Listen to This ArticleAudio Recording by Audm To hear more audio stories from publications like The New York Times, . On Aug. 11, Sarah, a cheerleader at Hickman High School in Columbia, Mo., turned 16 and passed her driving test. Triumphant, she arrived home to a Happy Birthday sign in the front yard, a treat of beignets from a Creole restaurant and the news that her 17-year-old brother did not have pinkeye, as their mother initially suspected, but Covid-19. They all did, it turned out: Sarah, who asked to be identified by her middle name to protect her privacy; her brother; their 85-year-old grandfather; and their mother, a nurse practitioner who started having trouble breathing two days after her son tested positive. Sarah had thought she would first take advantage of her license to drive herself to cheerleading practice; instead, she used it to take her mother to get a coronavirus test, when her mother realized she was already too weak to drive herself. Then, a week later, Sarah’s mother — who had not been leaving the couch and was having trouble finishing her sentences — told her she needed to be driven to the hospital. Her pastor and other members of her church would be checking in, but Sarah would have to look after everyone. That meant taking care of her grandfather, who had Parkinson’s disease and some dementia, and her brother, who had autism. Could she do that? Sarah, whose eyes had grown wide, quickly recovered. Yes, she told her mother. Of course she could.