Home » World » Corona virus worldwide – +++ Lufthansa loses 1 million euros an hour +++ New York has the most cases worldwide

Corona virus worldwide – +++ Lufthansa loses 1 million euros an hour +++ New York has the most cases worldwide

For the first time, residents of the favelas of Rio de Janeiro have died in connection with the coronavirus. It concerns two people from the Rocinha, as the mayor of the city, Marcelo Crivella, said in an interview on Wednesday.

The Rocinha in the southern zone of Rio is officially one of the largest poor areas in Rio and Brazil with a population of 70,000. In Rio’s total of 763 favelas with two million residents in small, often unplastered houses, particular concern had been given to the outbreak and spread of the Corona crisis. The city’s slums can accelerate disease transmission. “Anyone who lives in a favela has no water to wash their hands,” said Gabriela Anastácia of the Observatório das Favelas of the German Press Agency. “If you live in a favela, you cannot distance yourself socially because you live with five, six, nine people.”

Drug gangs prohibit access

According to a study published on Wednesday, 60 percent of people in poor neighborhoods also have no financial means of making ends meet without going to work or receiving support.

Many poor neighborhoods are controlled by criminal organizations, which are mainly financed by drug trafficking and are heavily armed. While Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro called the coronavirus “gripezinha”, drug gangs and militias forbade foreigners from accessing and imposing curfews on the residents of some favelas for fear of infection and spread, as initially reported by local media. According to non-governmental organizations, this has meanwhile brought the police back on the scene.

The first deaths from the corona virus occurred in the Rocinha favela. (Keystone / April 6, 2020)

Leave a Comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.