A group of Florida retirees played poker together on March 12. A month later, 3 players are dead and the other 5 were infected.

• Eight retirees in South Florida caught the coronavirus and three died after a March 12 poker game.
• The group have been playing poker together almost daily for the last decade, after they kept bumping into each other at casinos, The South Florida Sun Sentinel reported.
• One of the surviving retirees and several of their relatives told media outlets they're certain the game is what spread the disease throughout the group that night.
• One 94-year-old group member died roughly two weeks after the game, her son told WPLG Local 10.
• Two of the group members who were longtime partners also died of COVID-19 just days apart in the same hospital room, according to a relative.
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A group of eight retirees in Aventura, Florida, had turned poker night into a near-daily ritual they kept up for more than a decade, until they played their last game together on March 12.

In the following days and weeks, each person at the game fell ill with symptoms of the coronavirus, and ultimately three of them died.

One of the surviving retirees and several of their relatives told media outlets they're certain the game is what spread the virus throughout the group that night, as the seniors chatted, laughed, hugged, and passed cards and poker chips back and forth.

One of the players, Harriet Molko, told The South Florida Sun Sentinel that at least one of the group members was coughing and sneezing that night, but the group remained unconcerned.

Molko, who is in her 70s, tested positive for COVID-19 on March 27 and was hospitalized for nine days after growing severely ill.

"I don't know how I made it," she told The Sun Sentinel. "I guess I"m just younger and stronger."

2 of the retirees spent their final moments together in the same hospital room

Marcy Friedman was not as lucky, and died on March 28. She had helped organize the poker nights, which occurred in her condo just about every Sunday to Thursday.

"She was 94 when she passed, but she had a more active social life than I do — playing cards every night, going to dinner with her friends," her son, Andrew Friedman, told WPLG Local 10.

The Sun Sentinel reported that the group originally became friends when they kept bumping into each other at South Florida casinos.

Two of the group members, Beverly Glass and Fred Sands, who were longtime partners, also died of COVID-19 just days apart in the same room at Memorial Regional Hospital.

Glass' daughter, Lori Helitzer, said she pleaded with staff for hours to place them in the same room so they could help each other get well. She said a nurse even phoned her the night they were reunited to say the couple were holding hands from bed.

Sands died on March 27, and Glass died March 31, Helitzer said, adding that she was comforted by the fact that they spent their final moments together.

"Unfortunately, it's more than most people get," she told the Sun Sentinel.