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JESSIKA RICARTE<\/p><\/div>\n
By Nathalia Passarinho and Luis Barrucho
\nBBC<\/p>\n
More than a year into the pandemic, deaths in Brazil are now at their peak. But despite the overwhelming evidence that Covid-19 rarely kills young children, in Brazil 1,300 babies have died from the virus. One doctor refused to test Jessika Ricarte’s one-year-old son for Covid, saying his symptoms did not fit the profile of the virus. Two months later he died of complications from the disease.<\/b><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n After two years of trying, and failed fertility treatments, teacher Jessika Ricarte had all but given up on having a family. Then she fell pregnant with Lucas.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n “His name comes from luminous. And he was a light in our life. He showed that happiness was much more than we imagined,” she says.<\/p>\n JESSIKA RICARTE She first suspected something was wrong when Lucas, always a good eater, lost his appetite.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n At first Jessika wondered if he was teething. Lucas’s godmother, a nurse, suggested that he might just have a sore throat. But after he developed a fever, then fatigue and slightly laboured breathing, Jessika took him to hospital, and asked for him to be tested for Covid.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n “The doctor put on the oximeter. Lucas’s levels were 86%. Now I know that is not normal,” says Jessika.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n But he was not feverish, so the doctor said: “My dear, don’t worry. There’s no need for a Covid test. It’s probably just a minor sore throat.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n He told Jessika that Covid-19 was rare in children, gave her some antibiotics and sent her home. Despite her misgivings, there was no option to have Lucas tested privately at the time.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Jessika says that some of his symptoms dissipated at the end of his 10-day antibiotics course, but the tiredness remained – as did her concerns about coronavirus.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n “I sent several videos to his godmother, my parents, my mother-in-law, and everyone said that I was exaggerating, that I should stop watching the news, that it was making me paranoid. But I knew that my son was not himself, that he was not breathing normally.”<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/118054022_472c7648-af0b-484a-8ae6-735843ca6fac.jpg\")
image captionLucas with his parents Israel and Jessika on his first birthday<\/p><\/div>\n