‘Miracle baby’ with heart and lung condition given guard of honour as she beats coronavirus

She has spent two weeks in an isolation unit battling the virus.

A six-month-old ‘miracle baby’ with a heart and lung condition has beaten coronavirus after spending two weeks in an isolation unit.

Erin Bates was born with a number of medical conditions, causing her to undergo heart surgery in December. She then caught a respiratory virus in January, and suffered from both tracheomalacia and bronchomalacia which affected her windpipe and lungs.

She tested positive for Covid-19 on April 10 and was rushed to Alder Hey Children’s Hospital in Liverpool for treatment. Heartbreaking pictures showed her hooked up to an oxygen machine and surrounded by wires and equipment.

A moving video has now revealed the moment she was taken out of isolation after beating coronavirus on April 24. Nurses and doctors from the High Dependency Unit clapped and formed a guard of honour as she was moved to a different ward.

She will now receive further care before she is able to leave the hospital with her parents Emma and Wayne. Only one parent has been allowed to stay by Erin’s side throughout her treatment.

Praising the NHS staff for their care, Emma, from Bury, said: ‘Thank you so much to each and every one of them, we couldn’t have got through it without them. They are all truly amazing and we will be forever grateful.’

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Wayne has been staying in touch with his wife and daughter through phone calls and video calls from their home. The couple had been trying to have children for 10 years before Erin was born.

The mechanic previously expressed his anger at people not taking lockdown measures seriously.

He said: ‘People are still not taking this outbreak seriously and that upsets me. I take it personally. 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.’

Emma also previously described how she felt too scared to even get a glass of water, in case she caught the virus and made her daughter’s condition worse.

She said: ‘The anxiety every time a new nurse or doctor comes into our bay is
getting unbearable. And the simplest things like going to get a drink downstairs now scares me so much so that I don’t and I isolate myself so I don’t have to come into contact with anyone just to keep my little girl alive.

‘So please people before posting jokes and silly comments please think about who might see or read it, as some of us are living in this nightmare and are going to find these months extremely difficult.’

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