A lawyer whose teenage son was hospitalised with COVID-19 is suing Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, whose lax restrictions she believes caused her son to contract the virus.
Maira Recchia, 40, told news site Universa UOL: “My son is 13 years old and he’s never had a health problem, a serious illness, anything.
“He didn’t leave home during the quarantine, his classes were all online. Still, he contracted COVID-19.
“Despite being very young, the illness progressed quickly and damage spread to 50 percent of his lung. He only avoided death because he had access to a good hospital.”
The resident of the Brazilian municipality of Itapira said the eight days her son was hospitalised in the city of Sao Paulo were the worst of her life.
Drawing on her profession as a lawyer, she told the news site she will file for compensation from Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro for “moral and material damages”.
She said of the government: “There was a lack of care for people, a lack of information and a lack of means for vaccinations and containing the spread of COVID, and it is the State’s obligation to provide dignified and effective treatment to all.”
She added: “Having a president who encourages the spread, who is irresponsible with people’s health, who refused to buy vaccines, who spread false propaganda, is cruel.
“And it sickens me to see scenes like the one where he removed a child’s mask. It’s disrespectful to all mothers.”
Recchia’s son’s illness hit her hard, as it brought back memories of her losing her sister to a drink-driver a few years earlier.
It has been a month since Recchia’s son was first admitted to hospital, and she says he has not yet fully recovered.
However, he has come a long way from his lowest point, which saw him suffer tachycardia and his vital signs to fluctuate.
Recchia told Universa: “We need to take COVID in the youngest seriously. We don’t know the impact of the illness on this section of the population.
“We run the serious risk of seeing child mortality rise due to the absence of adequate public policy. We will start to lose children.”
