PORTO ALGREE, Brazil – Brazil is preparing to fight a new Covid-19 variant from Amazon that threatens to send shock waves around the world.
With less than%% of the world’s population, Brazil currently accounts for about a third of the world’s daily deaths from Covid-1, a new variable. More than 300,000 have died, and daily deaths now top 3,000, a toll just over the population of the U.S. Suffered by
“We’re in a ditch here, fighting a war,” said Andresia Cruz, a 42-year-old emergency ward nurse in Porto Alegre, southern Brazil. In the past three weeks alone, nearly 1,000 people have died from Covid-1 in the surrounding state of Rio Grande do Sul, more than in the last three months of last year.
The spread of the virus in Brazil threatens to turn this country of 213 million people into a threat to global public health. The so-called P1 strain, present in more than 20 countries and known in New York last week, is 2.2 times more contagious than previous versions of the coronavirus and is capable of up to 61% more people, according to a recent study.
P1 is now responsible for most new infections in Brazil, with many doctors here saying they are seeing younger and otherwise healthy patients getting sick. According to official figures analyzed by the Wall Street Journal, about 30% of those who died from covid-19 are now under 60, compared to an average of 26% during Brazil’s previous peak between June and August Gust.
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