(CNN) — A second wave of covid-19 is sweeping Brazil, pushing hospitals and intensive care units (ICUs) to collapse and adding record numbers of daily deaths.
While a new variant of the coronavirus is spreading across the country, many Brazilians continue to challenge the mobility restrictions of mask-wearing mandates, following the example of President Jair Bolsonaro, who recently said that people have to “stop being sissy * s “and” whining “from the virus.
The consequences of that combination are deadly, experts say. “We are going through the worst scenario since the beginning of the pandemic. You just have to look at the trends in the average number of deaths, ”Gonzalo Vecina Neto, professor of Public Health at the University of Sao Paulo, told Reuters recently. “This could have been avoided and the most important factor is the meetings.”
Brazil has broken its own record three times this month for the number of deaths in a 24-hour period. On Wednesday, Brazil’s Ministry of Health recorded a devastating new record: 2,286 lives lost from the virus. In total, more than 270,000 people are known to have died from COVID-19, making Brazil the second-deadliest country after the United States.
A health worker arrives by ambulance with a patient in Brasilia on March 8.
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In 22 of the 26 states of Brazil, ICU occupancy has exceeded 80%. In the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul, hospital patients have to queue to wait for beds, as occupancy rates in intensive care units exceed 103%. The neighboring state of Santa Catarina has already surpassed 99% occupancy and is on the brink of collapse, as cases rise across the state.
A hospital in the capital of Santa Catarina, Florianópolis, is already over capacity. David Molina, the hospital’s chief nurse, told CNN that his team is exhausted and overwhelmed.
“I was here during the first wave and it wasn’t like that. We are completely overwhelmed, with our occupancy rate over 100%. Many of those patients who are waiting for an ICU do not survive, “Molina said during a telephone interview with CNN.
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Health workers blame the meetings
Molina and other healthcare workers blame the recent spike in COVID-19 cases on the large parties and gatherings that began around New Year’s Eve and continued through the pre-Lenten carnival and into today. Many of these were carried out in defiance of local restrictions.
Last week, Rio de Janeiro Mayor Eduardo Paes announced a new curfew for bars and restaurants throughout the city, limiting opening hours from 6:00 am to 5:00 pm. But hundreds of people were left out anyway: 230 curfew-related fines and closures were issued from Friday to Saturday alone, according to the city government. At a bar, more than 200 attendees, mostly without masks, were found at a party that had lasted seven hours, CNN affiliate CNN Brasil reported.
Many municipal and state health officials and lawmakers blame the Bolsonaro government for undermining their efforts to curb the spread of the coronavirus. And the country’s National Council of Health Secretaries (CONASS) has called on the federal government to adopt stricter measures to support hospitals and enforce social distancing.
A medical worker in the ICU of the Ronald Gazolla public hospital in Rio de Janeiro, on March 5.
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“The health system in Brazil is on the brink of collapse,” Sao Paulo Governor Joao Doria told CNN’s Becky Anderson during a recent interview. “There is no national coordination to combat the pandemic in Brazil. It would be important for the president and the governors to send the same message to the population, but this, unfortunately, does not happen in Brazil.
The issue of social distancing measures and lockdowns has become political football in Brazil. While Doria ordered the closure of non-essential businesses for two weeks in his state last weekend, Bolsonaro claims such restrictions are sinking Brazil’s economy and leading to increased suicides and depression. A source of pride, congratulating farm workers at an event last week for not staying home “like cowards.”
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“We have to face our problems. Stop being sissies, enough of whining, how long are you going to keep crying? We have to face the problems, respecting the elderly, those who suffer from diseases, chronic conditions. But where is Brazil going to end up if we all stop? “Said Bolsonaro.
This week, Bolsonaro declared that he had the “power” to declare a national shutdown, but he would never do so. ” “My army is not going to force people to stay at home,” he said.
Fears for the new variant
With Brazilian hospitals overloaded and government officials divided over lockdown measures, the country has few defenses against a variant of the coronavirus that may be even more contagious.
A preprint of a new modeling study conducted by researchers in Brazil and the United Kingdom suggests that the variant first detected in the northern city of Manaus late last year, known as P.1, may be up to 2.2 times. more transmissible.
The study, which has not yet been peer-reviewed or published in a medical journal, suggests that even people who have already had the coronavirus could be vulnerable. The same study showed that the P.1 variant could evade immunity from a previous COVID-19 infection by up to 61%.
That variant is now prevalent in COVID-19 patients in at least six Brazilian states, according to a study published earlier this month by the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz), a research institution of the Brazilian Ministry of Health. P.1 has also been detected in the United States, the United Kingdom, and neighboring Venezuela.
“The emergence of new variants, combining both the potential to be more transmissible and the absence of comprehensive and articulated mitigation and suppression measures, are very concerning,” the study authors wrote, urging Brazil to encourage behaviors that limit spread. viral.
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«The data showing the prevalence of this variant in several states and its wide dissemination throughout the country, as well as the challenges it presents due to its high level of transmission, reinforce the immediate need to adopt non-pharmaceutical measures to reduce the speed of its transmission. spread and increases in cases’.
Felipe Naveca, a virologist and researcher at Fiocruz Amazonia and one of the main authors of the study, told CNN that the covid-19 virus and the different variants and strains are likely to get stronger if they are not stopped.
“This is what viruses do: they evolve, they get stronger. The only way to stop them is to contain their spread, so we need restrictive measures, there is no other solution. Even if the government decrees a national closure, we need the population to adhere. The action of each one of us will impact us all together, ”said Naveca.
Vaccination
Hope could be on the way, in the form of vaccines. But the deployment of vaccination in Brazil was slow compared to other countries, including others in the region, such as Chile and Mexico.
In January, health regulator Anvisa authorized the emergency use of vaccines by Sinovac and Oxford / AstraZeneca. Since then, approximately 4% of the 211 million citizens of Brazil have received at least one dose of the vaccine, according to data from the Brazilian Ministry of Health, and 2.3 million have received two doses.
According to the Ministry of Health, Brazil is in negotiations to also buy the Pfizer, Moderna, Janssen, Sputinik and Covaxin vaccines, although only the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine among them has received authorization from Anvisa.
Bolsonaro had long promoted the Oxford / AstraZeneca vaccine as the only one he would endorse, dismissing and discrediting many of the other vaccines on the market, including Pfizer’s. Brazil’s Health Minister Eduardo Pazuello even rejected an August offer from Pfizer to buy up to 70 million doses of its vaccine.
“Pfizer says this very clearly in the contract, ‘we are not responsible for any collateral side effects’… if you become an alligator, it is your problem,” Bolsonaro said in December. “If you become Superman, or grow a beard as a woman, or a man’s voice becomes high-pitched, they say they have nothing to do with it.”
But a study of New England Journal of Medicine now suggests that the Pfizer / BionTech vaccine could “efficiently” neutralize the P.1 variant. The news came when Bolsonaro held a virtual meeting Monday with Pfizer Global CEO Albert Bourla and other executives to negotiate the purchase of 100 million vaccines.
“I thank you for this meeting and we recognize Pfizer as a great global company,” Bolsonaro said, during an excerpt from the meeting posted on his official Twitter account. “We would like to close these agreements with you, given the aggressiveness of this virus in Brazil.”
For now, Brazil’s failure to contain the virus is increasingly a warning to the world. Dr. Michael Ryan, executive director of the World Health Organization’s Health Emergencies Program, said in a briefing last week that he was concerned that the increase in cases in the country could be replicated elsewhere.
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“History in Brazil can repeat itself and will repeat itself in other places if we stop implementing the measures that we need to implement,” he said. “Countries are going to shake up with a third and fourth wave if we’re not careful.”
For Molina, the exhausted Santa Catarina nurse, Brazil’s future looks bleaker than ever.
“Unfortunately, I don’t think we have learned our lesson,” Molina said. “We [los trabajadores de la salud] we are tired, weary and we get sick. We feel powerless. We need more coordinated action if we want to prevent this from happening again. ‘
Marcia Reverdosa reported from Sao Paulo and Flora Charner from Atlanta.
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