- A mother and daughter died within weeks of each other after contracting COVID-19.
- Both refused the COVID-19
vaccine , with the mother sharing anti-vaxx misinformation on social media. - "I never never thought in my life I would bury my daughter," the bereaved father told the BBC.
A mother and daughter in Belfast,
The $4 that Sammie-Jo Forde, 32, a mother of four, died in the Ulster hospital on Saturday 11 September, on the same ward where her mother, Heather Maddern, 55, died on 31 August.
The pair, both care-workers, were anti-vaxxers, with the MailOnline reporting that Maddern had shared a significant amount of COVID-19 misinformation on her social media, including videos from Candace Owens and about nurses losing their jobs should they refuse the COVID-19 vaccines.
The pair leave behind a devastated family.
-Stephen Nolan (@StephenNolan) $4
Forde's father, Kevin McAllister, told the $4: "This has just shattered my world. I've lost my daughter, my best friend." He said Forde, who had four children, and Maddern were "very, very close". "They worked together, they lived together, and they died together," he said.
"I never, never thought in my life I would bury my daughter," McAllister told the BBC, adding that he did not believe she had any underlying
"These people who are not taking the COVID-19 injection - they're not thinking of the other people that they leave behind," he said, explaining he didn't know why they refused the vaccine.
Alan Chambers, an Ulster Unionist Party MLA, who knows the bereaved family, told the $4: "It's such shocking news, Sammie-Jo had four kids. Sammie-Jo was such a good mum to them."
As care workers, the mother and daughter would have been eligible for the vaccine from January 2021 onwards.
The tragic deaths come as $4.
So far in the UK, over 80% of the eligible population have received both doses of their COVID-19 jabs, $4