Argentina Professor, Who Had Been Battling Covid-19 for Over a Month, Dies During Zoom Lecture

A 46-year-old professor in Argentina, who had reportedly been showing symptoms of coronavirus for weeks, died while teaching an online class last Wednesday.

Paola De Simone, a professor of government and international relations at the Universidad Argentina de la Empresa, was teaching her students on Zoom when she passed out. Her students, sensing that something was wrong, repeatedly asked her for her address so that they could send help. But Simone apparently said "I can't" before passing out.

Huffposted reported that a few days before the incident, De Simone had posted on Twitter that she had been battling coronavirus for over a month and that her symptoms had not reduced over the period of time.

In the same tweet, De Simone had also mentioned her husband who is a doctor. She said that her husband, who was not home at the time of her death, had been exhausted and burned out owing to the excessive workload due to the ongoing pandemic. He apparently came home to find his wife dead.

For the past few days before the demise, De Simone had had a cough which would not go away. She had continued to teach despite her symptoms, according to a statement released by the University on their social media platform.

The moment De Simone collapsed and later died was captured on camera and it quickly went viral. The University, in its statement, asked those who knew her to treat her with respect and respect the privacy of her husband and daughter. The statement also hailed the professor, who had been teaching for 15 years, as a "great person" and an inspirational teacher.

Following news of her death, several of De Simone's colleagues and students took to social media to share their memories with her and honoured her spirit and dedication to her students.

Argentina has reported almost 5 lakh coronavirus cases since the start of the pandemic and thousands of death, data by Worldometer showed.