'We're surviving': Mother & daughter battling COVID-19 on different floors of Oakland hospital
OAKLAND, Calif. -- In Alameda County, there are more than 400 people in the hospital with coronavirus. Among them is a mother and daughter who, are both in the same Oakland hospital.
38-year-old Jackylyn Zarandona was connected to an oxygen tank at Kaiser Permanente in Oakland when we spoke to her via FaceTime.
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"At first it's really horrible, a horrible feeling, you thought you were going to die, but you know we just gotta do what we gotta do," says Zarandona.
While Jackylyn is alone in her room, she's not without family in the building. Her 62-year-old mom, Bing Sarmiento, who she lives with, also has COVID-19 and is hospitalized on a different floor of the same hospital.
When we talked with Sarmiento she was also connected to an oxygen machine.
"I was supposed to go home yesterday, but I don't know what happened. All of a sudden my oxygen was dropping again," Sarmiento said.
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Jackylyn came to the hospital Monday, Bing came Tuesday. The two believe Bing came into contact with someone who had COVID-19 while she was working at Walgreens.
Sarmiento says that her asthma is problematic with the coronavirus. Her daughter's case is different though, and has to do with pneumonia and COVID-19.
"Stay home guys, be safe, because COVID is no joke," says Sarmiento.
Doctors have told them both to lay on their stomachs and they've been doing just that.
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"Doctors are reassuring us, every day they come in, the nurses and the doctors, they are so optimistic," says Zarandona.
And that positivity has rubbed off.
"We can do it, we're surviving, it's just COVID," says Jackylyn.
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