Johtay Darwin says goodbye to his great-grandmother Lottie Cotton, who died of COVID on Dec. 31, 2020. OAKLAND, Calif. - Lottie Cotton, a 73-year-old longtime San Francisco public school elementary school advisor, is one of the more than 500,000 people in the United States who have died of coronavirus since the pandemic first broke out last year, and now her family is hoping to be reimbursed for her funeral through a new program authorized last month.But just how to access $7,000 in funeral funds that should be coming to her family has not yet been finalized and that delay is frustrating not only to her family, but to countless others across the country.