A Texas mother and father have both died of COVID-19, leaving their four children orphaned, according to local reports. Lydia Rodriguez’s husband, Lawrence, first contracted COVID-19 in July and died at the beginning of August. On Monday, Rodriguez died from COVID, a month after she got the virus. Neither of them had been vaccinated, according to Houston, Texas ABC affiliate KTRK. A cousin, Dottie Jones, told the outlet that the couple, who lived in Galveston County, didn’t believe in vaccines. After she came down with COVID, Lydia Rodriguez changed her mind about getting inoculated, said Jones, but by that time she was already in the ICU. “Before she got intubated, one of the last things she told her sister was, ‘Please make sure my children get vaccinated,’” Jones told KTRK. “She would be there for her kids right now if she had been vaccinated.” A fundraiser set up by Jones for the Rodriguez children, who are reportedly now in the care of extended family, has so far collected nearly $50,000.
