Miss Louisiana Teen USA sharing message about coronavirus diagnosis and awareness to teenagers
(KLFY)- Miss Louisiana Teen USA, Sydney Taylor, is battling COVID-19. While recovering, she’s bringing awareness to the virus by promoting social distancing and wearing masks to teenagers.
“About a week ago, last weekend, I started having a headache, and I was like, this is kind of weird because I don’t usually get headaches, and then my body started aching,” said Sydney. “I was sneezing and had a runny nose, but I still didn’t really think anything of it. I thought I had a sinus infection, nothing really serious.”
Come to find out, Sydney would soon be diagnosed with COVID-19. She had recently been around with friends who had tested positive.
News 10’s Sylvia Masters asked, “Sydney, you’re about a week into battling the coronavirus. Being a pageant girl, competing with you before, and now being the current Miss Louisiana Teen USA, what do you hope to promote to the younger generation like ‘hey, this can happen to anyone, even people as young as you?'”
Sydney said there a reason her generation has become a focus in terms of communty spread.
“Our age group, from 18-29, is actually the fastest growing for coronavirus right now, and I think it’s just because we tend to think that we are maybe not immune, but we are less affected by it,” she said. “But that’s not true because if we don’t know we have it and we go visit our grandparents or somebody else with underlying conditions, we can be spreading it around.”
Sydney’s boyfriend, Laine Hardy, the 2019 American Idol Winner, is also battling coronavirus.
“He got diagnosed the same day as me because he was like, ‘Well, I’ve been around you’ because we were at the beach together last weekend,” explained Sydney. “He was like, ‘I’ve been around you,’ so he came with me to get tested, and they were like, of course you have it, too. He agrees with me, spreading the awareness, wearing our masks, and practicing social distancing in our age group.”
Sydney is currently preparing for Miss Teen USA which is set to happen sometime this fall.