The parents of a nine-month-old baby boy who doctors believe has coronavirus have described the shocking moment they were given the diagnosis.
Myroslava Coates and her husband Callum took their son Cassian to see doctors on Monday, having been concerned he had been “poorly for a few days”.
Doctors then examined their son and told the pair he had coronavirus. Doctors told them that babies are diagnosed by symptoms rather than tests, they said.
“He's had a chest infection before so I think that's how we got an appointment, it's been difficult to get them," Mrs Coates told Sky.
“When we got there, we had to go through special measures and ring a certain number for them to let us in. The waiting room actually had a big sign up saying ‘suspected case’.”
After the concerned parents saw the notice, a nurse walked passed and told them “yeah, that’s you guys”, Mrs Coates said.
Following this, they were called in to see a doctor, who performed checks on Cassian.
“We went in, then the doctor came in with a mask on, did some basic checks, temperature, checked his ears and said ‘yeah, it's the coronavirus strand’,” Mrs Coates said.
The parents said they “weren’t expecting that” and that despite Cassian having had a fever, they did not think he had the key signs of the infection which have been pointed out by health experts.
“He's nine months old so any time they have anything wrong with them it's horrific but this, we were like ‘wow’,” Mrs Coates said.
“As bad as it sounds, the first thing we did when we heard was laugh because we just couldn't believe this was a thing and that Cass had it,” she said. “I did panic but I cannot express how fantastic and reassuring our GP was.”
The pair were sent home to self-isolate with the child and told to treat his symptoms with Calpol.
Despite their concerns, they said Cassian appears to be “over the worst of it” though there are “peaks and troughs” in his condition.
It comes as the number of people thought to have Covid-19 in the UK rose to 55,000 and the death toll climbed to 71.
The majority of deaths have been people aged over 60 and with underlying health issues.
Anyone with symptoms is being told to self-isolate, while measures limiting social contact have also been advised in a bid to stem the spread.
