COVID-19 patient escaped hospital for fear of being intubated: he was caught in a supermarket

A 46-year-old man diagnosed with coronavirus escaped from hospital on Thursday to fear of being intubated and he tried to hide in a supermarket in the Brazilian municipality of Cantaduva, in the state of São Paulo.

The man was detained shortly after by police in the store, located opposite the hospital. The man was then taken by ambulance to the medical center.

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“We were unable to find out how a patient about to be intubated managed to leave the hospital and enter the supermarket. But we know that I was quite scared of the procedure ”Said Commissioner Amauri Cesár Pelarin.

Rumors emerged on social media that the man was spitting and infecting produce on supermarket shelves, but the police delegate denied: “This is totally false. The man he was scared and tried to hide in the supermarket, but did not attack anyone. It is true that he resisted returning to the hospital ”. “I was desperate,” Pelarin added in dialogue with the site. G1.

According to some local media, the patient left through his bedroom window and then jumped the bars of the hospital. For its part, the supermarket reported that all the health measures recommended by the authorities have been adopted and that “all products and all facilities have been disinfected as a precaution”.

Brazil, facing the collapse of its health system

Brazil is going through “the biggest health and hospital collapse in its history,” according to the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation last week. This Friday a record of 3,650 coronavirus deaths in 24 hours and the pandemic has already left more than 307,000 dead in the neighboring country.

The seven-day average of deaths is currently 2,400, more than triple that at the beginning of january (703). The balance sheet also showed on Friday that 84,245 people were infected of coronavirus in the past 24 hours, adding a total of 12.4 million since the first case recorded in February 2020. As of Thursday, the number of first-time infected surpassed 100,000 in one day.

With 212 million inhabitants, Brazil is the second country with the highest number of deaths and infections from covid-19, surpassed only by the United States.

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The second wave of the pandemic appears to have no brakes, fueled by a variant that emerged in Manaus and considered to be a lot more contagious than the original strain. Vaccination, meanwhile, is progressing slowly: 12.64 million Brazilians have received the first dose to date, only 5.9% of the population.

To mitigate the contagion, several states, including Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, have decreed a ten day vacation from this Friday April 26 to April 4, to reduce travel. Automakers such as Nissan, Toyota and Renault have announced a 10- to 15-day shutdown at some of their factories to prevent the virus from spreading among their workers, as have Volkswagen and Mercedes-Benz.

The government is trying to speed up vaccination, with the aim of vaccinating at least one million people per day, as announced by Marcelo Queiroga, the new and fourth Minister of Health in the Bolsonaro government.

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This Friday, the governor of Sao Paulo, Joao Doria, announced that the prestigious Butantan Institute (which already manufactures the Chinese CoronaVac by agreement) is developing the first vaccine local, call Butanvac, with the hope of producing 40 million doses since May and starting to apply it in July.

But he must first obtain authorization from the health regulator to begin his clinical trials in April. A project developed by the Faculty of Medicine of Ribeirao Preto is also awaiting the green light for the tests: it is Versamune®-CoV-2FC.