In January 2020, just weeks before the NBA shut down and Costco shelves emptied and Tom Hanks got sick, Joy Corbitt\u2019s only brother died in his mid-forties with symptoms of Covid<\/a>. Which meant, from the pandemic\u2019s earliest days, Joy was taking no chances.<\/p>\n She\u2019d heard that Black and brown people like her seemed to be getting sick and dying at higher rates than other Americans. And that kids were either not getting sick, or getting less sick, or getting sick in ways we didn\u2019t really understand. So, when it came to protecting her then-14-year-old daughter Lia, the North Carolina mother was vigilant.<\/p>\n \u201cI was consumed with the news \u2014 consumed with the numbers,\u201d Joy says.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In January 2020, just weeks before the NBA shut down and Costco shelves emptied and Tom Hanks got sick, Joy Corbitt\u2019s only brother died in his mid-forties with symptoms of Covid<\/a>. Which meant, from the pandemic\u2019s earliest days, Joy was taking no chances.<\/p>\n She\u2019d heard that Black and brown people like her seemed to be getting sick and dying at higher rates than other Americans. And that kids were either not getting sick, or getting less sick, or getting sick in ways we didn\u2019t really understand. So, when it came to protecting her then-14-year-old daughter Lia, the North Carolina mother was vigilant.<\/p>\nHundreds of thousands of kids in America are struggling with an illness that many doctors and schools refuse to recognize<\/h3>\n