THREE UK LUTON, BROTHERS FELL ILL FROM CORONA VIRUS AND two died within a week of each other while a third brother survived

THREE UK LUTON, BROTHERS FELL ILL FROM CORONA VIRUS AND two died within aweek of each other while a third brother survived

Ida Ivowi’s three younger brothers who live in Luton had all fallen ill from the coronavirus in April. She was in shock when one brother had died within hours of being admitted to hospital and tried to come up with a plan of telling her youngest, who has Down’s syndrome, of the death. But just over a week later, he too would die from the virus.

Ivowi, who lives in New York, first saw the coronavirus pandemic as a distant international news story. But within a few weeks, she watched from across the Atlantic as the deadly virus wreaked havoc on her loved ones.

Olume Ivowi, 46, died on 10 April, Good Friday, in Luton and Dunstable University hospital within hours of being taken by an ambulance. Ida said she could not understand when she got the phone call that her brother died. “It was very difficult for any of us to wrap our heads around it. He went from being fine to now being dead,” she said. “We then started the process of grieving.”

Olume left behind his devastated wife, Juanetta Ivowi, and their daughter, Mireille, three. Ida would spend the next 24 hours talking to her sister-in-law, while contemplating how to tell her younger brother, Isi Ivowi, 38, who lived in supported accommodation in Milton Keynes and was incredibly close to Olume.

“We did not want to give him such news over the phone,” Ida said, but as she figured out how to tell him the news, she got a call from his carers that Isi had fallen ill and had been hospitalised. She was getting regular updates from the hospital on her brother’s prognosis, but the virus had taken its toll. Isi died on 19 April in Milton Keynes University hospital – just over a week after his older brother.

The family believe the two brothers, who have underlying health conditions, may have contracted Covid-19 from one another as Olume was in constant contact with his younger brother. A third brother, Osi Ivowi, 50, from Milton Keynes, would be the only sibling to fall ill from the deadly virus and survive. yahoo