“Brazil is a threat to humanity”, stern warning from renowned epidemiologist

Con los hospitalales desbordados y el record de casi 2 mil muertos diarios por la aparición de la nueva cepa del coronavirus arose en el Amazonas, Brasil atraviesa su peor momento desde el inicio de la pandemia y los expertos advierten que el país “es una amenaza para humanity “.

Since the onset of the health crisis a year ago, Brazil has totaled 268,370 deaths, a toll surpassed only by the United States.

The situation is dramatic: according to a newsletter from the Fiocruz Foundation, 25 of the 27 Brazilian state capitals occupy more than 80% of their places in intensive care units.

“Faced with the extremely critical situation of the occupancy rates of intensive care beds (…), the researchers insist on the need to expand and strengthen the measures of physical distancing, the use of masks and the washing of hands, ”Fiocruz said.

This is advice that is difficult to generalize in a country where the president himself, Jair Bolsonaro, disdains the use of masks and opposes the social isolation measures that some states are trying to apply, due to their economic impact. .

“The fight against covid-19 has been lost in 2020 and there is not the slightest chance of reversing this tragic scenario in the first half of 2021,” said Jesem Orellana, epidemiologist at Fiocruz / Amazonía.

“All we can do is wait for the miracle of mass vaccination or for a radical change in the handling of the pandemic. Today, Brazil is a threat to humanity and an open-air laboratory, where impunity in management seems to be the rule, ”he added.

The collapse mainly affects the southern states, the three that border the provinces of Misiones and Corrientes, Parana, Santa Catarina and Rio Grande do Sul, whose population identified with Bolsonarism has refused to adhere to quarantines en masse but now with traffic blockages, it cannot stop contagions and this increases in hospitalizations.

San Pablo, el estado más afectado del país y el más poblado, con 46 million inhabitants, tiene en 13 municipios del Gran San Pablo todo su sistema colapsado y in general una ocupación de UTI superior al 80% incluso con la cuarentena iniciada el pasado Friday.

“Today we will probably have 2,000 deaths in one day. We need national coordination. If the national government does not assume that Congress is doing it, ”asked the former deputy health minister of Bolsonaro Joao Gabbardo, current coordinator of the Covid-19 committee of the governor of São Paulo, Joao Doria today.

World Health Organization (WHO) Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus last week urged the country to take “aggressive” measures against the pandemic.

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