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Brazil is emerging as the possible new epicenter of the new coronavirus pandemic, while President Jair Bolsonaro insists that it is just a “squeeze” and that there is no need to impose severe measures that have slowed the spread of the infection in the country.
While some states of the EE. USA And some European countries took measures on Monday (27) to gradually relax their mobility and trade limits, the intensification of the outbreak in Brazil, the largest country in Latin America with 211 million inhabitants, took hospitals to the limit and several deaths died at home.
“Here we have all the conditions for the pandemic to become much more serious,” said Paulo Brandão, a virologist at the University of São Paulo.
Brazil has officially registered 4,543 deaths and almost 66,501 confirmed infections so far, but the actual figures, as in many other countries, are believed to be much higher, due to lack of evidence and that many people without severe symptoms did not seek care. hospitable. .
Some scientists have indicated that probably more than 1 million people in Brazil are infected. And the health crisis may emerge as the country enters winter, which can worsen respiratory illness.
Bolsonaro questioned the severity of the new coronavirus, saying that people must resume their lives to avoid an economic crisis. However, most state governors have adopted restrictions to curb the spread and pressured people to stay at home.
In mid-April, Bolsonaro fired his popular health minister, Luiz Henrique Mandetta, after a series of disagreements over plans to contain the virus and replaced him with an advocate of reopening economic activities, Nelson Teich. The Brazilians protested by knocking pots and pans on windows across the country.
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Sputnik / US Center for Disease Control and Prevention. USA
Fluorescent electron microscopic image of the first US case of COVID-19, previously known as 2019-nCoV. Blue spherical viral particles contain cross sections of the viral genome, visible as black dots
Waves of collapse
Medical officials in Rio de Janeiro and at least four other major cities have warned that their hospital systems are on the verge of collapse or are too saturated to receive more patients.
In São Paulo, the largest city in South America in a highly concentrated metropolitan area, with more than 21 million inhabitants, the majority in poverty, the authorities issued 236 death certificates in the last two weeks to people who died in their homes. , double the amount before the outbreak, according to SAMU’s paramedics service.
Manaus, an Amazonian city with 1.8 million inhabitants, recorded 142 deaths on Sunday (26), the most recent, including 41 people who died at home. In the main cemetery, workers are digging graves. Brazil’s funeral industry warned last week that the city was running out of coffins and that “the bodies could soon be left in the corners.”
The official death toll from the virus has exceeded 210,000 worldwide, according to a count by Johns Hopkins University. The death toll in the United States is already approximately 55,000: In the Vietnam War, the country lost 58,000. In Italy, the United Kingdom, Spain and France, there were more than 20,000 deaths per country.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson returned to work on Monday after recovering from COVID-19 and emphatically warned that confinement in his country would not be relaxed too soon. “I refuse to waste all the efforts and sacrifices of the British people and risk a second major outbreak and a huge loss of life,” he said.
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