Professor collapses and dies during ongoing virtual class after showing Covid-19 symptoms for a month
A college professor in Argentina collapsed and died at her home during a lecture in front of her virtual class after having suffered persistent coronavirus symptoms in the days leading up to the tragedy. 46-year-old Paola De Simone taught 20th-century world history at Universidad Argentina de la Empresa in Buenos Aries. During the Zoom session last week, De Simone complained she was having breathing difficulties, The Sun reported, citing Diari Mes.
The newspaper reported how concerned students offered asked the educator for her home address so they could ask for help, but De Simone gasped “I can’t” before collapsing on the floor. The professor's lifeless body was discovered by her doctor husband when he returned home.
Paola De Simone en su máxima expresión, me pareció interesante su postura tan relajada para dar una clase que no dude en capturar ese momento. pic.twitter.com/z3QfGGOQAt
— Nawel ♛ (@naweljimenez) September 3, 2020
De Simone, who also has a daughter, had briefly spoken of her condition and her husband's work amid the pandemic. “It is very complicated. I have been here [with the virus] for more than four weeks and the symptoms do not go away,” she tweeted, per The Sun. “My husband is exhausted from working so much at the moment.”
The history professor's last moments were described by one of her students, 23-year-old Ana Breccia. “She began by saying that she had pneumonia, we saw it was worse than in previous classes,” she said. “At one point she could not continue passing slides, nor speak and she became unbalanced.”
Another student described De Simone as an “unforgettable teacher, one of those who give you a hand in everything, who make you love what you study, who go out of their way for their students. We are going to miss you a lot,” The Sun reported.
Facundo Cruz, an academic coordinator at UADE, also expressed grief at her untimely demise. “Farewell to a friend. We will miss you,” he wrote on Twitter, and in a statement had said that “she had been teaching with a cough that failed to go away,” the report said.
In a blog titled “In memory of Paola de Simone (1973-2020)” on Politlogos al Whiskey, one student wrote: “Paola left, but she first taught us love for what we choose to do, empathy for those around us and curiosity for the world. Thank you teacher, always,” per the report.
Meanwhile, Argentine journalist Silvina Sterin Pensel, who is based in New York, said she wasn't surprised when she learned that her old pal and former classmate at Universidad del Salvador had been teaching despite the ongoing crisis.
“I totally portray Paola deciding, ‘I can totally do this, my students need me,'” she told The Washington Post, noting that her death is a “sad reminder that the virus is real.”
Argentina has recorded over 450,000 COVID-19 cases and over 9,000 fatalities at the time of writing, per data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.
“The virus is still making rounds in Buenos Aires,” Sterin Pensel told the newspaper. “In Argentina, the confinement has been very strict, so people are showing signs of fatigue in complying. But these kinds of reminders, these awful reminders, they shake your core.”
In a somber statement, the Universidad Argentina de la Empresa said that De Simone’s death had left the institution in “deep pain.”
“Paola was a passionate and dedicated teacher, and a great person, with more fifteen years of experience,” it said.