Amyiah Cohoon, then a sophomore, took a spring break trip to Florida with the Westfield Area High School band in 2020. The students returned to Wisconsin on March 15, earlier than planned, because of the coronavirus outbreak.
Cohoon posted on Instagram that she thought she had been infected, had been to hospitals, and though she tested negative, her doctors thought she probably had had it earlier. In a final post, she is wearing an oxygen mask and says she’s beaten COVID, and urges others to stay safe.
On March 27, Marquette County Sheriff’s Sgt. Cameron Klump came to the Cohoon home and said Sheriff Joseph Konrath had ordered the posts be taken down, as he didn’t believe there were any confirmed cases of COVID in the county.
Earlier that day, the school district administrator had notified parents there was “no truth” to rumors a student had contracted COVID-19 during the band trip. He called Cohoon’s posts, “a foolish means to get attention and the source of the rumor has been addressed.”