A New York City radio journalist who covered the New Rochelle coronavirus outbreak said she unknowingly infected at least seven people at her mother’s 90th birthday party – and three have died.
Alice Stockton-Rossini, a reporter for 710 WOR, said she first came into contact with the disease in early March while doing interviews in New York’s previous Covid-19 epicenter, Westchester.
‘They’re sending me into the…containment center in Westchester,’ she told The Inquirer.
‘I was like, “Yeah, man, I’ll go. It’s OK.” I was like, “Are we really going to be that bad?”‘
Stockton-Rossini later tested positive for coronavirus, but not before she threw her elderly mother, Jackie Stockton, a special birthday party on March 8 on Long Beach Island, New Jersey.
At the time, she didn’t realize how dangerous – or deadly -coronavirus was.
Alice Stockton-Rossini (pictured), a reporter for 710 WOR, revealed she may have unknowingly spread coronavirus to partygoers at her mother’s 90th birthday
She told CNN: ‘I had no idea how quickly this virus would spread. No idea at all. And it is frightening. And it is sobering. And it’s not fun to have to live with the fact that you could make someone extremely sick.’
Of the 25 people who excitedly attended the birthday bash at Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church, a handful would later fall ill with the same disease that’s infected more than 277,999 Americans and killed 7,164.
Just one day after the party, Jackie Stockton would become sick. She’d be hospitalized four days later when her temperature hit a feverish 102.
‘The day after the party, my mother got really sick,’ said Stockton-Rossini.
‘And she didn’t have symptoms that were like any other symptoms we had heard about. There was congestion. But she was throwing up. She had a really high fever. She was sick for several days.’
Jackie Stockton (left), pictured with her husband, fell ill one day after her birthday party and later tested positive for coronavirus
The Long Beach Island, New Jersey, party hosted 25 people at Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church (pictured)
Like Jackie, Stockton-Rossini’s father also tested positive for coronavirus, as would her 56-year-old brother-in-law who’s on a ventilator at a New York City hospital. He was not at the party.
Soon, her mother’s next-door neighbor and friend, 76-year-old Sandy Medford, and 96-year-old Ruth K. Reeder passed away after testing positive for coronavirus.
A third person, a husband of a woman who became sick after Stockton’s party, also passed away, according to that woman’s daughter, Laurie Kissinger.
‘I find out my neighbor of 50 years, my mom’s best friend, died,’ Stockton-Rossini said.
‘Oh my … God. Did I bring this down here?’ she said, recalling the moment she realized what might have transpired.
‘All I can say is at that point, we did not know how quickly this virus spread,’ said Stockton-Rossini.
‘Even reporters like myself were saying, you know, more people die of the flu, it’s not going to be much worse … And we quickly found out that it was a big deal. That it spreads very quickly. And that social distancing has proven to be the way to control it.’
Ruth K. Reeder (left) and Sandy Medford (right) died from coronavirus after attending their friend, Jackie Stockton’s birthday party
Long Beach Island Health officials confirmed that they were tracing this ‘community cluster’ to the family’s birthday party.
‘This exhibits how the spread can potentially be extensive and exponential,’ said Dan Krupinski, a Long Beach Island health officer.
In New Jersey, there are more than 29,000 confirmed cases and 600 deaths. Further west in New York, there are 103,060 infections and nearly 3,000 deaths.
Meanwhile, Stockton-Rossini is coming to terms with possibly bringing coronavirus to her home and infecting close friends.
Her mother has since been treated with the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine and was discharged from the hospital, but the party’s infection toll is still climbing.
‘I can hardly bear it. I had to tell my mother her best friend died,’ she said.
Stockton-Rossini revealed that if she had known the severity of coronavirus, she would have taken more precaution.
‘If I had to do it over again, can I honestly say I wouldn’t have gone to Westchester? I probably would have worn a mask,’ she said.
‘If I had to do it over again, do you think I’d have a party for my mother? No,’ she added.
Pictured: The Stockton family, including Jackie Stockton (far left) and Stockton-Rossini (right) at an earlier gathering
While Stockton-Rossini is coming to grips with a grim reality, so are family members of lost loved ones.
Charles, Ruth Reeder’s son, was living in Boca Raton, Florida, when his mother became ill and wasn’t able to visit her before she died on March 25.
He said: ‘My mother was 96…I struggle with why [Stockton-Rossini] did it and how she did it. She actually was a reporter for a New York news station reporting on the COVID virus. She was involved in finding out more about it.’
In response, Stockton-Rossini said takes full responsibility for her actions.
‘All I can say is at that point, we did not know how quickly this virus spread,’ said Stockton-Rossini.
‘Even reporters like myself were saying, you know, more people die of the flu, it’s not going to be much worse … And we quickly found out that it was a big deal. That it spreads very quickly. And that social distancing has proven to be the way to control it.’
Social distancing emergency orders weren’t issued at the time, but Stockton-Rossini has since understood the importance of it.
‘If you don’t want to social distance because it’s making, you know, your life miserable,’ she said, ‘think about the people that you don’t realize might have a compromised immune system.’