‘It was terrifying. I was a little ahead of them in the timing of it all’: Mom unknowingly exposes the coronavirus to 17 of her 18 children because she did not show symptoms
- Brittany Jencik of Penfield, N.Y., near Rochester, said she was asymptomatic after contracting the coronavirus and unknowingly infected 17 of her 18 children
- Jencik, who adopted some of her kids, eventually became gravely ill from the virus as the children also began showing symptoms
- A month later and after isolating at home, the family is slowly recovering as the mother fears the virus may come back if her home’s surfaces aren’t cleaned
- A friend, Matt Moreno, the CEO of Purify Global, has agreed to do a professional cleaning of Jencik’s home using a 12-member team in hazmat suits
- New York State, the epicenter of the virus, has had more than 223,699 confirmed cases of the COVID-19, which has been blamed for more than 12,800 deaths
- Learn more about how to help people impacted by COVID
An upstate New York mother showed no symptoms after contracting the coronavirus and unknowingly infected 17 of her 18 children, including some who were adopted.
Brittany Jencik of Penfield, N.Y., near Rochester, said she infected her kids while asymptomatic about five weeks ago.
She eventually became gravely ill from the virus and the children also began showing symptoms. Jencik says the deadly flu-like virus, also known as COVID-19, hit the family ‘like a freight train.’
‘It was terrifying. I was a little ahead of them in the timing of it all,’ the mother said.
Brittany Jencik (third row from the bottom, far right) a mother of 18 children, including some who were adopted, poses with her family. Jencik says she showed no symptoms after contracting the coronavirus about five weeks ago and unknowingly infected 17 of the children
‘I was as afraid of my life as I had ever been, and not much scares me,’ she tells WHAM.
It was not clear how Jencik herself was infected.
So far, New York State, the nation’s epicenter of the outbreak, has had more than 223,699 confirmed cases of the coronavirus, which has been blamed for more than 12,800 deaths.
Across the country, there have been 691,567 confirmed cases of the coronavirus, which has been blamed for 36,185 deaths.
How the number of new coronavirus infections in the US has escalated over time
Jencik says that for a couple of days while she was her sickest, ‘I was extremely concerned that I was never going to be the same.’
Now, after weeks of isolation, the family is slowly recovering.
Jencik said a friend’s cleaning service came to sanitize the surfaces of her home.
Matt Moreno, CEO of Purify Global, brought in a team of 12 in rubber hazmat suits.
‘We put on commercial grade gas masks with a cartridge that’s meant to withstand a nuclear attack,’ he tells Wham.
Jencik’s family waited outside the home during the two-hour cleaning job.
‘I needed to know from my mama heart that I was protecting the people I love to the best extent I possibly could,’ she said.