6-year-old with epilepsy battling COVID-19 at Phoenix Children's for two weeks

6-year-old has been battling COVID-19 at Phoenix Children's for two weeks now

Aria Shapiro, 6, has been at Phoenix Children's Hospital battling COVID-19 for two weeks now. She also has epilepsy, making the situation even scarier for her family. FOX 10's Justin Lum reports.

PHOENIX - A valley mom is living a pandemic nightmare as her six-year-old daughter is battling COVID-19 at Phoenix Children's Hospital for two weeks. And this is after she was recently vaccinated.

Aria Shapiro, 6, is on day 13 at the hospital, and on top of testing positive for COVID, she already had epilepsy which lead to a scary situation for her mother, Sarah.

"I live in the same world that we all do and I hear ‘kids do fine with COVID’ and not all kids do fine with COVID."

It took time for Sarah to decide when she would get her child vaccinated for COVID-19. Aria received her first dose on December 17, but someone in the family's inner circle ended up with coronavirus, impacting Aria.

"By the 18th, the next day she was positive so there wasn't exactly enough time for any of the antibodies to start building," Sarah said.

Aria is considered "medically fragile" due to her epilepsy. Her mom rushed her to Phoenix Children's where she suffered from prolonged seizures.

"Before the rescue medicine was given, in a matter of seconds, Aria was already going into hypoxia, which is [when] you stop breathing."

Intubated and placed on a ventilator for a few days, Aria is slowly recovering and feeling better.

According to CDC data, there's been a spike in children hospitalized with COVID. During the week of December 22 to December 28, an average of 378 children under 17 were admitted per day, up 66% from the week prior.

Sarah said she's been cautious since the pandemic started, but she wishes she could have gotten her daughter vaccinated sooner.

"It's been a terrifying, traumatic experience, but Aria is a fighter and a warrior and beautiful and amazing and they have an amazing staff at Phoenix Children's Hospital and they saved her life."

As for Arizona, the Arizona Department of Health Services says there have been a little more than 126,000 COVID cases for people under 20 years old over the last 6 months. Out of those cases, nearly 1,200 have been hospitalized.

Here's a list of places you can go to get tested for COVID-19 in Arizona: https://www.fox10phoenix.com/news/covid-test-locations

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