“Mom told me what happened, what a scare!” Fran, the digital influencer, says to her aunt over a video call. Her uncle and their family’s maid contracted COVID-19 from guests, who came over for a birthday celebration. The family “spared no expense” on medical care for the uncle, who survived after 12 days in an intensive care unit. The aunt is categorical: It wasn’t the guests who infected him; she blames the maid. “You know how it is in the favela, everyone crammed in,” she says. “She brought COVID to us.” The maid dies in a run-down public hospital and is replaced by another one right after. “New maid—I have to teach her everything. How annoying,” the aunt laments. “Hahaha, I know how it is. But thank God the worst is over now,” Fran says. “Life carries on.” Courtesy of Leandro Assis and Triscila Oliveira
RIO DE JANEIRO—The first recorded victim of the coronavirus in Rio de Janeiro was a Black domestic worker whose employer brought the coronavirus back to Brazil after a vacation in Italy. The wealthy woman had recovered quickly. Her maid, 63-year-old Cleonice Gonçalves, died after she, too, fell ill in March.
