19-Month-Old In ICU After Being Diagnosed With COVID-19

SALT LAKE CITY, Utah – A young Utah mother is pleading with the public to mask up while her 19-month-old baby girl fights for her life in an intensive care unit at Primary Children’s Hospital.

The little girl and her mother, Kari Harbath, were diagnosed with COVID-19 on Sunday. Harbath has mostly recovered, but her baby girl, who was born with CHARGE Syndrome, is in the ICU.

Harbath said her daughter has spent half of her short life in hospitals, is deaf and blind and has other challenges due to her condition. What she wants people to know is that regardless of your political stance, wearing a mask can help save lives.

On Wednesday, her 19-month old had to be flown to Primary Children’s Hospital From McKay-Dee Hospital in Ogden.

“In that moment, I thought, there’s a good chance I may never see her again, alive,” Harbath said.

Since she was also positive for COVID-19, she initially wasn’t going to be able to fly with her daughter. That changed at the last minute.

“I left McKay-Dee yesterday,” she said. “There is this image that will forever be burned in my brain.”

Since arriving at Primary Children’s Hospital, Sloan Harbath is slowly doing better. But her mother can’t believe people won’t “mask up” when it’s proven to help.

“You know, you sit back and you can see people from the comfort of their homes writing about the questions that exist around COVID and its reality. And as I’m sitting here, I can say that everything we see online and everything we hear is true,” Kari Harbath said.

And she said to watch it, firsthand, has been horrifying.

“It has been like something out of a scary movie and it hasn’t stopped yet,” Harbath said. “Watching how exhausted our medical professionals are, I can’t express my gratitude enough for everything they’ve done for Sloan and I through all of this.”