Covid-19: collapse in Brazil | Profile

“Only the lockdown will prevent the national collapse of health and funerals,” the newspaper’s website read this morning. Or balloon. “It must be adopted throughout Brazil, to stop the contagion,” warned scientist Miguel Nicolelis, professor at Duke University (United States) who led the Northeast Committee against Covid-19. Today, it has been precisely a year since the first case in the country was confirmed, which occurred in the capital of São Paulo.

For the first time, the Minister of General Health Eduardo Pazuello had to admit that the tragedy is happening: “We are faced with a new stage of the pandemic: today, the mutated virus triples the contamination and the rate of contagion ”. After a truce between August and November 2020, the coronavirus became much more aggressive at the start of the year. The lack of care has contributed to this bellicose: end-of-year crowds and then carnival crowds led to an increase in the number of cases and deaths. In January, the covid exploded and gave rise to the dreaded Second Wave.

The coronavirus has become much more aggressive. Year-end crowds contributed, then carnival crowds led to increased cases and deaths

With a total of deaths exceeding 251 thousand, Brazil has become the second country in number of deaths behind the United States. The total number of confirmed cases has already exceeded 10.3 million. There is a specific cause of the disease: “The (Manaus) variant has a transmission capacity between 30 and 50% faster,” warned the director of Butantan, which produces the Sinovac vaccine, Dimas Covas.

The critical situation has spread in all directions: Today, the majority of Brazilian states are suffering from the imminent collapse of intensive care units. And the escalation of contagion with the new strain has not only triggered pressure on public establishments. It has also had an impact on elite large-scale sanatoriums: a few examples are the famous Albert Einstein and Sirio-Lebanese hospitals in São Paulo, both with 99% occupancy of intensive care beds.

Curfew

One after another, state governments have decreed the night curfew. Some, in the northeast of the country, have limited the broadcast from 8:00 p.m. and extended it until 5:00 a.m. But the same policy was adopted today by Paraná, on the border with Argentinaat. In San Pablo, the night time limitation is from 11:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. The truth is that the country yesterday saw a record number of deaths in a single day: 1,582. Fear overwhelms the people of São Paulo: “This number of deaths is equivalent to eight air accidents like the one suffered by the TAM flight in July 2007”, calculated the frightened columnist Newspaper Leonardo Sakamoto. This tragic event, of global resonance, occurred when the plane landed at a gas station, in front of the Congonhas airport (in the center of the capital São Paulo).

Fear overwhelms the people of São Paulo

Another measure is underway to reduce hospital admissions. It is the suspension of face-to-face lessons and in some cases, postponement of departure. From one end of Brazilian territory to the other, the northeastern states and Rio Grande do Sul are retreating into these draconian actions.

Blame the crowds

Specialists do not doubt: The extraordinary growth of the pandemic is associated with the influx of the population during the end of the year and carnival celebrations. Professor Nicolelis strongly cautioned: “People need to wake up to understand the dimensions of our tragedy.” Butantan director Covas predicts that the country is heading towards the situation experienced in Manaus a month ago. “This is not an isolated example. It is surely linked to a new form of behavior of the virus. Even though vaccination is very important, we must now control the spread of the virus and prevent new variants from circulating, so that they do not become dominant ”.

The pandemic goes to Ferrari, vaccination in float

Former Brazilian Health Minister Henrique Mandetta, who had to resign due to deep disagreements with President Jair Bolsonaro, describes the risks: “The speed of the epidemic is greater than the speed of the vaccination process. The most transmissible variant is in a Ferrari, while the vaccination campaign is in a tank, ”he said in an interview with the newspaper Estado de Sao Paulo. “Brazil is a ship without a goal. It doesn’t do what it needs to: put people within the health ministry who understand the topic, who can lead and generate policy to deal with covid.

However, President Bolsonaro does not take it for granted. Yesterday, in his usual appearance on Thursday, he said without presenting any evidence: “People, studies are starting to emerge, which I will not go into detail on, on the use of masks (face masks). A German university claims they are harmful to children, causing irritability, headaches and difficulty concentrating, which decrease the perception of happiness and compromise the ability to learn. These are the side effects ”.

* Author from Brazil 7 days. From São Paulo, Brazil.