A couple have shared heartbreaking photos of their six-month-old baby who had just survived heart surgery and has now been diagnosed of having Coronavirus.
The baby Erin Bates, nicknamed ‘miracle baby’ is now on an oxygen machine as she has been struggling with windpipe problems since birth.
Born weighing just 5lbs 4oz, and after months of treatment her parents felt she stood a good chance of recovery but on Friday a diagnosis of Covid-19 was confirmed.
The pictures of the baby released by Metro UK with consent of her parents, show the baby girl lying in hospital on a Continuous Positive Airway Pressure machine supplying oxygen, surrounded by wires, tubes and equipment.
Her dad, Mr Bates, a mechanic for Toyota, said:
‘People are still not taking this outbreak seriously and that upsets me. I take it personally.
‘Even before we went into lockdown, when we went into a supermarket we were anxious because our daughter is susceptible to viruses. ‘But people still don’t seem to have any concept of personal space.
‘There was a picture I’ve seen of a beach where there was an ice cream hut open with people queuing outside like it was a normal day. It horrifies me that people still are not sticking to the lockdown measures. It does upset both of us.’
Mr Bates said that when their daughter was born, he and his wife were ‘over the moon’ because they had been trying for 10 years to conceive and had been told they might not be able to have children but now she’s born she’s been fighting for her life from the very first day of her journey on earth.
She had open heart surgery in December, in January and also suffered respiratory syncytial virus, which causes bronchiolitis and pneumonia in babies and can be fatal.
She then sufferered tracheomalacia and bronchomalacia which required use of the CPAP machine.
Posting on Facebook about her daughter’s diagnosis, Mrs Bates, a travel agent, wrote: ‘Both myself and Wayne are utterly heartbroken yet again that we are in a position where we may lose our little girl if she doesn’t carry on fighting.
‘Please, please, please keep Erin in your prayers. We can’t lose her over this virus. She has battled through too much – we need her, she completes us.’
She added: ‘I hope that those who haven’t taken this virus seriously read this and I hope it now sinks in.’
