Copacabana is mourned in tribute to 400,000 deaths from coronavirus in Brazil

The emblematic beach of Copacabana at Rio de Janeiro was dyed this Friday in mourning in tribute to the 400,000 victims in whom the coronavirus has already left Brazil, one of the countries in the world most affected by the pandemic.

The NGO Rio de Paz staged an act in the Copacabana arena to protest the management of President Jair Bolsonaro’s government during the pandemic, which has already claimed more deaths from covid-19 in the first four months of 2021 than overall a year later.

The entity scattered 400 black body bags on the beach, symbolizing the 400,000 coronavirus victims in the country, a sad mark the country passed on Thursday, as the vaccination campaign progresses with delays.

“It is a reproduction of an emblematic scene of the current moment in our history,” Rio de Paz president Antonio Carlos Costa told EFE news agency.

The country recorded its first death from coronavirus on March 12, 2020 and in just over fourteen months it reached 401,186, almost 13% of the world total, while Brazil represents barely 3% of the planet’s population. .

Brazil is the second country with the most deaths linked to covid-19, after the United States, and the third with the most infected, with more than 14.5 million, after the United States and India, now becoming the main global focus of the pandemic.

“These are facts that have not been fabricated by the media and it is humiliating for our democracy. To be silent at this moment means to be complicit in the crimes committed by the Brazilian ruling class,” Costa said.

And he added: “The federal government has made a lot of mistakes since the start of the pandemic, downplayed the lethal power of this virus, failed to present the country with a national plan, and prescribed drugs without the minimum of scientific verification. . “

They ask for more vaccines

As coronavirus deaths continue to pile up in the country, the Brazilian government asked, at a conference hosted by the World Health Organization (WHO), delivery of surplus vaccines to other countries, given the possibility that the wave of contagions could give rise to new variants that are global threats.

“We reiterate our request to (countries) which have additional doses of vaccines to share them with Brazil as soon as possible,” the Minister of Health said on Friday, Marcelo Queiroga, during a virtual press conference.

If it is possible to increase the supply of vaccines, it will be possible “to contain the critical phase of the pandemic and prevent the proliferation of new lines and variants of the virus,” the minister warned.

Several scientists have pointed out that after the emergence of the Amazon variant, or strain P1, it could give rise to other more aggressive types due to the lack of national isolation policies, which Bolsonaro opposes.

The president reiterated his rejection of a quarantine on Thursday evening and said he regretted the increase in deaths. But he made no explicit mention of the threshold of 400,000 dead reached Thursday.

The contribution of the antidotes provided by other countries will allow “to progress in our vast campaign of vaccination”, declared the Minister Queiroga during the conference in the presence of Tedros Adhanom, Director General of the WHO.

“Good news”

Adhanon said Brazil is one of the countries hardest hit by the pandemic, but noted that “coronavirus cases have declined in the past four weeks.” “This is good news and we hope this trend continues,” he said.

However, “the pandemic has taught us that no country can lower its guard,” added the director of the WHO.

Since January 17, when vaccination began in Brazil, 46.3 million vaccines have been administered: nearly 31.2 million people have received at least one dose and 15.1 million have received both doses.

Thursday evening, Minister Queiroga went to Campinas, inside São Paulo, to receive the first batch of vaccines from the American laboratory Pfizer.

A plane landed from the United States with a million doses, as part of the 100 million between the pharmaceutical company and the Brazilian government.

“We have guaranteed doses for the second half of the year and it is possible to guarantee that our population will be fully vaccinated in 2021,” Queiroga promised.

Pfizer is the third vaccine to arrive in Brazil, after Britain’s AstraZeneca and Chinese Coronavac.

But the arrival of supplies from the last two states suffered delays in recent weeks which have forced the government to postpone its vaccination targets.

Source: EFE and ANSA

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