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Along the BR-101 highway, motorists who have left the multi-million dollar city of Rio de Janeiro behind are queuing to search for various spas during the mandatory holiday that began last Friday. Families flee from the Brazilian variant that has spread from the Amazon to the country’s two main states: São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, with a total population of 60 million. In the state of São Paulo, deaths have increased by 85 percent compared to the worst period last year. According to one study, between 80 and 90 percent of deaths are related to the new variant.
– The Brazilian variant is perceived as much more deadly. Very few of our patients survive, says 49-year-old intensive care nurse Ana Lúcia Sena.
Intensivsjuksköterskan Ana Lúcia Sena.
Photo: Private
She has just returned home after a 12-hour shift at the Ronaldo Gazolla Hospital, which has become the state hospital of Rio de Janeiro’s specialized covid-19 hospital.
– Today a 45-year-old man died who was otherwise in good health. It hurt me a lot. Every day we cry in the team, says Ana Lúcia Sena.
The hospital has 400 Intensive care units for covid patients. In the last month all the places have been filled.
– We closed the main entrance. Instead, our patients enter the secondary street by ambulance as soon as someone passes away here.
Ana Lúcia Sena is angry with President Jair Bolsonaro, who during a live broadcast on social media this week mocked patients with shortness of breath.
– It is tragic that we do not have a leader when we need him most, he says.
Vaccination in Rio de Janeiro.
Photo: Márcia Foletto / TT
That was in december last year when the spread of the Brazilian variant of the coronavirus took off in the billionaire city of Manaus in the Amazon. Hospitals did not initially understand why the number of patients increased dramatically. Only when three Brazilian tourists from Manaus fell ill in Japan did the authorities discover that it was a variant. Despite the serious situation, Manaus was not isolated, but the variant was allowed to spread throughout Brazil with 212 million inhabitants.
Researchers call the Brazilian variant P1 and have classified it as a VOC (Variants of Concern) virus. It is at least as dangerous as the British and South African varieties. Most worryingly, the number of patients under the age of 59 who have died has increased dramatically. According to a study by the Brazilian Ministry of Health, the age group 30 to 59 now accounts for 27 percent of deaths. This is a 7 percent increase from December.
Bathers on Flamengo Beach in Rio de Janeiro at the end of January.
Photo: Leco Viana / TT
A study shows that the Brazilian variant P1 is 2.2 times more contagious than the first coronavirus and can infect those who have already had covid-19. Neighboring countries have closed their borders, but the variant has still been confirmed in 33 countries, including Sweden.
– What the Brazilian variant has taught us is that all conversations about herd immunity have been nothing more than fantasies, says Brazilian researcher Miguel Nicolelis from Duke University in the United States.
He is the most prominent of Brazil brain researcher and began his career as an epidemiologist. Because he is affiliated with a university in the United States and does not depend on research money from the Brazilian government, he dares to criticize how the Bolsonaro government handles the pandemic.
– It does not help to close some states. The virus is still spreading. What we need is a national shutdown, but the president doesn’t realize that. Just think about the economy, he says.
Showing traders in Sao Pauo in early March.
Photo: Leco Viana / TT
Miguel Nicolelis also warns of a second Brazilian variant called P2, which has already established itself in the state of Rio de Janeiro with 17 million inhabitants. The fifth largest country in the world has become a source of infection that spreads its varieties to other continents.
– If Brazil does not get rid of the coronavirus, the efforts of the outside world to stop the infection are in vain.
In the Brazilian the Fiocruz research institute in Manaus employs Jesem Orellana, one of the country’s leading epidemiologists. He focuses his research on the Brazilian variant that was discovered in Japan.
– It is too early to say that the Brazilian variant is more deadly. What we know for sure is that it is more contagious and therefore more dangerous, says Jesem Orellana, 41.
Jesem Orellana, epidemiologist vid Fiocruz.
Photo: Private
The fact that the death toll in Brazil is rising so dramatically has to do with the virus spreading faster.
– Brazil has become a threat to the outside world. We recently discovered a third variant, he says.
That variant is called N9 Yet epidemiologists do not know where in Brazil the outbreak occurred.
– As long as we have Bolsonaro as president, Brazil is a symphony orchestra without a conductor. There is no control, he says.
Read more:
“Brazil one millimeter from collapse”
Henrik Brandão Jönsson: The new Brazilian Minister of Health is unlikely to have anything to say about it.
