South Bay teen loses grandfather to COVID-19, rallies to help other patients

A Bay Area teenager says she feels fortunate she was able to FaceTime her grandfather in his last moments before he died of COVID-19 in an Oakland nursing home. Wanting others to have the same closure, she started a website to collect cellphone donations for elderly patients.

OAKLAND, Calif. (KGO) -- A Bay Area teenager is taking a bad situation and making it better. Tara Adlparvar recently lost her grandfather, Alidad Zaremoayedi to COVID-19.

He was at the Redwood Healthcare Center in Oakland, which is owned by the same person as a facility in Orinda, which suffered a massive coronavirus outbreak.
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The facility originally reported that 26 people had died. The state has since clarified that, saying less than 11 at the facility died of coronavirus.

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Tara says there were challenges talking with her grandfather during the quarantine and then when he was diagnosed. Nurses allowed him to use their cell phones to FaceTime and his final moments were spent with them there.

Now Tara is collecting Apple products to give to patients in nursing homes. So far she has at least 16 devices to give out.

"No one should go through something like this alone because you never know what the result is going to be," says Tara.
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She is working with her sister and her friend. The three went so far as to create a website asking people to donate.

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On the site you will also find a video with pictures of Tara and her grandfather.

She still remembers the last time she saw him in person, "we danced in front of him and he was laughing and looking at all of us and it was the best interaction we had with him in the last 5-6 years, and that was the last time we saw him then because all the quarantine things happened."

Tara says her grandfather had Alzheimer's but had been doing well before the quarantine.
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It's unclear how many COVID-19 cases the facility had, but Tara's family says it is a very small facility. The state officially says less than 11 but won't give an exact number.

Tara plans to go to four nursing homes on Friday to give out the electronic devices that were donated.

She is hopeful that patients can use them to talk to their loved ones in these difficult times. She says doing the FaceTime with her grandfather allowed them to have closure, but not everyone was that fortunate.
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