30-Year-Old Brooklyn School Teacher Dies After Battle With COVID-19

The deadly toll of coronavirus patients dying is continuing to cause heartbreak.

Rana Zoe Mungin, a 30-year-old middle school social studies teacher from Brooklyn, died Monday after contracting COVID-19, according to ABC News. She was turned away twice for COVID-19 testing before eventually being admitted and diagnosed with coronavirus.

Mungin’s sister, Mia Mungin, a registered New York City nurse, had been updating her sister’s dilemma across social media for more than a month, and notified everyone that her sister “fought a long fight but her body was too weak.”

It is with heavy heart that I have to inform you all that my sister Rana Zoe Maybe has passed away today at 12:25pm due to COVID-19 complication. She fought a long fight but her body was to weak. 😞😪

— mia mungin (@MiaMungin) April 27, 2020

Mia had just written on Facebook, “Racism and health disparities still continues … [and] the zip code in which we live still predetermines the type of care we receive.”

The coronavirus has shone a brighter light on the nationwide problem of racial disparities. Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) show that black people are being severely impacted by COVID-19 nationwide, accounting for 30% of coronavirus cases in the U.S. while only comprising approximately 13% of the population.

“She died not only because of COVID-19 but because we live in a world that is racist and anti-black,” Rana Zoe Mungin’s good friend of more than a decade, Nohemi Maciel, told ABC News. “We know that black people are dying at disproportionate rates. This cannot be left out of the conversation.”

Maciel added, “I’m heartbroken and don’t know how to live in a world without Zoe. But I’m also angry. I’m angry that her students lost a wonderful and committed teacher, because representation matters.”