A nurse’s journey from treating Covid in Brazil to death in the US desert

Lenilda dos Santos left her home in rural Amazonia, part of a South American exodus driven by a coronavirus-era depression

As coronavirus tore through the Valley of Paradise, a farm-flanked backwater in the Brazilian Amazon, Lenilda dos Santos, a nurse technician, stood on the frontline clutching hands most feared to touch.

She was a warrior during the pandemic," said Lucineide Oliveira, a friend and colleague at the town's small, understaffed hospital. She'd say: If we have to die, we'll die. But we must fight.'"