9-Year-Old Texas Girl Dies Of COVID-19 Complications, Doctor Says 'No One Is Immune'

A 9-year-old girl in Texas died of COVID-19 related complications days after she contracted the disease, reports said Thursday. The child was among the nine people who died of COVID-19 in Hidalgo County.

The Hidalgo County Health Authority/Chief Physician, Dr. Ivan Melendez, said the child had multiple comorbidities; however, her specific health issues were not revealed. As the girl was nine years old, she was not eligible for a COVID-19 vaccine. Only children 12 years and older are eligible to get the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Authorities said the girl, who has not been identified, was the first COVID pediatric death in Hidalgo County this year, and fourth overall. All four pediatric Covid deaths have been females with underlying health issues, KRGV reported. The girl died this week with COVID pneumonia.

"No one is immune. No one is without danger of having bad outcomes with these diseases,” Dr. Melendez said. “The only way to do it is by vaccinating everyone around them and until we get a vaccine for younger folks, that's the only thing that we can do."

In the last 24 hours, Hidalgo County reported 258 new cases of COVID-19. There are now 3,136 active cases of the disease in the county.

More than 400 people are currently hospitalized with COVID-19 in the county. Hospitalizations have increased by 105 percent over the last 30 days and decreased by 16 percent over the past week, reports said.

On Thursday, the death count in Hidalgo County reached 3,127 – the 5th highest in the state. In August, more than 2.9 million cases have been reported in the state, and more than 55,400 people in Texas have died, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services.

The delta variant-driven COVID-19 surge made August one of the worst hit months during the entire pandemic, with almost 4.22 million new coronavirus cases reported in the month in the country. This made August the fourth-worst month for infections. About 26,805 Americans died of COVID-19, more than three times the July total. The last week of August was deadlier than all of July,

The U.S. has recorded more than 39.2 million confirmed COVID-19 cases and more than 641,000 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University data. Meanwhile, more than 174.6 million Americans -- 52.6 percent of the population -- have been fully vaccinated, according to the CDC.