A school teacher has been taking care of a newborn baby while his family are quarantined with Covid-19.
Luciana Lira took responsibility for baby Neysel after his mother Zully, a Guatemalan asylum seeker was hospitalised and placed on a ventilator while she was critically ill with the virus.
Luciana, a language teacher at at Hart Magnet Elementary in Stamford, Connecticut, became temporary guardian for the newborn, after the boy’s mother went to the Stamford Hospital emergency room in labor and gravely ill with coronavirus.
Hospital staff performed an emergency C-section and put Zully on a ventilator.
The baby, five weeks premature but healthy, was unable to return to his home, as his father Marvin and half brother Junior, 7, also tested positive for Covid-19 and were quarantined there.
The 32-year-old teacher had taught the baby’s half-brother Junior in class, before schools were closed due to coronavirus.
Luciana continues remote teaching her elementary school students, while also caring for the infant at home.
She plans to continue doing so until the Guatemalan family all test negative for the virus and can care for the child themselves.
After Zully was taken off the ventilator, Luciana introduced the mother to her new baby on a Zoom video call, so mother and son could get to know each other in these first few weeks of Neysel’s life.
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