This browser does not support the Video element.
Toddler stuck in Panama due to coronavirus
The coronavirus pandemic has kept a family apart -- a mom and infant in Orlando, dad across the Atlantic on a cruise ship off the coast of Italy, and another daughter stuck in Panama.
ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. - Two-year-old Kaiya Simpson-Rojas left her home in Orange County on March 2 with her grandmother, heading to Panama, to spend some time with family that lives in the Central American country. It was supposed to be a one month visit, but nearly five months later, she’s still not back.
“I feel disappointed,” said Amanda Simpson-Rojas, Kaiya’s mother.
The coronavirus pandemic has kept the family apart -- a mom and infant in Orlando, dad across the Atlantic on a cruise ship off the coast of Italy, and Kaiya stuck in Panama.
“She’s just growing up without me and that is just sad,” said Rojas.
FOX 35 INVESTIGATES: FDOH says some labs have not reported negative COVID-19 results
Kaiya has been in Panama at her grandmother’s home since the country shut down the border due to the pandemic in April. Her father, Alex Simpson-Rojas, was supposed to pick her up and bring her home but because of COVID-19. He’s stranded on a cruise ship on which he works. Amanda Simpson-Rojas says the Panamanian government keeps extending the closure.
“It’s just that build-up of ‘she’s gonna be in our home again’ and then them canceling the flight and you just not knowing when that is ever gonna open again,” said Simpson-Rojas. “My goal is for someone just to hear me and see if they can get me on a humanitarian flight from the United States to Panama.”
FOX 35 EXCLUSIVE: Inside second Central Florida lab selected for COVID-19 vaccine trial
She said she has tried contacting everyone she could think of and no one has been able to help.
“I feel disappointed that our government won’t respond to me, I feel disappointed that it feels like nobody cares, enough to respond and just say like ‘this is the next step,’” she added.
She fears she will have to get used to video calls with Kaiya, during which she tries to mask her pain.
“I try to paint this picture for her every day that this is an adventure, she’s going to be a piece of history, she’s going to be able to tell the story one day and say during the 2020 pandemic. 'I was stuck in another country and my mom couldn’t get to me,'” said Simpson-Rojas.
FOX 35 News has reached out to the U.S. State Department, the Panamanian and U.S. embassies, and lawmakers. U.S. Senator Rick Scott’s office said it will be contacting the mother to see how to help.