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By Theoden Janes
CHARLOTTE, N.C. _ Technically, WBTV News anchor Molly Grantham is supposed to be off the air for several more weeks of maternity leave, having just given birth last month to her third child _ a son named Hobie.
But at 11:40 a.m. Monday, Grantham unexpectedly found herself back on live television serving up an eyebrow-raising story. But in this instance, the Charlotte anchor was appearing before a national audience, and on this occasion, she was the focus of a report.
Grantham was being interviewed by CNN’s Kate Bolduan, because early Sunday morning, after successfully getting Hobie to drift back off to sleep as sunrise approached, the longtime Channel 3 journalist had dropped a bombshell. COVID-19, she revealed in a 2,600-word Facebook post, recently tore through her household, infecting her and her husband, Wes; their 9-year-old daughter, Parker; their 5-year-old son, Hutch; and their newborn.
“When CNN called … I was like, ‘Should I really do that, or should I just let it be?'” Grantham told The Observer in an interview. “But then I thought, ‘Well, the whole point is to get the message out that it’s a public health issue. And here are lessons learned, and maybe they can help you.’ …
“Because so many people are getting it. But you don’t really hear of a lot of personal cases unless someone dies.”
The 1999 UNC-Chapel Hill alumna has been a part of WBTV’s news team since 2003 and is now one of the most high-profile anchors at the CBS affiliate.
Since sharing her family’s story on social media, the response has been overwhelming: As of 7 p.m. Monday, her post had 8,300-plus comments and 30,000-plus impressions, and had been shared by more than 55,000 accounts.
HOW ANCHOR’S FAMILY GOT COVID-19
It’s not entirely clear how they contracted the virus.
Molly Grantham said her husband Wes’ parents both tested negative for the coronavirus before driving from Kentucky to Charlotte to watch the Granthams’ older children, while Wes and Molly were at the hospital for the birth of their third. They made stops along the way. Meanwhile, Wes Grantham said he visited the hospital’s cafeteria, and says it’s possible he was exposed there.
Whatever the case may be, Molly Grantham’s account of what happened to her family and how it all unfolded is a fascinating example of how successful COVID-19 is at spreading, how rapidly it can do so, and how disparate its effects are on individuals.
Nine-year-old Parker was the first to show symptoms, Grantham said, three days after her baby brother was born on July 14. They came after an 18-hour period when the family spent a lot of time huddled around the new arrival at home. Parker first complained of a sore throat along with other allergy-like symptoms, Grantham said, and her ears were popping when she swallowed.
Parker and Hutch were tested the next morning. That night, she said, Parker woke up in drenched in sweat and feeling nauseated.
“I didn’t know for sure,” Grantham said, “but because I knew in my gut it was COVID, my mind went into like all these awful ditches of horrible, awful thoughts at 2 and 3 and 4 in the morning. And Hobie was 3 to 4 days old, so we’re up with him, too. So that was a really, really bad night.”
The next afternoon, Wes was feeling lethargic and had lost his senses of taste and smell. Several days later, Hutch had a fever of 100.7. The next morning, when Molly went for a drive-thru test outside the Novant Health Michael Jordan Family Medical Clinic on Freedom Drive, she started coughing and wound up inside the clinic _ where a chest X-ray revealed she had pneumonia.
“Someone described it to me as Russian roulette,” Grantham said. “You don’t know how it’s gonna impact you. You just hope you’re not the person where it’s the worst case.”
HOW TO QUARANTINE WITH A NEWBORN
Over the course of the ordeal, Grantham, her husband and their daughter all tested positive for the novel coronavirus. Meanwhile, although both of their sons tested negative, Grantham she said she was told by doctors to assume the boys’ results were erroneous.
Hobie, the newborn, was the only member of the family who never showed any symptoms. Studies are still being done about symptoms and the severity of the effects of COVID-19 on infants, but severe cases, while reported, appear to be rare, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
In North Carolina, children under 17 account for 11% of the state’s cases, according to the Department of Health and Human Services. In Mecklenburg County, just over 2,500 young people have tested positive, or 12% of the county’s cases.
No matter the severity, any sick child presents both logistical challenges for caring for them _ and an emotional toll, too.
(EDITORS: BEGIN OPTIONAL TRIM)
Here’s a glimpse at the Granthams’ predicament, via an excerpt from Molly’s Facebook post:
“Through a video conference call, she said Hutch, Parker, and Wes should stay in one part of the house and Hobie and I should quarantine in another room away from them for the next few weeks.
“Keep Hutch away from Hobie in the same house?
“I thought she was kidding.
“She wasn’t. And if we had to see each other, she said, just make sure we all wore masks within our own home. There wasn’t data on newborns and COVID yet. Anecdotally, they weren’t seeing many cases (comforting to hear), but we needed to protect Hobie as much as possible.
“The logistics of staying separate from two kids, while Wes worked remotely in a home office while fighting COVID, with me trying to feed a baby in one room while also getting lunches and meals and trying to parent P and H through walls… I mean… just not realistic. We stayed apart for about a day, but eventually turned to wearing masks.”
(END OPTIONAL TRIM)
STORY GOES VIRAL
As of Monday, Molly Grantham still wasn’t feeling great. She’s finishing up a course of antibiotics to treat the pneumonia that hasn’t fully subsided. But she’s certainly better, and more importantly, she said, the rest of her family has been symptom-free for more than a week now.
In fact, on Monday morning, her biggest dilemma didn’t involve health care concerns, but rather it was: “Do I look like a haggard, high-pony(-tailed), unshowered mess for CNN because we’re talking about my family having COVID, or do I try and put on lip gloss?” she said, laughing, as she explained what was going through her head shortly before getting on the video chat with CNN.
But despite her ability to find a little levity, she’s still clearly shaken by the experience, which has turned her household upside down during a time that should have been focused on celebrating Hobie’s arrival.
And on top of that, she shivers at the thought of how much worse it could have been _ not just for her family but for others.
“We’re really careful,” Grantham said.
Parker, she said, had been around only three other people between the time they suspect she was exposed and the time she started having symptoms.
“But then they’d been around a lot of people. And it just spreads so quickly on paper, that thank God all the people she was around tested negative, ’cause otherwise you would harbor that guilt. You know, like, what if they were the Russian roulette player that had a bad round?
“So … I can see why it spreads so fast. I really can.”
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