KEY POINTS

  • Antoinette Franklin, 86, died on March 23
  • Her three sons, who were 71, 61 and 58 years old, died between March 20 and 30
  • Louisiana has the fourth-highest coronavirus death rate in the U.S.

A family from New Orleans, Louisiana, is grieving the loss of four of its relatives, including their 86-year-old grandmother, due to coronavirus. They got sick and died within eight days of each other.

Antoinette Franklin, 86, who has been living in New Orleans all her life, passed away on March 23. Her sons Herman Franklin, 71, Timothy Franklin, 61, and Anthony Franklin Sr., 58, also got sick from COVID-19 and died sometime between March 20 and 30.

Herman recently returned home to New Orleans to be closer to his family. Their relatives were unable to determine how they contracted coronavirus, but the New Orleans Coroner's Office confirmed that all the deceased were positive for COVID-19.

“My uncle passed, my grandmother passed, my dad passed, then my other uncle passed. It’s literally like seven to eight days apart," Anthony Franklin told the press.

The family is calling on the public to follow the physical distancing guidelines and take the stay-at-home order seriously.

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Louisiana National Guard Soldiers and Airmen test first responders for COVID-19 infections at Louis Armstrong Park, New Orleans, Louisiana, March 20, 2020. The testing site is one of three across New Orleans and Jefferson Parishes and will soon open to the general public. Staff Sgt. Josiah Pugh/Wikimedia Commons


Louisiana's coronavirus cases rank fourth in the number of deaths in the United States after New York, New Jersey, and Michigan. This has prompted Governor John Bel Edwards to extend the stay-at-home order until April 30. The order was supposed to end on April 13.

"We are nowhere near over the hump, that we still have an awful lot of work to do to try to flatten the curve," the governor said in announcing the extension. "I think it creates a realistic expectation in the public about the time horizon that we are on."

According to the state’s health department, 97 percent of those who died from COVID-19 in Louisiana had medical conditions like diabetes, kidney disease, obesity, and cardiac problems. Health officials, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), say that these conditions make patients more vulnerable against fighting the virus.

The news comes as the governor said in a press conference on Monday that 70.5 percent of those who died from COVID-19 were African-Americans. Edwards said that his administration would "figure out what that is attributable to" so that they can address racial disparities.

The CDC, however, has yet to release an official racial or ethnic data on coronavirus cases.

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