3 NJ Family Members Dead, 4 Hospitalized, 19 In Quarantine, For COVID-19

New Jersey Reports At Least 427 Infected and 5 Deaths

KEY POINTS

3 members of NJ Fusco family died of COVID-19
4 members hospitalized in critical condition
19 relatives in tested and in quarantine
COVID-19 spread during Marc 10 family gathering

Three members of a family from New Jersey died after contracting the COVID-19 at a recent family gathering while four relative are in critical condition in the hospital.

Grace Fusco, 73, a Freehold resident died on Wednesday at CentraState Medical Center and her son, Carmine Fusco, a New-York and New Jersey-based horse racing trainer died on the same day at St. Luke's University Hospital-Bethlehem Campus in Pennsylvania while her daughter, Rita Fusco-Jackson, 55, died last Friday in New Jersey, Fox News reported.

All three tested positive for the coronavirus and Fusco-Jackson, who was a parishioner and a confirmation teacher in the Co-Cathedral of St. Robert Bellarmine, was said to be the second person in New Jersey to die from the pandemic.

“To imagine a week ago to get a phone call like this — if someone told me this story, I wouldn’t believe it," Roseann Paradiso Fodera, a cousin serving as the family’s attorney, told NJ.com. “It’s inconceivable to me.”

As of Wednesday, four other family members are hospitalized in critical condition and because the illness spread within the family during a recent family gathering on March 10, 19 more relatives, including spouses and children of those hospitalized, have been tested for the virus and have imposed quarantine among themselves in their respective homes while waiting for the results.

NJ.com reported that the family had a connection to the first coronavirus fatality in New Jersey, a horse trainer John Brennan from Little Ferry although his ties to the family remain unclear.

Freehold health officer Margaret Jahn said that the city already notified the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention about the recent multiple deaths within the same family.

“There is definitely a cluster of cases at the hospital,” Jahn said. “We’ve conducted several interviews with regard to people who were exposed to close contacts, and we’ve followed up with those — so we are not seeing a community spread.”

As of Thursday, at least 427 people in New Jersey were infected with coronavirus as reported by Johns Hopkins University, while five people, including the mothher and daughter from Freehold and Brennan were recorded as fatalities.