Spanish exchange student in Canada refusing return home over coronavirus fears

A 16-year-old old exchange student from Spain is fighting efforts to see her return home for fear it will further compromise her health and safety.

Uxia Manso is one of 600 exchange students who have been put up in homes across Canada and the United States as part of a charitable international scholarship program funded by the founder of Zara, Amancio Ortega. Since last September, Manso has been attending Holy Names High School in Windsor while living with the Wolfe family.

Manso has now been ordered to return to Spain but she and her host family are reluctant to comply, not only because the county is a current hotspot for the COVID-19 pandemic, but also because Manso is a survivor of childhood cancer and is at a high risk of contracting the virus.

“I can’t in good faith put her on that plane,” says Kimberley Wolfe, Manso’s host mother. “It’s not like if she goes and gets the flu that she would likely recover. If she contracts that virus she will likely die.”

All 300 exchange students in Canada, including Manso, were supposed to make their way to Pearson Airport and catch a flight to Madrid early Friday morning after being given only four days notice.

Spain has now surpassed China in the death toll from COVID-19 at more than 4,000 and Madrid is in permanent lockdown. Manso, who lives about 600 kilometers outside the capital, says the Ortega foundation has neither offered them protective gear nor any way to get home from Madrid airport.

“If I go home I’d be put in a risk because I have underlying health conditions and it’ll be very dangerous for me to leave my house and go to the airport, and expose myself to get this virus.”

There are other students also with underlying health conditions and who would rather not travel because of their vulnerability to the virus. Because the directive to travel back to Spain is not coming from the Spanish government, Wolfe believes the reason behind the decision has to do with the foundation’s liability and insurance concerns. She says the decision is rash and dangerous, especially for Manso whose oncologist told her parents last night that there is no way she should be travelling during this pandemic.

Both Manso and Wolfe, who is also battling cancer, provided CityNews with emails from the foundation which accuse them of being irresponsible and shaming them for boycotting the flight. CityNews reached out to the Ortega foundation for comment but have not heard back from them.