no known health woes accounted for only 3 per cent of the 12,125 Covid deaths in the third wave, between December 2 and January 6.