Alvaro and Sylvia Fernandez started dating when they were just teenagers in high school. They stayed together for 25 years, until they died just hours apart from one another due to COVID-19 complications.
“One couldn’t live without the other,” said their family.
Now, those family members are mourning the Loma Linda, Calif., couple, NBC News reported.
Alvaro was 44 years old and Sylvia was 42 years old when they passed away Dec. 19. In more than two decades together, they had four children.
“My brother and my sister-in-law, they were very close,” said Salvador Fernandez, Alvaro’s brother. “They were high school sweethearts. They've been together since she was 15.”
The couple tested positive for COVID-19 just before they died. Family members said they were both unvaccinated and Alvaro suffered from underlying issues, including diabetes.
“He wanted to wait and do more research,” said Alvaro’s sister Alma Hernandez. “He Googled information. He didn’t want to believe everything that was on the news.”
In San Bernardino County, where Loma Linda is located, there have been more than 383,700 COVID cases and more than 6,000 related deaths reported, said NBC 4. Statewide, COVID-19 hospitalizations were up 12 percent in the seven days before Tuesday to reach 4,401.
As of Wednesday, data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention indicate that case numbers are up in the U.S. and the daily rate per 100,000 was 1,168.8. A little more than 73 percent of people in the U.S. have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine.
"This is kind of an eye-opener for everybody in my family that whoever is not vaccinated definitely should have their vaccinations," said Hernandez.
The Fernandez family is seeking financial support for the couple’s 17 year-old children through a GoFundMe page, according to Newsweek.
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