Brazil, to the limit: Rio de Janeiro reimposes a curfew to “avoid genocide”

RÍO DE JANEIRO.- The mayor of Rio de Janeiro, Eduardo Paes, on Thursday decreed a Partial curfew to avoid “genocide” caused by the coronavirus pandemic, which is uncontrollable in several states, including those in the southern zone, region with high per capita income.

Brazil records just over a thousand deaths a day on average for more than a month, a figure that rose to 1910 this Wednesday and could rise to 3,000 according to a well-known specialist. The reinforcement of the isolation “has for main objective to avoid that the genocide of 2020 in the city of Rio de Janeiro does not repeat itself in 2021”, said the mayor of Rio de Janeiro Paes.

”In the units [de Salud] We have started to have more people showing symptoms of Covid (…), this is the data that most influenced us to make this decision, ”said the head of the municipal government. In this way, Rio de Janeiro adds to the intensification of the isolation that already prevails in São Paulo, Brasilia, Fortaleza and other capitals.

The official town hall newspaper announced on Thursday that the measures will take effect from Friday and will continue until March 11. You will not be able to stay on the street from 11 p.m. to 5 a.m., bars and restaurants are authorized to operate from 6 a.m. to 5 p.m., and the activity of street vendors on the beaches is prohibited, as well as shows with the public and the operation of discotheques.

With this isolation plan, Paes intends to avoid saturating the healthcare capacity of the public hospital network, of which intensive care rooms are 88% occupied.

According to a report from CNN Brasil, a dozen capitals are on the verge of “collapse” of their health systems. The country’s most humble northern and northeastern regions have been showing critical images for months, But since last month, the situation has worsened in the southern region, a region where some states have some of the highest per capita incomes. In Rio Grande do Sul, the largest in southern Brazil, the situation is out of control. The capital of this important province, Porto Alegre, has 100% of intensive therapy rooms occupied in both public and private networks, according to CNN.

Moinos de Vento Hospital, one of the most important in the Porto Alegre private network, installed a refrigerated container this week to drop off the bodies of coronavirus victims due to the saturation of their mortuary. In the state of Santa Catarina, also in the south and where one of the country’s tourist capitals, Florianópolis is located, they have started to transfer people infected with Covid-19 to other provinces due to the lack of rooms and of staff to care for critically ill patients.

Miguel Nicolelis, a doctor at the University of São Paulo, one of the country’s most respected coronavirus specialists, said that “We may be facing the greatest humanitarian catastrophe of the 21st century”Brazil recorded a moving average of 1,332 deaths on Wednesday, indicating the average number of deaths in recent days. The country has experienced 42 consecutive days in which the moving average of deaths is over a thousand cases. As of Wednesday, Brazil had a total of 259,402 deaths, ranking second in the world behind the United States. “The possibility of exceeding the line of 3,000 deaths per day is something real, we are talking about 180,000 to 270,000 people killed in the next three months”Nicolelis raised.

THE NATION

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