TACOMA — A 5-year-old Tacoma girl who was sent home from school with a fever was dead a couple of days later from the flu.
The mother, Rebecca Taylor, told KOMO she treated her daughter Scarlet at home for two days last month for cold symptoms.
When the girl had breathing trouble, her mother took her to Mary Bridge Children’s Hospital. She died four hours later.
The girl did not have a flu shot. The medical examiner’s office says she died of the H3N2 strain, the mutation for which the current vaccine is least effective.
The state Health Department said Monday there have been 22 flu deaths so far this season in Washington. Spokesman Donn Moyer says the Pierce County girl is the only child’s death from the flu.
