Brasilia (AFP)
With records of deaths, hospitals on the brink of collapse and a vaccination campaign in slow motion, Brazil is experiencing the deadliest phase of the coronavirus pandemic without a national strategy to contain it.
The South American giant registered 1,641 deaths from coronavirus on Tuesday and 1,910 on Wednesday, two consecutive records since the first case reported in February 2020. The total number of victims of the disease is close to 260,000, a balance surpassed only by the United States, and 10 , 7 million infections.
“For the first time since the beginning of the pandemic, a simultaneous worsening of various indicators has been verified throughout the country,” the prestigious Fiocruz Foundation of the Ministry of Health said this week.
It is an “alarming scenario” with an increase in cases and deaths, high levels of severe acute respiratory syndromes (SARS) and an occupation of more than 80% of beds in intensive care units (ICU) in 19 of the 27 Brazilian states, explained the institution.
In the last seven days the average has been 1,331 daily deaths, a figure that until February remained close to 1,100. Since January, the country has not managed to lower the 1,000 deaths per day, as happened between June and August of last year, during the first wave.
The number of victims shows that the restrictions on movement ordered in recent weeks by mayors and governors – and criticized by President Jair Bolsonaro – have been insufficient to stop the pandemic.
According to experts, the worrying rebound results from the lack of social distancing during the end of the year festivities and the crowds of the austral summer and Carnival, despite the fact that the latter were formally prohibited.
Some studies also point to the new variant of coronavirus from the Amazon, called P.1, twice as contagious, already detected in 17 states and causing global alarm.
– “The tip of the iceberg” –
Brazil, a country of 212 million inhabitants, takes a month and a half of slow vaccination against covid, due to a lack of doses: so far, 7.4 million Brazilians have been vaccinated and only 2.3 million of them with the second dose.
This emergency “is not a surprise: it is due to not having prepared ourselves, because this scenario was foreseen. We knew there was a new variant and there must have been a lockdown,” the vice president of the Brazilian Society of Immunology (SBIM) told AFP. Isabella Ballalai.
The state of Sao Paulo, the richest and most populous state, will return on Saturday, for two weeks, to the “red phase” of restrictions, which allows the operation of health services, food, public transport and schools, but prohibits the opening of centers commercial, restaurants and show rooms.
“Today we are in Sao Paulo and Brazil on the brink of a health collapse,” warned São Paulo Governor Joao Doria on Wednesday, in whose state a patient with covid is admitted every two minutes.
In Brasilia and in the states of Mato Grosso, Pernambuco, Rondonia and Acre, among more than a dozen, activity has already been reduced to essential services or the opening hours of shops have been limited, with possible night curfews.
Even the richest states with more infrastructure such as Paraná and Santa Catarina (south) are on “critical alert” for the occupancy of ICU beds.
However, Fiocruz warned that the current scenario “represents only the tip of the iceberg of a level of intense transmission” of the coronavirus.
– Self-management –
The emergency and the lack of coordination on the part of the federal government pushed mayors and governors to articulate on their own to buy vaccines.
The health secretaries of the states called on Monday to implement a nationwide night curfew and a “lockdown” in the most critical areas.
But that position clashes with that of Bolsonaro, who promotes agglomerations with his followers, questions the use of masks and the effectiveness of vaccines and criticizes the authorities that apply measures of social isolation due to their economic impact.
Now, the country simultaneously faces an aggravation of the pandemic and a new and sharp slowdown in its economy.
The far-right president, with his sights set on the 2022 elections, said last week that governors who decree closures of activities “will have to pay” with their own budgets for economic aid to the poorest population.
“This disagreement between the federal and the state has been one of the great problems, with a lot of politicization of the issue, and without a doubt that made the country one of the worst places to manage the pandemic,” said Ballalai.
© 2021 AFP
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