A Florida woman is devastated after losing three family members to COVID-19 within a week.
Tiffany Devereaux of Nassau County in northeast Florida told News4Jax that her fiancé, Britt McCall, 35; her mother, Darlene Glass, 65; and grandmother Ruth Dean Griffis Devereaux, 85; all died within five days of each other.
Devereaux's grandmother died on July 24, her fiancé died on July 26 and her mother passed away on July 28.
Her fiancé and mother were both unvaccinated.
She now is asking for others in her community to get their COVID-19 shots so they do not have to go through the tragedy that struck her family.
Tiffany Deveraux (left) lost her fiance, Britt McCall (right), 35, mother and grandmother all to COVID-19 in a five day span. She is encouraging others to get vaccinated to avoid similar tragedies
Darlene Glass (pictured), 65, died from COVID-19. She was unvaccinated, and asked her daughter to get vaccinated to protect her from the virus
Ruth Dean Griffis Devereaux (left), 85, died of COVID-19, one of three of her family members to succumb to the virus within five days. She was vaccinated before her death
'I feel lost. I feel so lost,' Devereaux told News 4 Jax.
'I don't know what to think or what to feel right now. I want my loved ones back. They're the ones that always got me through the hard times in my life and now they're all gone.'
She even had to miss her grandmother's funeral to say her final goodbye to her mother.
Deveraux, who is also unvaccinated, suffered from a mild case of COVID-19 herself.
She says her mother and fiancé's final wishes for her were to get the vaccine as soon as possible.
She now plans to get the shots herself, and is pushing for others to do the same.
'My mom and fiancé, their last wish was for me to get vaccinated. They told me how painful this virus was,' Devereaux told News 4 Jax.
'I just want everyone to know how important this is.'
Payten McCall, Britt's younger sister, told The Florida Times-Union that her brother became sick around July 4.
'He could not breathe and could not eat,' she said.
Britt improved but then became worse again, according to his sister.
'They put him on a ventilator. He didn't know he was going to die and didn't get a chance to say goodbye to any of us,' she said.
Payten said none of her family members were vaccinated but now she is hoping her brother's death convinces those who are vaccine hesitant to get their shots.
'I was told something that I should've listened to before: "Stop being selfish. Think of those around you and the ones you'd lay your life down for,"' she told The Times-Union.
'I don't want this to happen to any more people. It's not fair. My brother was too young. And my poor parents shouldn't have to worry about fighting this and bills and my brother. It all just isn't fair. I'd give anything to get my brother back.'
Nassau County, which has a population of around 88,000, has recorded more than 10,000 COVID-19 cases and 127 deaths since the pandemic began in March 2020.
Just over 46 percent of the county's population is fully vaccinated against the virus, according to official data.
Florida continues to leads the nation in COVID-19 cases with an average of 27,681 cases per day, data from Johns Hopkins University show.
That is a record figure, surpassing the previous high of 17,991 set on January 5, and represents a 342 percent increase from the 6,492 average cases reported two weeks ago, a DailyMail.com analysis shows.
There are also more than 10,200 Floridians currently hospitalized with the virus, also a record during the pandemic.
A GoFundMe page has been created to help Deveraux with expenses related to the passing of her family members.
It has already raised $6,300, exceeding the initial goal of $1,000.
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